Gilles earned his undergraduate degree in psychology from Laurentian University, a master’s degree with a specialisation in psychometrics from the University of Western Ontario, and a PhD in psychology from Swinburne University of Technology. He has been an academic since 2004, conducting widely cited research on human intelligence and individual differences more broadly. He also serves on editorial boards for journals such as Intelligence, the Journal of Personality, and Personality and Individual Differences.

Jason was originally a professional dancer and artist before a major injury changed his career path. He studied medicine at Flinders University in South Australia before working in both Plastic Surgery and Dermatology in the Northern Territory and New South Wales Tertiary hospitals. He endeavours to ensure a holistic and collaborative approach to patient care, helping them achieve their goals. He is a philomath with interests in surgery, dermatology, sports medicine, the assessment and management of skin cancer, general medicine, pain, chronic wounds and complex cases. He likes to think of himself as a less pathologic ‘Dr House’ and thrives on diagnostic challenges and complexity. He gained his Fellowship in General Practice and has also completed a Diploma of Child Health, a Certificate in Practical Dermoscopy from the Australian College of Dermatology and a Masters of Sports Medicine. He was the inaugural Crichton Dance Medicine fellow with the Australian Ballet. He has undertaken further training with the Australian College of Sport and Exercise Physicians and is involved in medical education, publication and research. He is committed to ongoing professional development and is privileged to work alongside some of the best across many fields. He currently consults at Bluff Road Medical Centre. He offers a specialised service and does not offer routine general practice care, but is very pleased to work alongside your regular GP and healthcare team to ensure your needs and goals are met. Outside of medicine, Jason enjoys time with his young family, riding his mountain bike with questionable skill; producing dreadfully pretentious short films, photography and custom jewellery. You can learn more about Jason and contact him via his website, The Dance Doctor.

After 19 years of dedicated service at the Olympic Park Sports Medicine Centre, Leanne Scown has relocated, bringing her wealth of experience and specialized care to a new, welcoming environment.Leanne Scown Sports Physiotherapy is built on a foundation of expertise, compassion, and a genuine commitment to enhancing the quality of life for every patient.With twenty years of private practice experience, Leanne is renowned for her ability to manage a wide range of sporting injuries and complex conditions, including spinal, thoracic, hip, and pelvic girdle pain. Her practice is distinguished not only by her skill in treating these complex issues but also by her deep understanding and special interest in working with individuals who have hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (hEDS) and Hypermobility Spectrum Disorder (HSD).Leanne believes in empowering her patients to achieve and maintain freedom of movement, whether you’re an elite athlete striving to return to peak performance or someone navigating the challenges of chronic pain. Her approach is holistic, combining evidence-based physiotherapy techniques with personalized care tailored to meet your unique needs.At Leanne Scown Sports Physiotherapy, you can expect a supportive environment where your concerns are heard, your goals are prioritized, and your health is the primary focus. Leanne works collaboratively with you on your health journey towards improved mobility, reduced pain, and a better quality of life as a physiotherapist who is truly invested in your well-being.

Jess Clarke is a Senior Genetic Scientist at Douglass Hanly Moir Pathology with over 10 years of expertise in germline genetic testing and non-invasive prenatal screening. After working on the 100,000 genome project in London between 2018 and 2020, Jess returned to Australia and to DHM to launch new genomic services as part of a collaborative and innovative team. Soon after, she started training for the faculty of science fellowship in Genetic Pathology offered through the RCPA. Jess is an active member in the field of genomics and is currently the NSW Branch representative for the Australasian Society of Diagnostic Genomics (ASDG). Jess has a passion for providing equitable service for the Australians population and beyond and enjoys mentoring new scientists in the field of genomics.

Rebecca Drummond is a fungal immunologist researching mechanisms of immunity that protect us from fungal pathogens, such as Candida albicans and Cryptococcus neoformans. Her lab is particularly interested in how organ-specific immune responses develop by studying the behaviour of tissue-resident myeloid cells during infection and the microbial response to the environment within host tissues.She currently receives funding from the Medical Research Council, the Wellcome Trust and the Lister Institute for Preventative Medicine.

Dr Renee Denham is an experienced Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist and the Medical Director of the Queensland Children’s Hospital’s CYMHS Eating Disorder Program. For over a decade, she has worked alongside a dedicated team of clinicians in this public program, providing assessment, education, and intensive evidence-based care to young people and their families. In her private practice, Dr Denham has supported many thoughtful adolescents through the challenges of their developmental years. Her work across both public and private settings has deepened her clinical interest in neurodevelopmental conditions and their impact on psychological wellbeing and eating behaviours. Passionate about sharing her insights, she regularly presents lectures and workshops at national forums, contributing to the professional understanding of eating disorders and neurodevelopmental conditions in young people.

