Brain and Mind Centre (The)

Clinical Professor Rebekah Ahmed is a Staff specialist Neurologist at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and University of Sydney, where she directs the multidisciplinary Memory and Cognition Clinic. She graduated from Medicine at the University of Adelaide (University Medal) and completed her Neurology training at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and Concord Hospital. She was awarded the Australian and New Zealand Association of Neurology Fellowship to the National Hospital of Neurology and Neurosurgery, Queen Square, London. She also completed a Clinical Research Fellowship at the Dementia Research Centre, University College London. Her PhD focused on eating and metabolic abnormalities in Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. She is a clinician scientist with her research focusing on metabolic biomarkers in neurodegeneration. She runs a number of clinical trials in Alzheimer’s disease and gene therapy in FTD. She is Co-Block Chair for Neurology in the University of Sydney Medical Program.

Dr Tonima Ali joined the University of Sydney in September 2020 as a postdoctoral research associate in the School of Biomedical Engineering. She is currently conducting research work at the Brain and Mind Centre and involved in teaching with the School of Biomedical Engineering. She has previously worked at the University of Queensland as the National Imaging Facility (NIF) Fellow for 7T MRI.

After finishing her BSc in Electrical Engineering at the University of Alberta, Canada, she went to the University of Calgary to complete her MSc in Biomedical Engineering and later joined as a lecturer at the American International University of Bangladesh. She moved to Australia in 2013 and completed her PhD in Biomedical Engineering and Medical Physics from Queensland University of Technology. She developed MRI-based methods for assessment of biological tissues during her PhD, which were successfully implemented forunderstanding the knee joint architecture in kangaroo, identifying the developmental pathway of Osteoarthritis and assessment of tissue density for breast cancer prediction. She started her research career on MRI methods and optimisation at the University of Queensland and is an affiliated research fellow at that institution.

Associate Professor Paul Austin relocated to Sydney in 2008, completing postdoctoral training in chronic neuropathic pain at the University of Sydney and the University of New South Wales. He joined the University of Sydney in 2012 and is now an Associate Professor in the Neuroscience theme within the School of Medical Sciences.

He leads the Laboratory of Neuroimmunology and Behaviour at the Brain and Mind Centre, where his team investigates how the immune system contributes to chronic pain. His internationally recognised animal research helped establish neuropathic pain as a neuroimmune disorder, while his access to patient cohorts and advanced technologies has enabled world-first studies identifying immune cell activation in human chronic pain.

AM, PhD, FRCPI, FRACP, DCH, MSc, MBBCh

Primary Contact Email:nadia.badawi@health.nsw.gov.au

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BSpThy University of Queensland 1983 MA Northwestern University, USA 1994 PhD Northwestern University, USA 1997

Professor Ballard completed her undergraduate degree at University of Queensland in 1983 and worked primarily as a paediatric speech pathologist in Queensland and New South Wales until moving to the USA in 1992. She completed a Master of Arts in Speech-Language Pathology (1994) and PhD (1997) at Northwestern University in Illinois and went on to a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Center for Voice and Speech at University of Iowa. Professor Ballard has held academic positions in the Speech Pathology departments of Indiana University and the University of Iowa. Since 2006, she has been at the University of Sydney where she served as Head of Speech Pathology and Director of the Graduate Entry Masters program until July 2012. She was awarded an ARC Future Fellowship (2012-17) and since then has returned to a teaching and research position.

Professor Ballard has published on diagnostic approaches and procedures for acquired and childhood speech and language disorders (particularly apraxia of speech) and on application of the principles of motor learning framework to treatment of motor speech disorders in adults and children. Her work is currently focusing on the use of real-time MRI to better understand speech articulation in healthy and apraxia speakers. She is al Co-founder of a digital tech start-up designing engaging apps for screening and high intensity treatment of speech sound disorders that incorporate automated speech analysis designed for Australians.

