Mental Health

Dr Louise Birrell is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at The Matilda Centre for Research in Mental Health and Substance Use at Sydney University. Louise has extensive experience designing and testing mental health and substance use prevention programs with adolescents. She is committed to better understanding the impact of common mental health and substance use problems at this critical life stage and passionate about designing innovative prevention strategies to enable young people to overcome mental health problems.

She has authored over 10 peer-reviewed publications, one book chapter and is a named investigator on projects totalling over $9 million dollars in competitive research funding. She regularly presents at national and international conferences in the field of youth mental health.

Dr Prior is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Prevention and Early Intervention in Mental Illness and Substance Use Centre of Research Excellence (PREMISE), at the University of Sydney. Her research focuses on the co-occurrence of mental health and substance use disorders. She has helped design and coordinate two clinical trials of novel interventions for these comorbid disorders; most recently an online early intervention for young people who drink to cope with anxiety.

It is Katrina’s aspiration to become a leading researcher in the development, evaluation and dissemination of innovative prevention and early intervention programs for co-occurring anxiety and alcohol use problems.

Dr Shurong Lu is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Mental Health within The University of Melbourne. Shurong has strong research interests in the development, evaluation and dissemination of evidence-based early intervention approaches, such as Mental Health First Aid training programs.

She is passionate about creating a world where everyone, particularly children, adolescents, and those with culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, can receive timely and appreciate support when facing with any mental health challenges.

I am a clinical postdoctoral researcher in the field of child mental health at the Black Dog Institute, having received my Doctor of Philosophy (Medicine) from the University of Sydney, graduating in May 2021 for my thesis titled ‘The design, implementation and evaluation of a mobile application for insomnia’. I am currently a Post-doctoral Research Fellow in the Child Mental Health Research Team at the Black Dog Institute, The University of New South Wales.

Dr Gemma Sicouri is an early career researcher and clinical psychologist at the Black Dog Institute at the University of New South Wales. Her research focuses on understanding the parental and cognitive factors that contribute to children’s anxiety and related disorders to inform the development and evaluation of new and improved psychological treatments. Increasingly her research uses technology to increase the accessibility and cost-effectiveness of treatments for children with anxiety and related disorders.

Dr Hobden’s PhD research included some of the first comprehensive Australian based studies to examine comorbid alcohol misuse and depression within general practice and alcohol or other drug services. Dr Hobden has demonstrated high productivity in her research field.

She has published 16 papers (7 as lead author), 1 commissioned report and 3 academic conference abstracts. In addition her work has been presented 13 times at academic conferences. Dr Hobden has established both national and international collaborations during her academic career, including the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre and the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism in America.

Dr. Carly Johnco is a Macquarie University Research Fellow and Clinical Psychologist at Macquarie University. Her research is focused on understanding the cognitive and environmental mechanisms that impact the development and treatment of anxiety (and related disorders) in childhood and older age. She has published more than 55 journal articles and book chapters and received over $3.5million in research funding.

She has received several awards, including the 2019 Australian Psychological Society Early Career Research Award, 2018 Australian Association of Cognitive and Behavioural Therapies Tracey Goodall Early Career Award, and 2017 Macquarie University Early Career Researcher of the Year Award.

Associate Professor Ashleigh Lin is an NHMRC Career Development Fellow and Program Head of Mental Health and Youth at the Telethon Kids Institute. Her research is focused on better understanding the mental health needs of young people, and then developing novel interventions to address them.

She has a specific focus on marginalised groups of young people who tend to have poorer mental health than their mainstream peers, but also less access to acceptable and effective interventions.

Doctor Lauren McLellan is Director of the Centre for Emotional Health Online Treatment Programs, with expertise and special interest in understanding and effectively treating anxiety in youth. Her research aims to use technology to increase access to treatments for anxious youth, especially for those in rural and remote communities.

Her other research interests include improving outcomes of anxiety treatments by developing and evaluating novel intervention or assessment methods to identify youth that don’t respond as well as others to standard treatments. Lauren is also a clinical psychologist and lectures on the Masters of Clinical Psychology postgraduate program at Macquarie University.

Kylie King is a Senior Research Fellow at the Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health at Monash University. She has expertise in male suicide prevention research and mental health program evaluation. She is interested in the capacity for public health interventions to have positive impacts on men’s mental health across the life span.

The project is being undertaken in collaboration with researchers at the University of Melbourne and Orygen, and with Tomorrow Man.