Victoria Palmer led the grant proposal for the Special Initiative in Mental Health and a Co-Directors of the ALIVE National Centre. She is internationally recognised for advancing primary care mental health research and for her use of participatory design, experience-based co-design for health systems improvement, and translational science.

Victoria leads a program of research in Primary Care Mental Health where models of lived-experience inform end to end research design to translation through a Co-Design Living Labs model. Victoria is responsible for oversight of Centre activities, research programs and networks, and strategic development of the Centre. She leads the Co-Design Living Labs Network nationally to deliver co-design capabilities and foster community-led co-design.

Michelle Banfield is a prominent international lived-experience leader in mental health services research and a Co-Director of the ALIVE National Centre. She is also the lead of the Lived-Experience research program and the ALIVE National Centre’s Lived-Experience Research Collective. Michelle has an outstanding reputation as a lived-experience leader within the mental health sector and is the lead of the Lived-Experience Research Program, ensuring lived-experience is embedded within the fabric of the National Centre.

Noongar woman Sandra Eades is a leading researcher in the health of children, young people and people at-risk of dementia in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, and a Co-Director of the ALIVE National Centre. She is the lead of the Longer, Healthier Lives in Priority Populations research program and is the partnering lead for working with Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations, and Aboriginal Medical Services and related organisations.

Sandra provides oversight for developing appropriate cultural protocols for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander partners. She ensures that mental health stakeholder organisations for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities are engaged in the co-design of the Centre’s national roadmap for translation, and that we build cultural security in the fabric of the Centre.

Amanda Neil is one of only a few Australian health economists with a track record specifically in mental health research. She has long-standing expertise in cost-effectiveness analysis, including costs-of-illness studies and assessment of the costs of hospitalisations for mental and physical health by child protection status, work that has collectively informed guideline and policy development. Amanda’s interests are in the identification of targets and patterns of resilience and vulnerability used to inform life-course modelling approaches and to evaluate the preventive interventions delivered.

Amanda Wheeler has worked as a practitioner, educator and researcher in mental health and pharmacy practice for over 25 years and established and directed a highly successful research centre in a public health service in New Zealand. Amanda brings practical knowledge of health services and the interplay of medication with physical health. which informs research contributions in the ALIVE Centre’s Stream B Priority Populations work focused on meeting unmet physical health needs for people experiencing ongoing distress and mental ill-health in primary care and community settings.

David Preen’s research contributions are in areas of population health and health services including: social determinants of health, health of marginalised populations; cancer services delivery; pharmaco- epidemiology; health service utilisation; chronic disease management; and methodological advances using data linkage. David’s knowledge of individual participant data meta-analysis (using raw individual level data for synthesis) is also applied to relevant randomised controlled trial data within the Centre.

Steve Kisely is a psychiatrist, public health and addiction physician who is an expert in research on physical and psychiatric co-morbidity, epidemiology, chronic disease surveillance and health services research. His research contributions in the analysis of administrative datasets support how the Centre can address interpersonal, social and system stigma, structural discrimination, and feelings of discomfort in service settings.

Nicola Reavley’s research focuses on population mental health, mental health literacy and stigma – both in terms of measurement and monitoring as well as interventions to improve these. She is the President of the Alliance for the Prevention of Mental Disorders (apmd.org), a collective of researchers and other stakeholders who support a population health approach for the prevention of mental disorders and promotion of emotional wellbeing. This alliance aims to advocate to policymakers, facilitate research and encourage new researchers, facilitate knowledge translation, and build partnerships.

Scientia Professor Jill Bennett is an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow at UNSW, where she directs fEEL (feltExperience & Empathy Lab) and the Big Anxiety Research Centre (BARC). She is founding Director of The Big Anxiety Festival and leads public engagement and creative communications for The ALIVE National Centre. Her most recent book is The Big Anxiety: Taking Care of Mental Health in Times of Crisis, Bloomsbury, 2022.Big Anxiety Research Centre (BARC):https://www.unsw.edu.au/arts-design-architecture/our-research/research-centres-institutes/big-anxiety-research-centre

Jane Gunn has traversed the research-practice gap as a General Practitioner and researcher, playing key leadership roles on research committees and leading research to transform mental health care in the primary care setting. Jane plays a central role in strategic direction of the Centre. Her research contributions include the development and implementation of digital person-centred decision support tools for prognosis matched mental health care in the general practice and community settings.

