Victorian Tafe sector educator in Mental Health, Alcohol and other drugs, and Community Services. Dylan delivers training for students that wish to gain employment or undertake further education in these fields. Qualifications include Masters in Youth Mental Health. Formerly manager Disability Services.

Hilary Smith is the Health Promotion Lead at the National Eating Disorders Collaboration (NEDC) and a dedicated advocate for eating disorder prevention. Hilary led the development of the Eating Disorder Safe principles, which aim to drive positive culture change in the way that society conceptualises health, food, mind and body, as a key pillar in eating disorder prevention and harm minimisation. Hilary has worked in health and human services for over 20 years, from frontline roles to senior leadership and policy development, in fields including child protection, disability services, food relief, community development and, for the past six years, eating disorders. She brings her deep sense of social justice as well as her lived experience to the work.

Professor Jennifer Smith-Merry is an Australian Research Council Industry Laureate Fellow and Director of the Centre for Disability Research and Policy (CDRP). The CDRP is a multi-disciplinary centre whose mission is to make life better for people with disability by developing research and translating this to policy and practice through involvement in partnerships and policy development. Jen has a PhD in policy from the University of Queensland (2005) and her academic research has focused on policy and service development, primarily in mental health and disability. Her current work focuses mainly on the operation of the NDIS for people with psychosocial disability, which is the topic of her 5-year Laureate Fellowship.

After a successful career in business start-ups, Tash turned her focus towards making a positive difference for people who have experienced social injustice, stigmatisation and profound feelings of isolation. Tash joined Mental Health Lived Experience Tasmania (MHLET) in 2019 and has been leading the organisation as CEO since 2021. Tash is passionate about mental health advocacy believing that the way to positive systems change is through listening to and acting upon the voice of people with a lived experience. " It is critical that lived experience organisations remain self-determined, independent from service provision to ensure that those organisation's maintain a strong voice for change."

Becc Spradau uses the pronouns she/her and identifies as a person with disability. Becc is a passionate advocate for inclusion, drawing on her own lived experience as a survivor of trauma and over 15 years’ experience in the social sector in both Australia and Cambodia. Becc has extensive experience across a variety of roles, including program management, leading teams, and providing psychosocial support. Becc is the Acting General Manager Operations for VolunteeringACT and has been actively volunteering since her early years, she believes in the power of volunteering and how it can increase wellbeing for all individuals.

Laura, a dedicated professional with over a decade of experience in the mental health industry. As the Team Leader for the Mental Health in Aged Care program, she plays a crucial role in supporting the well-being of individuals in the Gippsland Region. With a passion for service improvement, Laura tirelessly works to enhance the quality of care provided and constantly seeks innovative ways to elevate the level of support offered to those in need.

Deua Stojanovska is a Family & Carer Researcher at Tandem, the peak body in Victoria, for family, carers and supporters of someone experiencing a mental health challenge. She brings with her a lived-experience as a young family carer in the mental health space and a professional background in anthropology. Deua’s currently involved projects focusing on mental health family carer rights, research and advocacy priorities, and co-leading work on the Family Carer Lived Experience Workforce in Victoria. She has previously held positions at La Trobe University, working on health-related projects with Aboriginal people from remote communities in Central Australia, and culturally and linguistically diverse community leaders in metropolitan Melbourne. These projects focused on issues of accessibility, relationality, and structural & epistemic marginality, exploring how care practices, policies, and resourcing shape local experiences of wellbeing. Deua is also a member of the Family and Carer Research and Advocacy network: https://www.rmit.edu.au/research/our-research/enabling-impact-platforms/eip-networks/facran

Heidi Sturk is the Director of eMHPrac (e-Mental Health in Practice) at Queensland University of Technology. Heidi develops, delivers and evaluates training and support on digital mental health to health practitioners and service providers nationwide. She holds a Master of Organisational Psychology and has over 28 years’ experience working in mental health. Her areas of interest include how to integrate appropriate digital technologies into health care, rural and remote health care practice, and wellbeing of health practitioners.

Chloe (she/her) took part in Satellite Connect in 2023 and became a Youth Advisory Council member in 2024. She hopes to combine her lived experience with her academic background in psychological science and criminology, to advocate and create change in collaboration with other young people. She adores reading and last year read 115 books! She reads from a wide range of genres and is especially passionate about finding books with representation of different minorities, especially own voices novels.

