Mental Health

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.

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.

Ivana Kihas began working as a Research Assistant at the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre (NDARC) in May 2013. She has worked across three research projects: a post-marketing surveillance study of Suboxone-film, an opioid substitution treatment; a prospective cohort study examining non-medical use of pharmaceutical opioids and related harms; and on a randomised control trial investigating the efficacy of a Behavioural Activation Treatment for co-occurring depression and substance use disorder.

Ivana completed a B.Sc. Psychology (Honours) in 2012 at Macquarie University. Her thesis explored the effects of letter confusability on visual word recognition. Between 2012 and 2014, Ivana also worked at the Emotional Health Clinic (Macquarie University) as a Research Assistant on the Cool Kids Stepped Care Program study, working with children, adolescents and their parents to help them overcome anxiety.

Katrina is a Clinical and Counselling Psychologist, member of the Australian Psychological Society and a Fellow of both the APS College of Clinical Psychologists and the APS College of Counselling Psychologists.

Katrina has a special interest in single, cumulative and complex PTSD across the lifespan and the impact of trauma on family, workplaces and wider systems.

Katrina has worked therapeutically and systemically with adults, families, children, adolescents and workplaces for around 20 years and has established two private practice clinics. She has acted as a clinical and project consultant for private, non-government and government organisations.

Katrina is a member of the Golden Key International Honour Society for her Master of Psychology work including her thesis; Proposed criteria for Developmental Trauma Disorder, DSM-V: Manifestations and implications for a rural Australian Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service.

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.

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.

Dr Erin Kelly is a Clinical Psychologist at The Matilda Centre, University of Sydney. She completed her PhD at the University of New South Wales, for which she was awarded the Australian Rotary Health and the Alliance for the Prevention of Mental Disorders for Research Excellence Award, PhD Researcher Award (2018). Her research interest is prevention and early intervention for substance use and mental disorders, with a particular focus on adolescents.

She is the lead trainer of the Preventure program in Australia, a personality-focused brief intervention for preventing substance use and mental disorders in adolescents.

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.