Jane Pirkis’ research in suicide prevention, stigma and mental health research has generated debates on where the best investments might lie in mental health and suicide prevention. She brings a long history of research in suicide prevention and media campaigns to inform the National Centre’s translational and Prevention Across the Life Course research program objectives.

Harriet is a lead investigator for the National Health and Medical Research Council Centre for Research Excellence (CRE) in Childhood Adversity and Associated Depression and Anxiety. This CRE is completing an expert consensus review and consultation to identify interventions that mitigate the effects of family adversity on children’s mental health. Following co-design processes with clinicians and families with lived experience, the CRE will be implementing these within an integrated health hub that brings together social care clinicians and legal services to address social factors contributing to poor mental health in children.

Darryl is the Director of Research and Professor of Rural Mental Health in the School of Rural Health and has worked for 15 years as a mental health clinician and psychologist in the areas of drug and alcohol counselling, prison psychology and employee assistance. Darryl’s research contributions are in rural mental health and resilience, and the needs of carers and family members where a parent lives with mental ill-health. Darryl is interested in the translation of models of care that address intergenerational and life course issues to encourage a recovery and stigma focus.

Nicola is one of the leading dementia and psychiatry of aging researchers in Australia. She has extensive experience and international standing in the use of non-pharmacological and activity-based models of management. Nicola developed physical activity guidelines for improving cognitive function in older people, and adapted these for implementation within an aged psychiatry service during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Osvaldo has spent his career conducting research on the identification and management of changeable areas of risk known to impact on people’s mental health. He established one of the largest cohort studies of older men in the world – the Health In Men Study (HIMS) and has led research on prognosis based clinical support tools (intervening earlier to disrupt a poorer health trajectory).

Lena is an academic general practitioner with a commitment to improving primary care access and outcomes for younger people. Lena’s research develops targeted and culturally appropriate youth mental health care for a service navigation model to inform primary care.Over the past 20 years Lena has worked to improve the health of young people through quality youth focussed system-based interventions designed to re-orient primary care toward prevention of harm from mental health disorders and risk-taking behaviour.

Emma is a Professor of Housing Research at the University of Adelaide where she leads the Housing and Healthy Cities Research Group and is Director of the Stretton Institute’s ‘Building a City for the Future’ research program. Her work takes an innovative and expansive approach to understanding the way that housing, social support and housing instability interact with health and mental health and incorporates innovation and large-scale data capture.

Sarah is an academic general practitioner whose work focuses on strengthening health equity through design, implementation, and evaluation of health service interventions. Her work responds to local and regional priorities and has demonstrable impact. Sarah works collaboratively with service, peak body, government and industry partnerships, across northern Australia, and globally. Sarah is the Director of the Anton Breinl Research Centre for Health Systems Strengthening within the Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine.

Yuat Nyoongar man Michael Wright is from the area known as the Victoria Plains which includes the townships of Moora and New Norcia north of Perth in Western Australia. His research career focuses on translation to improve the health and wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, their families, and communities. Michael’s contributions to research include the Our Journey Our Story project working with Aboriginal Elders, Aboriginal Young people, headspace centres and their lead agencies across Western Australia to co-design more culturally secure mental health services.

Vera is a psychiatric epidemiologist and the National Project Director and Convenor of the Technical Advisory Group for the Australian Government 2nd National psychosis survey (Survey of High Impact Psychosis—SHIP). Her cross-disciplinary epidemiological approach to the study of psychotic illness melds psychiatric, genetic, physical health, sociological and criminological perspectives on aetiology and course to help unravel the complex nature of disorders and improve physical and mental health outcomes for affected people.