Dr Sunderland is an Associate Professor and Program Lead in Measurement and Methodology at the Matilda Centre for Research in Mental Health and Substance Use, University of Sydney. Dr Sunderland has focused his program of research on the application of sophisticated psychometric techniques to examine salient issues with the existing psychiatric classifications and measurement. This work has included some of the first studies to investigate the role of broad dimensional constructs of psychopathology and their relationship with clinically relevant factors, such as impairment, distress, suicidality, traumatic events, and treatment seeking. His research also seeks to develop instruments that efficiently assess mental and substance use disorders in a more valid and empirically grounded framework as well as tools for sophisticated data harmonisation methods. He has a strong research profile in the field of psychiatric epidemiology and has published extensively on comorbidity between mental and substance use disorders as well as examining trajectories of change in large-scale population-based samples. Dr Sunderland has authored over 150 peer-reviewed scientific publications and reports and has successfully obtained over $22 million in research funds as CI or AI.

I am a researcher passionate about data visualisation and advanced statistical methods. Specializes in time series data analysis, growth mixture modeling, and hierarchical linear modeling. Dedicated to uncovering meaningful insights through innovative techniques, contributing to the field with rigorous analysis and impactful visual representations.

Stephen Suttie is a Regional Manager with Neami National in NSW overseeing a range of Mental Health, Homelessness and Housing Support Services.

Andrew (he/him) is the Eating Disorders Victoria Peer Mentoring Program Coordinator. He is passionate about the power of lived experience in recovery and has previously worked as a Peer Worker in the youth space. Andrew is committed to his work and his core values of compassion, hope, and optimism shine through in everything he does.

Dr Evelyne Tadros is the CEO of the Mental Health Coordinating Council (MHCC) a peak for community-managed mental health organisations across NSW that is also a Registered Training Organisation. Evelyne is also a Board Director with Mental Health Australia (MHA), St John Ambulance NSW and St Vincent de Paul (NSW),

Phyllis Tangitu has worked in Mental Health and Addictions for three decades. She is currently working in Emerge Aotearoa (national NGO), is the Community member on the Mental Health Review Tribunal, NZ, and a member on several national mental health and addiction forums including Platform (national Peak body), Governance group for the Te Tāhū Hauora Health and Quality Commission (NZ), and the mental health and addictions partnership group (NZ). Additionally, Phyllis is a strong advocate for Te Tiriti o Waitangi (Treaty of Waitangi), Indigenous Health/Maori Health, and improving health outcomes for Maori families (whanau) experiencing distress and mental health issues.

Clinical Psychologist working in public and private sector.

Amanda Tattersall is an Associate Professor of Practice in urban geography, bringing decades of experience in change making and community-led research to the university and to some of the toughest problems we face. Amanda is the founder of some of Australia’s most interesting social change organisations. She brought Alinsky-style community organising to Australia, founding the Sydney Alliance in 2007 and serving as its Executive Director until 2016. In 2005 she co-founded the digital campaign juggernaut GetUp.org.au. In 2017 Amanda launched the ChangeMakers podcast to share stories about people changing the world. Her first book Power in Coalition was the first international study of alliance building as a strategy for social change. It was based on her PhD research as well as on her experiences as an organiser in the union movement and other social movements. At the University of Sydney her research focuses on two interconnected fields - social change strategy and community-led research methods where knowledge is co-created with affected communities. Amanda lives with bipolar and has drawn from her lived experience to begin to build a community-led research project about the impact that work and school have on mental illness.

Monica Taylor is The Deputy Commissioner Commissioning and Programs at the Commission, having previously held the inaugural role of Executive Director Mental Health Nursing where she focused on our workforce to lead the development of the WA MH Nurse Capability Framework. As Deputy Commissioner Commissioning and Programs, Monica oversees our Treatment Services, Prevention, Community Support and Strategic Management teams. Monica is an experienced executive, who has held a variety of leadership roles over the past 15 years, and has been a Mental Health Nurse for over 30 years. She has a history of working in the hospital and health care industry within the WA health sector and is skilled in health care management, organisational development and patient safety. Monica brings a skill set in clinical governance and has applied this as an Australian Council of HealthCare Standards assessor for over 10 years.