Professor Ballard's research has attracted funding from the National Institutes of Health in the USA, the NH&MRC and ARC in Australia, Qatar National Research Foundation in Qatar, as well as professional groups such as the American Speech Language and Hearing Association and the Motor Neurone Disease Research Institute of Australia.

Professor Richard Banati is an internationally recognized scientist with interdisciplinary research interests in the brains innate immune system and the development of advanced medical imaging for the non-invasive study of brain function. Since 2008, Professor Banati holds an ANSTO Distinguished Researcher Fellowship in a cross-institutional life sciences team that has unique access to a range of methodologies, including life cell imaging, impedance spectrometry, quartz crystal microbalance measures, and protein structure analysis by x-ray and neutron-based techniques.

Richard Banati is Professor and Foundation Chair of Medical Radiation Sciences at the University of Sydney, Director of the Ramaciotti Centre for Brain Imaging at the Brain & Mind Research Institute (BMRI) and Director University of Sydney node of the National Imaging Facility. His early scientific career commenced at the Max-Planck-Institute for Psychiatry (Neurobiology) in Munich, Germany. Prior to taking up his current post at the University of Sydney in January 2004, he was Principal Fellow in the Department of Neuropathology, Imperial College and MRC-Cyclotron Unit, Royal Postgraduate Medical School, Hammersmith Hospital, London.

His work is highly cited and published in specialist journals as well as high-impact multi-disciplinary journals, such as The Lancet, Annals of Neurology and Brain. The research of Professor Banati and his colleagues has received recognition through the bi-annual Award of the German league for Research into Alzheimer's Disease, Award for Interdisciplinary Research of Society for Radiation Research (Gesellschaft fur Strahlenforschung GSF, Munich), The New Frontiers in Science Presentation 1998 at The Royal Society (London), and the 2003 JSPS Professorial Award by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.

Since 2008 Professor Banati has had an ANSTO Distinguished Researcher Fellowship. Professor Richard Banati has a long-standing interest in the role of non-neuronal (glial) cells in the progression of neurodegenerative and neoplastic brain disease, particularly the role of glia in overtly normal brain tissue. More recently, his research has focused on the development of new in vivo imaging probes for non-neuronal cells and the methodological issues that arise from it. Ultimate goal of this research to improve our understanding of how glial cells regulate brain function and how glial pathways can furnish biomarkers of brain disease and therapeutic efficacy

Garry Barrett completed his BEc (Hons) at the University of Sydney, and his MA and PhD at the University of British Columbia. Garry's main areas of research are labour economics, public economics and microeconometrics. Garry's research has focused on measuring economic inequality and poverty; applying consumption based measures of wellbeing; examining participation in income support programs and, more recently, analyzing the determinants of retirement behaviour and household saving. His work has been published in journals such as Econometrica,Journal of Public Economics, Review of Economics and Statistics, Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, Econometrics Journal, Review of Income and Wealth, Canadian Journal of Economics and The Economic Record.

Dr Kelsie Boulton is a Senior Research Fellow in the Clinic for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Research at the Brain and Mind Centre, University of Sydney. Her research interests include child neurodevelopment, mental health, and digital health, with a particular focus on how technology can be designed and deployed to improve early identification of need, personalise care pathways, and expand access to evidence-based supports for children and families.

Her research centres on the development and implementation of clinically integrated digital platforms that embed assessment, longitudinal monitoring, and decision-support into routine paediatric care. Integrating real-world clinical data, user-centred design principles, and data science methodologies, her work aims to enhance how health systems detect and respond to neurodevelopmental need, moving from fragmented, siloed assessment toward dynamic, data-informed models of care.

Dr Boulton partners with clinicians, health services, policymakers, and people with lived experience to ensure that digital innovations are not only effective but feasible, equitable, and sustainable within real-world systems. This translational focus extends across the full research-to-practice pipeline, from evidence generation to system-level implementation, with the aim of reshaping how neurodevelopmental care is delivered at scale.

Professor Michael Bowen is a neuroscientist and psychopharmacologist at the University of Sydney's Brain and Mind Centre and School of Psychology. His research is focused on discovering and developing novel therapeutics for substance use disorders and social challenges in brain disorders.