Cherrie led the section on Innovations in Integrating Physical and Mental Health Care in the (2019) Lancet Commission Blueprint to address physical and mental health, and the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatry Clinical Practise Guidelines for Schizophrenia and Related Disorders. She is the Regional Director of Postgraduate Psychiatry Training and provides expertise in translating research findings to medical student and postgraduate psychiatry trainees.

Lisa has had a long career in mental health and social work, and has extensive experience working collaboratively with people with lived-experience of ongoing distress and mental ill-health. Lisa is currently a member of the Victorian Mental Health Tribunal. She was the Principal Research Fellow for MIND Australia one of the largest non-government providers of mental health services.

Kelsey is ranked the number one researcher in Australia for family violence. She has advanced research in the international domestic violence policy/practice and the intersections of violence and mental health. Kelsey’s role as Chief Investigator of the National Health and Medical Research Council funded Safer Families Centre for Research Excellence supports cross-translation efforts. She is a Research Translator (Family Violence) and Co-Lead of the Co-Design of the National Mental Health Research Translation Roadmap.

Meredith is a researcher in the field of mental health services research and evaluation. She leads a range of projects designed to improve the measurement of patient and service level outcomes in Australia’s specialised public sector mental health services. Meredith has conducted empirical mental health planning studies that have informed service planning targets for public sector mental health services and community support services that were taken up directly in the subsequent Queensland Mental Health Plan 2007-17 and which informed the Queensland Department of Communities’ Supporting Recovery: Mental Health Community Services Plan 2011-2017.

Wendy is the Associate Dean of Digital Health and Informatics at the University of Melbourne, as well as the Director of the new Centre for Digital Transformation of Health. Her interests include biomedical informatics, natural language processing, knowledge representation, and application of informatics to clinical care and research.

Carol is a practicing psychiatrist and brings expertise in epidemiological and mental health services research with a psychosocial and translational research focus. Carol developed a family inclusive practice model for young people and their families attending four headspace centres which led to widespread model implementation in other centres (since 2015). She has had a long-standing interest in the role of carers in supporting people with mental health conditions.

Jenny has experience within academia and health service management and links her research with real world service delivery and care provision. Her work primarily focuses on health care practice change to increase preventive care to overlooked populations. Since 2010, Jenny has led the Physical Health in Mental Health research team that addresses chronic disease preventive care for smoking, nutrition, alcohol use, and physical activity chronic disease risk factors for people living with mental ill-health.

Michelle Lim is a senior researcher at Swinburne University and also the chair and scientific chair at Ending Loneliness Together (https://endingloneliness.com.au) Michelle founded Ending Loneliness Together in 2016 and co-founded the Global Initiative on Loneliness and Connection in 2021 (https://www.gilc.global). Her work focuses on the development and evaluation of evidence-based solutions that can address loneliness in young people with first episode psychosis, social anxiety disorder, as well as nonclinical populations across the lifespan.

Cameron’s research spans poverty, homelessness and the intersection of these issues with mental health. Cameron’s participation as a chief investigator in the Centre includes taking part in research activities such as delivering seminars and workshops and, consideration of research findings.

David is an academic psychiatrist and world leader in neurodevelopmental disorders and their treatment. His work is an interdisciplinary blend of basic science, and clinical and translational research that focuses on the pathophysiology of ADHD, conduct disorder and depression. David is the Chair of Developmental Mental Health at the University of Melbourne and is also Deputy Head of the Department of Paediatrics, and a part of the neurodevelopmental disorders team at The Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne.

Bridget is a registered mental health nurse with 30 years of experience working as a mental health clinician, manager, educator and researcher in public sector services. She is the Director of the Centre for Mental Health Nursing at the University of Melbourne and leads a team of clinical nurse academics and consumer academics to build the skills of mental health nurses in Victoria for the benefit of people receiving mental health care. Working with consumer academics, Bridget will work to implement meaningful changes to the care system to improve the safety of people with lived-experience.

