Our People
Hub Directors
- Dr Trevor Steward
Hub Director trevor.steward@unimelb.edu.au
Dr Trevor Steward
Dr Trevor Steward is an NHMRC/MRFF Senior Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne and contributes to a partnership between the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences and the Melbourne Neuropsychiatry Centre. His research is focused on using ultra high-field 7T MRI technology to understand how thalamic and midbrain nuclei contribute to psychopathology. He has worked with a wide range of patient populations and his aim is to leverage neuroimaging tools to deliver treatments that target core symptoms across psychiatric disorders.He has a particular research interest in the neurobiology of eating disorders.
Dr Caitlin Hitchcock
Deputy Director caitlin.hitchcock@unimelb.edu.au
Dr Caitlin Hitchcock
Dr Hitchcock is a clinical psychologist with clinical and research expertise in affective disturbance. Her research program seeks to translate basic cognitive science toward improved treatment practices, by advancing the understanding of the cognitive mechanisms that drive mood disturbance and posttraumatic stress, and drawing from experimental cognitive science to develop novel therapeutic interventions.
Hub Members
- Professor Kim Felmingham
k.felmingham@unimelb.edu.au
Professor Kim Felmingham
Professor Kim Felmingham is the Chair of Clinical Psychology at the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences. Professor Felmingham conducts research examining neurobiological and psychophysiological mechanisms underlying Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, and examines the role of sex and stress hormones in fear extinction, memory consolidation and attentional processes. Specific research questions include examining the impact of stress and sex hormones, sleep and cognitive processes on emotional memory consolidation (intrusive memories), fear extinction, and treatment response in individuals with anxiety disorders and PTSD. The aim of this research is to lead to the development of more targeted and effective treatments for PTSD and anxiety disorders.
- Associate Professor Amy Jordan
ajordan@unimelb.edu.au
Professor Amy Jordan
Professor Amy Jordan is Director of the John Trinder Sleep Laboratory at the University of Melbourne. Amy is a sleep researcher whose primary interest relates to improving mental and physical health via ensuring individuals and groups get adequate quality and quantity of sleep. Thus, her research involves assessing the impact of poor quality or low amounts of sleep on memory, mood, cardiovascular and metabolic variables. She also has an ongoing interest in the condition Obstructive Sleep Apnea and has held numerous grants to investigate both the causes, consequences and new treatments for this condition. More recently she has begun work investigating the relationship between sleep and post-traumatic stress disorder, with the aim of improving PTSD treatment, or even preventing the development of the condition after trauma exposure.
- Professor Lisa Phillips
lisajp@unimelb.edu.au
Professor Lisa Phillips
Professor Lisa Phillips is the Director of Professional Programs at the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences. Her research interests include treatment of youth mental health and psychosis, specifically the development of interventions for young people who are at ‘ultra’ high risk of the development of a psychotic disorder. She has also conducted research into topics as diverse as stigma, university student mental health and well-being, meaning of life and more.
- Associate Professor Jacqueline Anderson
jfande@unimelb.edu.au
Associate Professor Jacqueline Anderson
Associate Professor Jacqueliene Anderson is a researcher in the area of clinical neuropsychology who specialises in abnormal cognitive functioning. She and her lab members use a combination of clinical and laboratory-based tools to investigate adult patient populations with neuropsychological disorders. Her research interests primarily relate to outcome after mild traumatic brain injury and stroke. In particular, she is focused on investigating the neuropsychological (cognitive, behavioural, psychological) and neuropathological aetiologies of individual patient variation in outcome after these events. She has a further specific interest in abnormalities of attention, executive function and subcortical cognitive networks in the context of neuropsychological disorders.
- Dr Litza Kiropoulos
litzak@unimelb.edu.au
Dr Litza Kiropoulos
Dr Kiropoulos is a Senior Clinical Psychologist and head of the Mood and Anxiety Disorders Lab at the University of Melbourne. She and her lab members investigate the biological, psychological, social and cognitive mechanisms and processes involved in the development of affective and anxiety disorders. The research involves the investigation of these processes in both healthy adults and a range of clinical and medically ill groups. This knowledge is applied to develop and evaluate novel and innovative psychological interventions for mood and anxiety disorders and related issues in randomised controlled trials (including targeting various populations such as the medically ill, different cultural groups).
- Associate Professor Katherine Johnson
kajo@unimelb.edu.au
Associate Professor Katherine Johnson
Dr Johnson is a Developmental Cognitive Neuroscientist with an interest in attention and concentration. She and her lab members use a variety of methods to measure focus and attention control in infants, children, and adults. Her clinical research interests include measuring the cognitive and physiological differences associated with children and adults with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) compared with typically developing children and adults. She is interested in examining the effects of exposure to nature on mental well-being and concentration, and the development of memory and attention in infants.