He is the co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Kinoxis Therapeutics. Kinoxis was created to commercialise KNX100, a novel molecule which Professor Bowen discovered with colleagues at the University of Sydney. KNX100 has considerable potential to treat addiction and other disorders of the brain and mind.

Professor Bowen is the recipient of numerous awards including the Prime Minister's Prize for New Innovators, Eureka Prize for Outstanding Early Career Researcher, the NSW Premier's Prize for Early Career Researcher of the Year, and the International Behavioral Neuroscience Society Early Career Award.

Previously, between 1988 and 1991 Professor John Buchanan was part of the team that undertook the first Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey (AWIRS). In 1991, he joined the Workplace Research Centre (formerly acirrt) and served as its Director from 2005 - 2014.

Between 1988 and 1991 he was part of the team that undertook the first Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey (AWIRS). He joined the Workplace Research Centre (formerly acirrt) in 1991 and has been its Director since 2005. Until recently his major research interest has been the demise of the classical wage earner model of employment and the role of the state in nurturing new forms of multi-employer co-ordination to promote both efficiency and fairness in the labour market. Building on this research, he is now devoting special attention to the evolution of working life transition, the dynamics of workforce development and the connection between work, health and wellbeing. Professor Buchanan is currently Network Leader for the University of Sydney's Health and Work Research Network - a consortium involving experts from the Business School, Medical, Health Sciences and four other faculties.

He was one of the authors ofAustralia at work: just managing?(1999) ofFragmented Futures: New Challenges in Working Lifepublished by Federation Press in 2003. These texts provide an overview of the restructuring of work in Australia since the 1970s. He most recently co-edited a book calledInclusive Growth in Australia: Social policy as economic investment, published by Allen & Unwin in 2013.

PhD

Dr. Weidong (Tom) Cai is an Associate Professor in the School of Computer Science, Director of the Multimedia Laboratory, and Associate Director of the Biomedical & Multimedia Information Technology (BMIT) Research Group at the University of Sydney. He was a Lead Investigator / Visiting Professor on medical image analysis and medical computer vision at Harvard Medical School in 2014. He received his PhD degree in Computer Science from the Basser Department of Computer Science, The University of Sydney, in 2001. His research interests include computer vision, medical image computing, machine learning, image/video processing, audio computing, multimedia AI, pattern recognition, computer graphics, bioimage informatics, and computational neuroscience. He has published over 300 peer-reviewed papers in leading international journals and proceedings of top international confereces. Dr. Cai is a Senior Area Editor on the editorial board of IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, Associate Editor of Computational Visual Media (Springer), Associate Editor of Brain Informatics (a Springer interdisciplinary journal on computational neuroscience, artificial intelligence, big data analytics, and cognitive research), and Guest Editor of Machine Vision and Applications (Springer) and Neurocomputing (Elsevier). He is also the Springer-Nature Brain Informatics & Health Book Series Editor, and Co-Editor of Medical Computer Vision: Algorithms for Big Data (Springer).

PhD

Professor Fernando Calamante is the Director of Sydney Imaging, the biomedical imaging Core Research Facility at the University of Sydney. He is Professor in the School of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering. He is also Director of the University of Sydney node of the NCRIS-funded National Imaging Facility.

After he finished his BSc degree in Physics (with Honours) in Argentina, he went to study Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) in the UK as a Chevening Scholar (The British Council), where he later carried out his PhD at University College London, and was subsequently appointed Lecturer in Biophysics (2000). He relocated to Australia in 2005, where he spent 12 years at The Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health and the University of Melbourne. Fernando joined the University of Sydney in 2018.

His main areas of research are the development of novel methods for Diffusion MRI, Perfusion MRI and brain connectivity, and their applications to neurology and neuroscience. He has gained international recognition for this work and his MRI methods have been adopted by many labs. For example, his MRtrix software for Diffusion MRI analysis is widely used worldwide and is one of the most popular tools in the field.