Luke is a proud member of the Yorta Yorta and Dja Dja Wurrung Victorian Aboriginal communities with familial links to Mooroopnaa. He is an adult congenital cardiologist based at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester USA with expert knowledge of the impact of cardiovascular health on mental health. Luke is also a clinical researcher at the University of Melbourne. He developed a mobile app with the Royal Melbourne Hospital to support frontline staff treating patients with COVID-19 and improve the mental health and wellbeing support options available (RMHive App).

Meaghan is a clinical psychologist and world leader in post-traumatic mental health. Her research contributions include interventions after trauma exposure, phenomenology of traumatic stress responses, and barriers to recovery.

A/Professor Patty Chondros is a biostatistician specialising in primary care and health services research. She is the lead biostatistician within the Primary Care Trials Unit based at the Department of General Practice, University of Melbourne. In her role she provides statistical leadership and expertise to support the department’s research programs, including grants and publications, and to advance the methodological and statistical skills and capacity of researchers and research higher degree students. Her research interests include the design and analysis of randomised controlled trials, particularly cluster randomised and stepped wedge designs.

Prof Boyle is the Director of the Research Information Technology Unit at The University of Melbourne. Since 2006 Dr Boyle has been researching, developing and implementing systems for the ethical acquisition of record-linkable data for audit, research and health surveillance. Consent management, security and privacy-protecting record linkage are key components and research areas. The software systems (GRHANITETM) are now responsible for the largest collections of record-linkable primary care data ever accumulated in Australia.

Alison Yung is a NHMRC Principal Research Fellow and Professor, Institute for Mental and Physical Health and Clinical Translation (IMPACT), Deakin University. In 1994 in Melbourne, Australia, she established the first clinic for individuals identified as being at imminent high risk of psychotic disorder (“Ultra High Risk” – UHR) in the world. These services aim to prevent or delay the onset of psychosis or minimise its impact. The instrument that she developed to assess UHR status, the Comprehensive Assessment of At Risk Mental States (CAARMS), has been translated into 18 languages. Alison Yung’s research has resulted in reform in the delivery of mental health services for young people thought to be at high risk of schizophrenia.

Dr Chris Groot is a Senior Lecturer in the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences at the University of Melbourne. His work spans research, teaching, and public engagement programs that focus on stigma about severe and complex experiences of mental ill-health. Chris leads the Mental Ill-Health Stigma and Telehealth Lab, which drives a program of work that addresses personal and perceived (public) stigma, the lived experience of stigma for those with mental ill-health, stigma intervention methods, clinical telehealth training, and telehealth service design, evaluation and development. Chris strives to ensure that both rigorous psychological science and the perspectives of people with lived and living experiences of mental ill-health are well represented throughout these streams of work.

Most recently Glenn was the Centre Manager/Chief Operating Officer of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Integrative Brain Function, supporting a large multi-disciplinary research program administered from Monash University. Glenn’s background includes roles in academic research, in for-profit technology companies, and in not-for-profit healthcare. Glenn has a PhD in pharmacology from Monash University and after taking a postdoc position at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he lived in the US for almost nine years.

Dana completed her PhD in neuroscience at The University of Melbourne and the Royal Melbourne Hospital in 2018. Throughout the last 3 years she has completed two postdocs at La Trobe University in both the Department of Physiotherapy and also in the Neurorehabilitation and Recovery group in the Department of Occupational therapy.

Caroline is a Visual Communicator. She works as part of The ALIVE National Centre HUB team in charge of managing the communication output and translation within the research activities. Caroline researched on developing a technology-based speech learning app using a co-design method with parents of young children as part of her PhD. Her expertise includes co-design, research translation, branding, communication design, and designing for children, and she lectures in the areas of design portfolio and participatory design. Caroline has over 10 years of extensive experience in communication design having completed a PhD in Design and Master of Design (Communication) at Swinburne University.