- Dr Christian Nicholas
cln@unimelb.edu.au
Dr Christian Nicholas
Dr Christian Nicholas has a primary research focus of sleep and the mechanisms and consequences of sleep disruption His broad interests include, sleep measurement, cardio-respiratory physiology during sleep and wakefulness; sleep and ageing; sleep, alcohol and substance use and the cause and effects of sleep disruption on mental health. Dr Nicholas and his team conduct research into respiratory and cardiovascular aspects of sleep in the context of Obstructive Sleep Apnoea (including role of upper airway muscle physiology, arousal from sleep and lung volume). They also research the effects of alcohol on sleep and memory in adolescence, fatigue/sleepiness in airline cabin crew, sleep and mental health, sleep and addiction, and sleep disruption and negative memory bias.
- Dr Scott Griffiths
scott.griffiths@unimelb.edu.au
Dr Scott Griffiths
Dr Scott Griffiths in a Senior Research Fellow and leads the Physical Appearance Research Team (PART). Research by PART is uncovering the myriad ways that physical appearance manifests in our everyday lives, including the experience and perpetration of appearance-related discrimination (e.g., weight stigma and colourism), the use of appearance-enhancing substances and procedures (e.g., anabolic steroids and cosmetic surgeries), and the prevention and treatment of appearance-focused psychological disorders (e.g., eating disorders and body dysmorphic disorders). PART is currently running Gay Bodies Worldwide, a 5-year prospective study of body image phenomena among gay and bisexual men living in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Research by PART has attracted various awards and recognitions, including from the Australian Academy of Science, the Australian and New Zealand and North American Academies for Eating Disorders, the Australian Institute of Policy and Science, the Australian Psychological Society, the Association for Psychological Science, the Bauer Media Group, the Society for Mental Health Research, and the Universities of Melbourne and Sydney.
- Dr Isabel Krug
isabel.krug@unimelb.edu.au
Dr Isabel Krug
Dr Isabel Krug is a Senior Lecturer in Clinical Psychology and leads the MSPS Eating Disorders Lab. Her main research focus is to improve the understanding of the genetic, neurocognitive, environmental, and psychological underpinnings of EDs - through a focus n transdiagnostic factors that may be shared across EDs and other mental health conditions .Isabel is also interested in the effectiveness of new treatment modalities for individuals with eating pathology, including mindfulness, oxytocin, TMS, virtual reality and telemedicine. More recently Isabel and her team are using Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) to assess risk factors for eating pathology, including the effects of social media, fitbits and fasting during Ramadan on body image and eating behaviours.
- Dr Chris Groot
grootc@unimelb.edu.au
Dr Chris Groot
Dr Chris Groot is a Senior Lecturer and directs the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences’ Mental Ill-Health Stigma and Teleheath Lab . He and his lab members conduct research focussing on the determinants and lived experience of stigma about severe and complex mental illness in particular. He also has a background in large scale mental health service delivery and has governed the clinical and research aspects of national services including the Suicide Call Back Service, SuicideLine Victoria, ATAPS All Hours Suicide Support Service, Beyond Blue Infoline, MensLine Australia, the Australian Defence Force All-Hours Triage Service, Vietnam Veterans After-Hours Counselling Service, and more.
- Dr Natalia Egorova-Brumley
negorova@unimelb.edu.au
Dr Natalia Egorova-Brumley
Dr Natalia Egorova-Brumley is a Senior research Fellow and Deputy Director of the Cognitive Neuroscience Hub. She is a cognitive neuroscientist with a research interest in the neurobiology of language and pain. Dr Egorova-Brumley is particularly fascinated by how context modifies perception and comprehension of identical stimuli. She is also a clinical neuroimager interested in depression, aging and stroke, and uses multiple neuroimaging tools and methods (EEG, MEG, fMRI, NIRS, tDCS) to investigate brain network states and dynamics. Currently, she is supported by a MSPS Research Fellowship and a Melbourne Research Fellowship. Previously she was an Australian Research Council DECRA Fellow based at the Melbourne University School of Psychological Sciences. She also holds an Honorary appointment at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health.