His research funding totals ~$50M, including multiple ARC and NHMRC Project Grants and Fellowships, 2 NHMRC Program Grants, 2 MRFF grants, and industrial funding.

Fernando has been elected to several leadership positions within the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, including as its 2021-2022 President.

Dr Joanne Carpenter is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Youth Mental Health and Technology team at the Brain and Mind Centre.

Her work aims to improve outcomes for young people with mood disorders (such as depression and bipolar disorder), by gaining a better understanding of the role of sleep-wake and circadian rhythm (body clock) disturbances in these conditions. Her research focuses on uncovering the neurobiological basis of sleep-wake and circadian disturbance in mood disorders, and investigating impacts on treatment response and other outcomes (such as suicidality and social/occupational functioning).

Her research combines biological (e.g. melatonin) and wearable (e.g. actigraphy watch) measures with clinical and subjective measures to provide a comprehensive picture of how sleep-wake, circadian, and mental health factors are related and change over time. She is also involved in the development of digital health tools and personalised intervention approaches to improve the quality of mental health care for young people. Through partnership with young people with lived experience, she hopes her work will contribute to meaningful improvements in the delivery of optimal treatments and early intervention to reduce the burden of youth mental illness.

Dr Katrina Champion is an Associate Professor in the Sydney School of Public Health and is a member of the Matilda Centre, a Flagship in the Faculty of Medicine and Health. She is Program Lead of Adolescent Risk Behaviours and Mental Health Research at the Matilda Centre and holds a prestigious Sydney Horizon Fellowship focusing on innovative approaches to improve the physical and mental health of Australian adolescents.

Dr Champion works at the nexus of disease prevention and mental health, with a focus on the bidirectional relationships between poor mental health and unhealthy lifestyle. She develops, evaluates and disseminates digital interventions to improve both physical and mental health in adolescents.

As part of an NHMRC Early Career Fellowship, Dr Champion spent two years at the Department of Preventive Medicine, Northwestern University (Chicago, US). During this time, and in collaboration with more than 20 researchers across Australia and the US, she led the development of Health4Life, an eHealth multiple health behaviour change intervention to reduce chronic disease risk and improve mental health among school students.

Her Horizon project is continuing this work to refine digital interventions for adolescents to address the Big 6 risk factors of physical inactivity, poor diet, alcohol use, smoking/vaping, screen time and poor sleep, as well as establishing a new study in high schools to improve the update of evidence-based prevention policy and practice. Dr Champion is also leading a MRFF-funded project to develop a new parent-based intervention specifically designed to improve health outcomes of adolescents experiencing socio-economic disadvantage.

I am a molecular and computational biologist with an interest in genetics, epigenetics and next generation sequencing technologies. I was awarded my PhD from the University of Melbourne, Australia in 2014. I then held a post-doctoral appointment in the Neuroscience department at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mt Sinai, New York, USA, where I currently hold an Adjunct Instructor position. In 2017, I joined the Brain and Mind Centre as a lecturer at the University of Sydney.

PhD, DipHPharm, BPharm, FPS, FANZCAP, FFIP, ARPharmS
Professor Timothy F Chen is nationally and internationally renowned for his research in medication review and strategies to reduce medication related harm. His research has informed significant policy and practice change, through the implementation of the Commonwealth Government funded Home Medicines Review (HMR) program. 
Professor Chen has successfully supervised 22 PhD students to completion, published extensively in pharmacy, pharmacology, education and psychiatry journals, and has received competitive research funds of >$12m as a chief investigator.
Professor Chen is an experienced and dedicated teacher who has received Faculty, University and Australian Government awards for teaching.
Professor Chen has served as Director of the graduate Master of Pharmacy program and Head of Pharmacy Practice and Health Services Research.
Over his career, Professor Chen has been an invited speaker on >90 occasions in more than 30 countries.

From 2014 to 2021, Professor Chen served as President of the Social and Administrative Pharmacy Section of the International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP).