Caroline is a lived experience researcher and advocate for mental health. Caroline’s research spans the examination of the effect of physical activity on both the physical and mental health of people living with mental illness, as well as exploring the co-design of the implementation and evaluation of novel healthcare models across rural and regional Australia. She has a background in exercise physiology and has a strong understanding of the physical health comorbidity disparities faced by those with mental illness. Caroline has experience in mental health policy and advocacy, advocating for people with mental illness to have better access to physical health care professionals as well as experience in the community mental health sector.

Cath is Co-lead of the Primary Care Mental Health Program and Senior Research Fellow within the Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne. Cath is the lead researcher on the WiserAD trial [A randomised trial of a Structured Online intervention to Promote and Support Antidepressant De-prescribing in primary care] and an investigator on several other primary care based mental health applied research studies.

She is also Senior Research Fellow within the Implementation and Tranlsation Network of the ALIVE National Centre for Research Translation and a Senior Research Fellow for the Translating Research into Primary Health Initiative (TROPHI) Victorian Collaboration, supported by the Windermere Foundation. Cath is currently leading the University of Melbourne team to integrate Professor Gunn’s Link-Me Model of Care into the Department of Health and Aged Care’s Head to Health Mental Health Website. She is the University of Melbourne representative on the steering committee of the national MAGNET Mental health network.

Claudia is a health services researcher specialising in the development and psychometric evaluation of patient-reported experience measures (PREMs) and patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs). She completed her PhD in 2022 on the topic of Patient Experiences in the Emergency Department: A multi-methods study where she developed and psychometrically evaluated a new Emergency Department Patient-Reported Experience Measure (ED PREM). She also has several years’ experience analysing large population-based linked administrative datasets with the aim of better understanding value-based healthcare and equity measurement.

Dr Jennifer Bibb is the lead research fellow within the Co-Design Living Labs Network. Jen is an early career researcher with interdisciplinary research spanning across co-design, participatory design, creative arts therapies and qualitative methods. She has 22 publications (18 first author and 4 last author) and a Field Weighted Citation Index (FWCI) of 1.97 for arts and humanities (cited 2 times more than the average in the field). She has also published three chapters in scientific books on music therapy and mental health. Jen is also a Registered Music Therapist with expertise working in Victorian mental healthcare services for over 10 years before moving into full-time research in 2021.

During her time as a mental health clinician, she established new music therapy programs in three of the biggest mental health services in Victoria and her advocacy work has been instrumental to the growth of the music therapy profession in Australia. Jen is the current Editor-in-Chief of the Australian Journal of Music Therapy which is the only Australian academic journal in the field of music therapy. Jen specialises in co-design and participatory approaches to research, using creative arts methods to convene co-design and collaborate with co-design living labs members to transform Australian mental health research, services and systems. Jen’s specific research interests are co-design and creative arts, eating disorders and the role of music in supporting mental health.

Josh is interested in elevating lived experience-informed, non-medical alternatives for people before, during, & after crisis & distress, and he uses his lived expertise in suicide realities & surviving the ‘mental health’ system with applied complexity & co-design methods for ‘mental health’ systems change. In 2018, as a community service user & volunteer facilitator in the Onkaparinga Youth Enterprise Hub (OYEH), Josh assisted the City of Onkaparinga Council in winning a national economic development award in community collaboration. In 2019, he became an Insights Lead for a Community Responders Project with The Australian Centre for Social Innovation, and most recently have been assisting TACSI as a Lived Experience and Co-design Associate through co-delivering an educational program, ‘Co-design: Doing it in the Real World with Authenticity” which was developed by DDHS Victoria and co-created with TACSI, and lived experience academic, Indigo Daya.

Most of Justin’s research has been in implementation and evaluation of lifestyle programs for people with mental health issues in partnership with PCYC Queensland.  However, more broadly his focus is on improving how health services and community organisations address the health and wellbeing of people with mental health issues. Justin ahs recently started as a Research Fellow at Griffith University’s Centre for Mental Health with ALIVE’s Mental Health Care at Scale program.  He also works as a research officer with QLD Health Metro South Addictions and Mental Health Service and QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute.

