Speakers - Brain Injury Conference

	MARK BAYLEY is Professor and Coriat Family Chair in Rehabilitation Innovations at The University of Toronto and Program Medical Director and Physiatrist-in-Chief at the University Health Network-Toronto Rehabilitation Institute. He leads large-scale national and international implementation science and knowledge translation research aimed at improving recovery from brain injury, including the International Cognitive (“INCOG”) Rehabilitation Guidelines after Traumatic Brain Injury. His work has redesigned brain injury and stroke rehabilitation systems in Canada.
	DR. EVE VALERA is Director of the Valera Lab, an Associate Professor in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and a Research Scientist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. For the last 25 years she has pioneered the study of Domestic and Family Violence and Acquired Brain Injury in women, receiving the prestigious Robert D. Voogt Founders Award from the North American Brain Injury Society in recognition of her work. Dr. Valera was the first researcher to use neuroimaging to investigate the effects of Domestic and Family Violence on women’s neural connectivity and cognitive function. She has authored over 50 publications and is a reviewer for more than 60 journals and travels the world training stakeholders – shelter workers, clinicians, law enforcement, judicial officers etc. – and raising awareness of this global epidemic.
	ALYSON NORMAN is an Associate Professor at Plymouth University in the United Kingdom. For nearly 20 years she has researched brain injury, with a keen focus on the experiences of family members (in 2014, her brother took his own life after sustaining a brain injury in his early twenties). She is a member of the British Association of Brain Injury Case Managers, a Trustee of Headway Somerset, and Deputy Chair of Anchor Point – a special interest group where people with different experiences and knowledge of families affected by brain injury can connect, contribute, inform and improve service provision by working together to build family-centred expertise, information, research and resources.
	DR. JULIENNE LONG has worked for the Prosecutor’s Office in Columbus City, Ohio for the past 9 years and in the field of victimisation for over 20 years. She currently holds a supervisory role at the Prosecutor’s Office in the Domestic Violence and Stalking Unit and is a consult on the Blueprint for Safety Initiative, addressing the justice system’s response to Domestic and Family Violence protocols and procedures. She interned with the Ohio Domestic Violence Network in their policy division and is a consultant to Ohio State University’s College of Public Health, with a focus on brain injury from Domestic and Family Violence. She holds a doctorate in Forensic Psychology from Walden University, and frequently trains justice system personnel about the dynamics and dangers of interpersonal violence. Additionally, she is an adjunct professor to the criminology and psychology departments of Chicago School of Psychology, Grand Canyon University and Purdue University Global.
	PROFESSOR JON PATRICIOS has been a sports medicine physician for 28 years. He is currently Director of Waterfall Sports Orthopaedic Surgery in Johannesburg, South Africa and Professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of the Witwatersrand where he leads the Wits Sport and Health Research Group. He is founder and Director of Sports Concussion South Africa, a sports concussion consultant to World Rugby, a board member of the international Concussion in Sports Group, co-chair of the scientific committee for the International Consensus Conference on Concussion in Sport, was a member of the independent concussion advisory panel for the Fédération Internationale de Football Association’s (FIFA) 2022 World Cup and in 2023 joined the Union of European Football Associations’ (UEFA) Head Injury Advisory Committee. He is an editor of the British Journal of Sports Medicine and served two terms as President of the South African Sports Medicine Association.
	KATHERINE PRICE SNEDAKER is the Executive Director and Founder of PINK Concussions – a preinjury education and post-injury medical care advocacy organisation for women and girls with brain injury, including concussion incurred from sport, violence, accidents or military service. Katherine has presented for the last ten years on sex differences in brain injury for organisations such as the US Department of Veterans Affairs, Boston Children’s Hospital, Ohio State University, and the International Brain Injury Association. Alongside moderating online support groups for over 5,000 people, her work has featured in the New York Times, Scientific American, Marie Claire, US News and World Report, The Washington Post, and in interviews with Good Morning America, the BBC, NBC News, Fox News, ESPN and Al Jazeera.
	PROFESSOR LEANNE TOGHER is the Conjoint Professor of Allied Health for The University of Sydney and the Western Sydney Local Health District, with responsibility for the research productivity of over 1500 allied health professionals. She is also Director of Communication Sciences and the Acquired Brain Injury Communication Lab at the Sydney School of Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health. She has been the recipient of three National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Senior Research Fellowships and authored more than 200 papers, 4 books and over 20 book chapters. In 2018, she was awarded the 2018 NHMRC Elizabeth Blackburn Clinical Research Fellow for the highest ranked female research fellow applicant in the NHMRC Fellowships Scheme in the field of Clinical Medicine and Science – the first allied health professional in Australia to receive this award. She is Vice Chair of the International Brain Injury Association and Chair of Brain Injury Australia.