Samantha Stuk is an Accredited Practising Dietitian (APD) with 13 years of clinical experience across the public and private health sectors. In additional to her role as Principal Dietitian and Founder of The Nutrition Code, she is a senior dietitian within the Royal Melbourne Hospital endocrinology team. She has a special interest in diabetes (Type 1, Type 2 and Gestational), weight management and bariatric surgery. She is also skilled in heart disease and digestive health – including IBS and coeliac disease, and sports nutrition.

Eef Hogervorst is Professor of Biological Psychology and investigates risk and protective factors for dementia across the lifespan worldwide. She supervised many PhD students in the UK and Indonesia where she also holds several Chairs. One of these students, Aleksandra Gawor, did her PhD in alcohol abuse in students (see article in Conversation). Eef has written over 200 peer reviewed international publications and obtained over £10m of funding for her research with collaborators.

Eef has worked at Loughborough University since 2005 and before that she worked at Oxford and Cambridge University as a researcher. She has regularly been in the news with work on the dementia friendly house, exercise in the class room and exercise for older people to promote learning, mood and independence. She does consultancies in early diagnoses of dementia, dementia design, and hormone, exercise and nutrition treatments to improve cognition and mood.

Prof Carol Wham is Professor Emerita of Public Health Nutrition at Massey University.

She is an experienced dietitian and an Associate Editor of ‘Nutrition and Dietetics’ and ‘Frontiers in Nutrition’ and is a recipient of the prestigious Dietitians New Zealand Award of Excellence in the category of Outstanding Achievement in Dietetics.

Carol has undertaken a sustained programme of research focused on improving the nutritional health of older people.

She has been an investigator in two longitudinal studies of ageing; Life and Living to Advanced Age: a Cohort Study in New Zealand and within the New Zealand Health, Work and Retirement Study. Carol has examined malnutrition risk factors among older people across community, hospital and residential care settings and led the ENRICH study which seeks to Evaluate Nutrition Risk and Intervene to enCourage Healthy eating.

In 2022 Carol was an expert panel member for the development of ‘An evidence-based guide for the identification and nutritional management of malnutrition and frailty in the Australian and New Zealand community’.

Dr Gemma McKibbin is Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Social Work at the University of Melbourne, working with Prof Cathy Humphreys in the Violence Against Women and Children research team. Gemma has a background in gender studies and a PhD focused on the prevention of harmful sexual behaviour carried out by children and young people. Along with an interest in harmful sexual behaviour, Gemma’s research focuses on preventing child sexual exploitation and dating violence, as well as on adult perpetration-focused prevention. She leads a number of child sexual abuse prevention and response action research projects, including Power to Kids with MacKillop Family Services and the Worried About Sex and Pornography project with Jesuit Social Services. Gemma specialises in trauma-informed, child-focused research interviews with vulnerable children and young people. She is passionate about supporting children and young people and providing them with a voice to government.

For Dr Ashish Wadhawan, a GP in Sydney with more than a decade of diverse medical experience, the promise of AI isn’t abstract – it’s part of his daily practice.

Ashish’s interest in AI started years earlier as an Orthopaedic Registrar at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital, where he co-led a project with CSIRO and QUT to develop a deep-learning tool that predicted fracture complexity.

Today, his collaboration with Astra Health reflects his belief that technology must be woven into general practice to deliver lasting improvements.

A/Prof Jennifer Koplin is Group Leader of Childhood Allergy & Epidemiology at the University of Queensland Child Health Research Centre. She leads the Evidence and Translation Hub of the National Allergy Centre of Excellence (www.nace.org.au) and the Food Allergy Prevention stream of the NHMRC-funded Centre of Research Excellence in Food Allergy (CFAR; www.foodallergyresearch.org.au).

A/Prof Koplin has over 15 years of research experience in epidemiology and allergy, and has developed an internationally recognised program of research in the epidemiology of childhood food allergy. Her research has explored the prevalence, natural history, causes and consequences of childhood allergic disease. She has led a series of large population-based allergy cohort studies, is a co-investigator on several food allergy prevention and treatment trials and collaborates on research exploring immunological mechanisms underlying childhood food allergy and improving food allergy diagnosis. A/Prof Koplin has been awarded 6 National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) project grants, 2 consecutive NHMRC fellowships and a Centre of Research Excellence as a chief investigator. She has authored more than 150 peer reviewed journal articles with >4,500 citations and is on the editorial board of the international Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice.

Her recent research focused on using population-based studies to inform the design and implementation of prevention interventions and determine their effectiveness in reducing allergy prevalence at the population level. She also has a strong research interest in the role of infant feeding in allergy prevention and contributed to the development of new Australian and international guidelines on infant feeding for preventing food allergy. In 2018, she received a National Health and Medical Research Council project grant to conduct the first study internationally to measure the impact of these guidelines on infant feeding practices and the population prevalence of peanut allergy.