Dr Lakshmi Neelakantan is a Research Fellow at the ALIVE National Centre for Mental Health Research Translation and Centre for Mental Health, School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne. Her research focuses on the evaluation, implementation, and sustainability of mental health interventions for young people; prevention of child abuse and neglect; and effective ways of translating research evidence into policy and practice. She uses a range of methods to answer her research questions of interest, including evidence reviews, psychometric development and testing of measures, implementation science, quantitative analysis of large-scale survey data, monitoring and evaluation of interventions, and qualitative and participatory approaches.

Lakshmi has worked across academia, consulting, and government on social, medical and public health research projects, addressing questions relating to community-led mental health interventions for young people; cross-cultural validity of tools that measure violence against children; feasibility of a global mental health databank for young people; child protection system responses during the COVID-19 pandemic; user acceptability of trauma-focused cognitive behavioural therapy; and the health and wellbeing of Australian Defence Force families. Before training as a researcher, Lakshmi practiced international trade law, representing clients before the World Trade Organization and national and regional legal authorities. Lakshmi holds a PhD from the University of Edinburgh, an MSc in Evidence-based Social Intervention and Policy Evaluation from the University of Oxford where she was ranked joint first in her cohort, and dual bachelor’s degrees in law and liberal arts from National Law University Jodhpur.

Dr Lewis is a Research Fellow in the Priority Populations Stream of The ALIVE National Centre for Mental Health Research Translation and the Primary Care Mental Health Research Program in The Department of General Practice of the Melbourne Medical School. He joined the department in June 2018 as the trial manager on the Assertive Cardiac Care Trial (ACCT) which is seeking to improve cardiovascular health in people with severe mental illness. Dr Lewis completed a PhD in psychology and has worked in industry funded clinical trials, Indigenous mental health and cognition, peri-operative cognitive change, dementia research and roles in industry assisting with cognitive test development and research. A key focus of this work has been investigating the intersection of physical health, mental health and cognition and things that can impact on these factors and ways these can be improved. Dr Lewis has published widely in all these areas.

Dr Monika Raniti is a research fellow at the ALIVE National Centre for Mental Health Research Translation (Prevention across the life course) at the University of Melbourne and at the Centre for Adolescent Health and Centre for Research Excellence (Driving Global Investment in Adolescent Health) at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. Monika’s work focusses on finding new and sustainable ways to promote the mental health and social-emotional development of adolescents and young people to prevent later mental health problems and shape positive life trajectories. Monika is particularly interested in the role of schools and since 2019, she has led a series of projects related to whole-school approaches to health and wellbeing, including as the lead author of WHO and UNESCO’s first global standards for Health-promoting schools and systems. Within ALIVE, Monika is currently working on a co-evaluation of the Live4Life whole-of-school community program in regional and rural Victoria, with the Prevention across the life course program lead, Professor Nicola Reavley. Monika has extensive university teaching experience and is also a registered psychologist and member of the Australian Psychological Society.

Dr. Nizam Abdu is Senior Research Fellow-Implementation and Translation Economics (ALIVE), Menzies Institute for Medical Research, University of Tasmania. His academic and professional journey encompasses diverse roles and experiences. Before joining the Menzies Institute, Nizam served as a lecturer (casual) in economics and contributed as a research assistant to the Origin Energy and Soil CRC Projects at the Tasmanian School of Business and Economics of the University of Tasmania. Additionally, he worked as a consultant at the Forest Practices Authority. Nizam’s international experience includes a role as a research officer in NRM and institutions at the International Livestock Research Institute and lecturer of Economics at Dilla and Asella Universities in Ethiopia, prior to relocating to Tasmania. In Germany, where he pursued his master’s degree in Agricultural Economics, Nizam also worked as a research assistant.

