Mental Health

Professor Alison Calear is an NHMRC Emerging Leadership-II Fellow and Co-Head of the Centre for Mental Health Research at the Australian National University. Her research is focused on youth mental health, eHealth and the prevention and early intervention of anxiety, depression, suicide and self-harm. She is also interested in the promotion of help-seeking behaviour and the role of literacy and stigma in the help-seeking process. Most recently, her research has included the evaluation of an emotion literacy program in ACT primary schools with children aged 7-10 years and a trial assessing the effectiveness of a web-based resource to support parents to better recognise and respond to psychological distress or suicide risk in their child.

Dr Charlene Holt is a Senior Research Fellow at the Parent-Infant Research Institute (PIRI) and a psychologist. She has 20 years of experience in developing and evaluating programs that support parents and strengthen the relationship between mothers and their babies following postnatal depression. Her work has also focused on improving treatment for antenatal, postnatal, and paternal depression, with a particular interest in using digital programs to make help more accessible for families.

Professor Philip Morgan (https://www.newcastle.edu.au/profile/philip-morgan) is co-director of the Global Sport and Movement Collaborative at the University of Newcastle. He has led the development of globally recognised family well-being programs with a distinctive focus on men and fathers. His flagship programs include ‘Healthy Dads, Healthy Kids’; Daughters and Dads Active and Empowered; Healthy Youngsters, Healthy Dads; SHED-IT, and Workplace POWER. These innovative programs have attracted strong community, media, and industry engagement and are grounded in community collaboration.

Professor Alison Calear is an NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellow and Co-Head of the Centre for Mental Health Research at the Australian National University. Her research is focused on youth mental health, eHealth and the prevention and early intervention of anxiety, depression, and suicide. She is also interested in the promotion of help-seeking behaviour and the role of literacy and stigma in the help-seeking process.

Most recently, her research has focused on suicide prevention in secondary schools and the development of an online resource to support parents to better recognise and respond to psychological distress or suicide risk in their child.

Marie Yap is an Associate Professor at Monash University and founder of the award-winning Parenting Strategies Program, which translates research evidence into actionable parenting guidelines that underpin individually-tailored online parenting interventions to prevent and reduce the impact of MH problems in children and adolescents.

On average, the parenting guidelines are downloaded >10,000 times a month, and are cited or have formed the basis for online parenting resources in over 20 countries, including Beyond Blue’s Healthy Families website.

Marie Yap is an Associate Professor at Monash University and founder of the award-winning Parenting Strategies Program, which translates research evidence into actionable parenting guidelines that underpin individually-tailored online parenting interventions to prevent and reduce the impact of MH problems in children and adolescents.

On average, the parenting guidelines are downloaded >10,000 times a month, and are cited or have formed the basis for online parenting resources in over 20 countries, including Beyond Blue’s Healthy Families website.

Dr Dave Pasalich is a Senior Lecturer and clinical psychologist in the Research School of Psychology, Australian National University. His research and clinical expertise is in evidence-based practice to promote child and family mental health and wellbeing, particularly in families exposed to adversities.

This has involved partnerships with child welfare services to deliver and trial parent interventions in out-of-home care. He has received several awards for his work, including the ACT Young Tall Poppy Scientist of the Year Award and an ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award.

Professor Sonja March is the Director of the Centre for Health Research and a Professor of Psychology at the University of Southern Queensland. Sonja has a PhD in Clinical Psychology and leads the Innovative Mental Health Solutions Research Program at UniSQ.

Her research focuses on the use of innovation and technology to improve access to evidence-based psychosocial assessments and interventions in childhood and adolescence. Prof March has developed world-first digital assessments and programs that are being translated into open access public health services, having significant impact in the Australian community.

My primary research interests are translational research, neurodevelopment, and contemplative science. I am currently a postdoctoral researcher at Telethon Kids Institute (FASD Centre of Research Excellence) and have an adjunct academic position at Curtin University. I trained at the Stanford University Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE), the UCSD Center for Mindfulness, and the Institute for Mindfulness-Based Approaches.

Natalie Peach is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Matilda Centre for Research in Mental Health and Substance Use, University of Sydney. She currently works as the Project Coordinator on the COPE-A clinical trial, investigating the efficacy of integrated exposure-based therapy for co-occurring post-traumatic stress and substance use disorders in adolescents.

She completed a combined Masters/PhD in clinical psychology at the University of Melbourne and Orygen Youth Health in 2017. Her PhD focused on phenomenological relationships between childhood trauma, PTSD symptoms and psychotic symptoms in young people with early psychosis. Her research interests include adolescent mental health, early intervention, PTSD, substance use, comorbidity and psychosis.