Mental Health

Caroline Donovan is a Clinical Psychologist and Professor within the School of Applied Psychology and the Centre for Mental Health at Griffith University. She has received over $9 million worth of funding throughout her career and has published 13 book chapters and 95 peer reviewed journal articles. She is an Associate Editor of Anxiety, Stress and Coping, and is currently on the Editorial Boards of Child Psychiatry and Human Development and Australian Psychologist.

Govind is a clinical psychologist and senior academic at the University of Southern Queensland and a member of the Manna Institute (Regional Mental Health Research and Training Institute). He has over 15 years of experience in child and youth mental health services in both private and public settings. Govind’s research focuses on improving equity and access to mental healthcare for priority groups of children, youth and their families.

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.

Ms Kristin Graham has over 20 years’ experience as a clinical podiatrist including providing treatment to RAAF personnel at the Edinburgh Base as well as Veterans in the community. She recently returned to study and completed her Bachelor of Psychological Science (Honours) at Flinders University, Adelaide.

Kristin is also a mentoring coordinator for new graduate podiatrists. In this role she has translated research into practice in developing a program to support graduate podiatrists in their transition to the work force. Her experience in both psychological research and as an allied health practitioner, together span the complementary fields of psychology and physical health. Consequently she is uniquely placed to conduct research regarding associations between the physical and mental health of veterans.

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.

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.

Dr Lou Farrer is a senior research fellow and registered psychologist at the Centre for Mental Health Research, at The Australian National University. Her work focuses on how technology can be used to improve access to mental health care among people in the community. Dr Farrer’s primary research interests are in the development, evaluation, and implementation of online mental health treatment programs.

Most recently, her work has focused on mental health in tertiary education settings, and she was awarded an ARC DECRA in 2018 to examine how mental health professionals in Australia use technology in their practice.