Invited Speakers

Professor Sharon Dawe

Sharon Dawe is a Professor in Clinical Psychology at Griffith University, Australia and an Adjunct Professor at the Australian Centre for Child Protection, UniSA and a Visiting Fellow at Oxford University, UK. She has been working as a researcher and clinician in the field of substance misuse and mental health for over 30 years at the Institute of Psychiatry, University of London (UK), National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, UNSW and currently Griffith University. As a research-intensive professor, she is involved in a range of research projects including evaluation of the Parents under Pressure program (www.pupprogram.net.au), assessment and diagnosis of young children with FASD, and the investigation of the impact of childhood trauma on parenting and child outcomes. Sharon is passionate about improving the outcomes for children living in adverse circumstances by supporting parents to manage difficult life situations.

Dr Sharynne Hamilton

Dr Sharynne Hamilton is a Ngunnawal woman, with family links to Canberra and Yass, NSW. Dr Hamilton has lived and worked in Western Australia for 36 years and prior to entering research, had a professional background in social work. Her research expertise spans Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, Elder-led research, Indigenous methods, cultural understandings of health and illness, and intergenerational trauma, wellbeing and recovery among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

Dr Hamilton’s work focuses on justice and child protection-involved children and their families, exploring ways to promote family and community inclusion, equitable access to information and resources, and community-focused solutions to child safety, health and wellbeing. Dr Hamilton is currently a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, Aboriginal Health with the Telethon Kids Institute in Perth.

Lisa A. Marsch, PhD

Dr. Lisa A. Marsch is the Director of the Center for Technology and Behavioral Health (CTBH), the Director of the Northeast Node of the National Drug Abuse Treatment Clinical Trials Network, and the Andrew G. Wallace Professor within the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College in the U.S. CTBH is an interdisciplinary “Center of Excellence”, supported by the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse, that uses science to inform the development, evaluation, and sustainable implementation of technology-based therapeutic tools (that leverage web, mobile, sensing and/or social media approaches) targeting substance use disorders and behavioral health. These tools are designed to deliver engaging and effective health monitoring and health behavior interventions to collectively lead to transformations in the delivery of science-based behavioral health care. Dr. Marsch is a regular keynote speaker at national and international meetings (including invited presentations at the U.S. White House, Congressional briefings, the World Bank, and for the US Surgeon General). She serves on the National Advisory Council to the National Institute on Drug Abuse at the National Institutes of Health.

Suresh Muthukumaraswamy

Suresh completed his PhD in Psychology at the University of Auckland in 2005 after which he joined the newly established Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre as a post-doctoral fellow. In 2014 Suresh received a Rutherford Discovery Fellowship and returned to the University of Auckland where he works in The School of Pharmacy (Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences). Suresh’s main research interests are in understanding how therapies alter brain function and behaviour and in testing methodologies to measure these changes in both healthy individuals and patient groups – particularly in depressed patients. Since 2011 he has been involved in psychedelic research studies involved a range of compounds including ketamine, LSD, psilocybin and DMT.