After graduating his bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Economics from Jimma University in Ethiopia, Nizam worked a junior researcher at the Oromia Agricultural Research Institute, where he undertook various roles, including socioeconomic researcher, project principal investigator, and team leader. His scholarly contributions span a wide range of multidisciplinary subjects, including sustainability labelling, resource management in drought-prone regions, energy transition, the role of social capital in improving the livelihoods of rural communities and health economics. Nizam’s proficiency extends beyond academic realms. He is a certified translator and interpreter of two Ethiopian languages, Oromo and Amharic, to English and vice versa, significantly contributing to the integration of migrants with diverse backgrounds into the broader Australian community.

Phil’s introduction to health sector was a role with the Housing & Supportive Initiative supporting patients with lived experience develop skills to maintain independent living within the southwest of Sydney. Then moved into the primary care sector as an Aboriginal health worker with the then Medicare local and eventually Primary Health Network for southwest Sydney region and central and eastern PHNs. During that time, Phil had gained a passion to design and deliver cultural awareness training that that can be applied during clinical consults for the benefit of the community and patients translating his knowledge for clinician to practice. Phil was the Patient Experience and Consumer Engagement officer for the Agency for Innovation, where he designed a systematic approach to connecting with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Communities of NSW that is embedded within a state-wide organisation effectively apply Aboriginal considerations within clinical pathways of the communities journey through the NSW health system ensuring cultural safety.

Rebecca is a lived-experience researcher and criminologist specialising in complex trauma. She has worked as a lived-experience educator in a range of settings (police academies, professional development consulting, for the Blue Knot Foundation, and university undergrad and postgrad courses). Rebecca’s focus on trauma comes not only from her own experience, but also from a passion to change the systems and structures that impede good support for people who experience complex trauma. Her (nearly finished) PhD is called Meaning-making, social action, and politicised victimhood: Personal and political dialogues on child sexual abuse, and is really about survivor missions, complex trauma impacts, and dignity. She has come to understand dignity as ‘mattering’ and see it as an essential element in any kind of recovery.

Looking beyond individualised, psychological and psychiatric understandings, she believes that complex trauma and other kinds of distress can carry a political aspect, particularly in areas like epistemic injustice (injustice related to one’s capacity as a valid, trustworthy, and important ‘knower’). If dignity is about mattering, then each person’s experience, feelings, boundaries, rights, choices, and positions matter.

Dr Rubayyat Hashmi joined Australian Centre for Health Research (ACHR), The University of Adelaide as a NHMRC grant funded research fellow (ECR) in June 2023. Prior to joining ACHR, Dr Hashmi held academic and research positions at Queensland University of Technology, University of Southern Queensland and American International University-Bangladesh. His PhD (health economics) research explores issues related to socioeconomic inequality and inequity in mental health and health care use in Australia. Rubayyat has broad research interest in health, society and welfare. Rubayyat possesses significant expertise in utilising longitudinal data for economic modelling to investigate policy and strategic research concerns. His work has been published in leading journals including PharmacoEconomics, Health Policy, Quality of Life Research, Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, PLoS ONE, Journal of Cleaner Production etc. Rubayyat’s scholarly contributions have garnered prestigious accolades, such as ‘UniSQ publication excellence award 2020’ and ‘UniSQ Award for Excellence in Doctoral Research, 2021’.

Dr Wendy Hermeston is a Wiradjuri scholar and Senior Research Fellow at the ALIVE National Centre for Mental Health Research Translation, University of Melbourne Medical School, Department of General Practice. Wendy has a PhD in law (University of Technology, Sydney), a Masters in Applied Epidemiology (Australian National University) and a Bachelor of Arts majoring in Psychology (Macquarie University). Wendy’s long background working in out-of-home care and Stolen Generations-related Aboriginal policy and practice informed her PhD study ‘Safe, Protected … Connected? The Best Interests of Aboriginal Children and Permanency Planning in the NSW Care and Protection System’. This research explored First Nations community member understandings of concepts central to decision making in the care jurisdiction, in particular the notions of the best interests of the child, permanency and attachment.