	JENNIE PONSFORD AO is Professor of Neuropsychology in the School of Psychological Sciences and Director of the Monash Epworth Rehabilitation Research Centre at Monash University. For over forty years, she has conducted clinical work and research with individuals with Traumatic Brain Injury, investigating outcomes and the efficacy of rehabilitative interventions, with over 470 publications including two books. In 2017 she was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia for distinguished service to medical research in the field of neuropsychology and through seminal advances in the diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation of patients with traumatic brain injuries. In 2020, 2022 and 2023 The Australian newspaper named her Australia’s leading researcher in the field of “Rehabilitation Therapy”.
	BRUCE POWELL’S thirty years as a physician included service as a naval medical officer, specialist anaesthetist, director of intensive care and oversight of Western Australia’s organ and tissue donation program. In 2018, Bruce sustained a severe Traumatic Brain Injury from a bicycle accident. He now writes about, and advocates for, people with a brain injury.
	CHÉ PHILLIPS sustained a severe Traumatic Brain Injury in 2009, when he fell off a cliff riding a motorbike. Two years later, he returned to work as a physiotherapist and now works with the Community Therapy Team for Medibank’s “HealthStrong” on Queensland’s Gold Coast.
	IAN CAMERON is Professor of Rehabilitation Medicine and Head of the John Walsh Centre for Rehabilitation Research, both at Norther Sydney Local Health District and the University of Sydney, and Senior Staff Specialist Division of Rehabilitation and Aged Care at Hornsby Ku-ring-gai Health Service and Southern NSW Local Health District. His clinical and research interests are in rehabilitation, ageing, frailty, disability and healthcare services.
	SUSAN HILLIER is a Professor of Neuroscience and Rehabilitation at The University of South Australia. In both her clinical practice and her research, she is interested in finding the best, most effective ways to deliver rehabilitation. This spans from new approaches such as sensory and awareness training to delivery methods such as intensive circuit classes or group programs or adapting existing approaches to meet rehabilitation needs, such as yoga. She is also interested in the systems aspects of rehabilitation – who can access it and how, service structures, quality indicators and how best practice can be implemented for all.
	NAT COOK has been a Member of Parliament in South Australia since 2014. Before entering politics, she spent nearly 30 years as a nurse in specialty areas including brain injury rehabilitation. After her 17 year-old son, Sam, died in 2008 due to a Traumatic Brain Injury from a one-punch assault, Nat and her husband set up The Sammy D Foundation which has “educated over 180,000 young people about the consequences of violent behaviour, and the risks associated with alcohol and drug misuse”.
	GRAHAME SIMPSON is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Medicine and Health at University of Sydney, Leader of the Brain Injury Rehabilitation Research Stream at the John Walsh Centre for Rehabilitation Research and Director of Brain Injury Rehabilitation Research Group at the Ingham Institute for Applied Medical Research in Sydney. His research specialises in clinical, psychometric, intervention and translational research. He has dual professional qualifications as an accredited social worker and registered psychologist, with more than 35 years’ experience as a clinician and researcher at the Liverpool Hospital Brain Injury Rehabilitation Unit. He is Co-Editor of Brain Impairment – the official journal of the Australasian Society for the Study of Brain Impairment – an Editorial Board member for the Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation and co-founder of the International Network of Social Workers in Acquired Brain Injury.
	ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR LIBBY CALLAWAY is an occupational therapist who has worked extensively in health and disability policy and practice for over thirty years in Australia and the United States. She currently works across the Rehabilitation, Ageing and Independent Living (RAIL) Research Centre and Occupational Therapy Department at Monash University, where she leads a program of research focused on housing, technology and workforce design that is co-designed and co-produced with people with lived experience of disability. She also works clinically as an occupational therapist with people with acquired brain and spinal cord injury in her community-based private practice, Neuroskills. After five years as the President of the Australian Rehabilitation and Assistive Technology Association (ARATA) – the national non-profit peak body for assistive technology stakeholders in Australia – Libby has now taken up an augural position as ARATA’s strategic executive advisor.