Dr Genevieve Rayner
raynerg@unimelb.edu.au
Dr Genevieve Rayner
Genevieve is a practicing clinical neuropsychologist and lecturer in clinical neuropsychology at the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences. As a clinician-scientist, she balances her clinical and academic work with her role as a senior neuropsychology research fellow in a world-leading epilepsy research genetics group at the Epilepsy Genetics Research Program. Her program of research aims to explore the neurobiological and psychosocial underpinnings of mood and cognitive disorders in epilepsy and other neurological conditions, using behavioural, neuroimaging, and genetics methodologies.
Dr Margaret Osborne
mosborne@unimelb.edu.au
Dr Margaret Osborne
Margaret holds an interdisciplinary appointment with both the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences and the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music. Her desire to support the mental and physical health needs of artists to achieve optimal performance and sustainable careers has seen her develop new curricula in performance psychology, serve as an Associate Editor for Frontiers in Psychology Performance Science, past-President of the Australian Society for Performing Arts Healthcare, and maintain a consulting psychology practice.
- Associate Professor Brett Deacon
brett.deacon@unimelb.edu.au
Associate Professor Brett Deacon
Brett Deacon is an Associate Professor and Convener of the Clinical Psychology Program at the School of Psychological Sciences at the University of Melbourne. His research interests include anxiety disorders, exposure therapy, and psychiatry’s biomedical model of mental illness. He has published on the efficacy of antidepressants, publication bias in antidepressant trials, the effects of perceiving one’s depressive experiences from a biomedical lens, and the validity and societal effects of the biomedical model.
- Dr Sarah Tashjian
sarah.tashjian@unimelb.edu.au
Dr Sarah Tashjian
Dr Sarah Tashjian is a cognitive neuroscientist and developmental psychologist. Dr Tashjian is the director of the Affective Neuroscience and Development Lab at the University of Melbourne in the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences. Her lab studies how neurobiological changes from pre-puberty through early adulthood influence affect and behaviour. Her research combines high-resolution neuroimaging (7 Tesla fMRI) with novel decision-making tasks and computational modelling to understand the nature of decision making for reward, safety, and threat. She is particularly interested in how development of the adolescent brain confers risk for psychopathology such as anxiety.
- Dr Benita Green
benita.green@unimelb.edu.au
Dr Benita Green
Dr Benita Green is a Clinical Psychologist and Teaching Specialist in the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences. She teaches in the undergraduate and postgraduate programs in clinical and developmental psychology while maintaining clinical work in private practice. Benita’s research is focused on the developmental period of emerging adulthood with a particular interest in adjustment, emotional regulation, anxiety disorders, and attachment dynamics. Benita supervises research projects in these areas. As a teaching specialist, Benita is a member of the MSPS Scholarship of Teaching & Learning (SoTL) Research Group, which conducts collaborative research into teaching and learning practices with the aim of enhancing the student learning experience.
- Dr Elise McGlashan
elise.mcglashan@unimelb.edu.au
Dr Elise McGlashan
Dr Elise McGlashan is a Research Fellow within the John Trinder Sleep Lab at the University of Melbourne. The main focus of her work involves the effects of artificial light on the human circadian system.
- Dr Courtney Walton
courtney.walton@unimelb.edu.au
Dr Courtney Walton
Dr Courtney Walton is a registered psychologist and Academic Fellow within the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences. Utilising both his applied training as a psychologist and multidisciplinary research expertise across the fields of clinical and sport psychology, his work explores mental health within competitive performance environments. His research is primarily focused on the contexts of sport and the performing arts, with a current focus on factors such as psychological safety, self-compassion, body image and gender.
- Dr Rico Lee
rico.lee@unimelb.edu.au
Dr Rico Lee
Dr Rico Lee is an NHMRC Investigator Grant Senior Research Fellow at the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences. Rico leads his own research program in understanding the cognitive mechanisms driving early-stage addictive and mental health disorders and translating this to neuropsychological interventions. More recently, he has extended his research to look at the impact of childhood adversity on the development of attachment style, emotional regulation ability and executive functioning and how these have downstream effects of coping, mental health and addictive outcomes in adulthood. Dr Lee was trained in clinical neuropsychology at Macquarie University and has been a practising psychologist for more than 15 years, including in private practice
- Dr Mary-Ellen Brierley
brierley.m@unimelb.edu.au
Dr Mary-Ellen Brierley
Dr Mary-Ellen Brierley is Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences at The University of Melbourne with expertise in addictive behaviours and mental health.
Hub Support
- Amy Nielson
Hub Coordinator
amy.nielson@unimelb.edu.au
- Po-Han (Terry) Kung
Research Support
pohan.kung@unimelb.edu.au
- Benjamin Stone
IT/Programming Support
benjamin.stone@unimelb.edu.au