BEc (Hons) Sydney, MA Yale, PhD Sydney

Stephen Cheung uses experimental methods to uncover the structure of preferences and beliefs that guide decision making under risk and over time, as well as their effects - together with those of psychological and institutional variables - upon the behaviour and performance of markets.

Stephen is a recipient of two Australian Research Council Discovery Grants, as well as teaching awards from two Faculties of The University of Sydney. He currently serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Economic Psychology, and as one of the University's Research Integrity Advisors.

Dr Ann-Na Cho is a Senior Lecturer (Sydney Horizon Fellow, NHMRC Emerging Leader Fellow) in the School of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering at The University of Sydney. She holds a prestigious Horizon Fellowship to develop a near-complete human brain model - human brain organoids.

Trained as a stem cell engineer, bio-manufacturer and neuroscientist, her expertise encompasses stem cell biology, tissue engineering, microfluidics device, biomaterial chemistry, nanomedicine, drug development, and bioinformatics.

Dr Cho's primary focus is on addressing health challenges through creating human brain organoids that integrate innovative biomedical engineering tools. Organoids are laboratory-grown organ models that mimic human physiology. They can be used to understand brain mechanism and disease, and test the effects of new therapeutics including drugs without the need for animal models.

She established the world's first Tissue engineered human brain-on-a-chip combining human pluripotent stem cells, 3D brain-mimetic biomaterial and organ-on-a-chip. She has been named as inventor for seven international patents to date and her pioneering human brain organoids are being used in research into neuropsychiatric and neurodevelopmental diseases (Nature Communications 2021, Nature Biomedical Engineering 2018, Science Advances 2023). These next-generation model platforms enable clinical intervention by collaborating industrial partners, such as pharmaceutical companies, for personalised and point-of-care therapy.

Dr Cho is a Principal Investigator of the new human Brain Microphysiological System (hBMS) Laboratory in the School of Biomedical Engineering. She received her PhD from the Department of Biotechnology at Yonsei University in 2020 and has previously worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Charles Perkins Centre and Vice-Chancellor's Research Fellow at Macquarie University.

Personal webpage:https://www.hbmslab.org/

Dr Garner Clancey is an Associate Professor in Criminology, joining the University of Sydney Law School in 2011. Prior to this, Garner worked in criminal justice agencies (including Juvenile Justice NSW and the NSW Police Force) between 1992-2002 and worked as a crime prevention consultant between 2002-2010. Garner taught crime prevention, policing, juvenile justice, security and criminology courses at five other Australian universities between 2000 and 2011. Garner's work focuses on the intersection between research, policy and practice.

Currently, Garner is working to develop a whole-of-university approach to justice and crime issues. Garner works closely with industry partners and colleagues from across the University of Sydney to tackle various practical and systemic challenges impacting the criminal justice system. This work has resulted in the establishment of the University of Sydney Justice Collaboration, and publications such as Youth Crime, Youth Justice and Children's Courts in NSW and A whole-of-university response to youth justice: Reflections on a university-youth justice partnership | Australian Institute of Criminology (amongst others).

Garner is a member of various research centres including the Sydney Institute of Criminology, the Matilda Centre, the Technology Addiction Team (Brain and Mind Centre), and an affiliate of the Wellbeing Health and Youth Centre of Research Excellence in Adolescent Health.

Deborah Cobb-Clark AO FASSA is Professor and Deputy Head (Research) in the School of Economics at the University of Sydney.

She is Deputy Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Children and Families Over the Life Course; an Officer of the Order of Australia; an elected Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia; and a Distinguished Fellow of the Economic Society of Australia. Prior to joining the University of Sydney, she was the Ronald Henderson Professor and Director of the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economics and Social Research at the University of Melbourne. Her research agenda centres on the effect of economic and social policy on human development, mental health, intergenerational disadvantage, sexual and racial harassment, health, old-age support, education, immigration, and youth transitions. Cobb-Clark is a former co-editor of the Journal of Population Economicsand has published more than 100 articles in leading academic journals. She received her PhD in Economics from the University of Michigan.