MEET THE
SPEAKERS
PLENARY SPEAKERS
KAY DOUBLE
Professor of Neuroscience, The University of Sydney
ANS ELSPETH MCLACHLAN PLENARY LECTURE
PRESENTATION TITLE: Alchemy and the Brain - Biometals, Molecules and Disease
Kay Double (PhD, Habil.) is Professor of Neuroscience at the Brain and Mind Centre and School of Medical Sciences (Neuroscience) at The University of Sydney. Her research focuses on the neurochemistry of degenerative disorders with the dual aims of characterising molecular pathways underlying neurodegeneration and developing disease-modifying treatments for these disorders. She has a particular interest in the role of biometals and metalloproteins in neurological disease, leading to her team identifying the first molecular link between Parkinson disease and motor neuron disease. Supported by the NHMRC and international granting bodies, she leads multidisciplinary, collaborative teams, including active development of early career researchers.
MARTA GARRIDO
Professor in Psychology, Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences
ANS LAWRIE AUSTIN PLENARY LECTURE
PRESENTATION TITLE: THE INSIGHT OF BLINDSIGHT: Brain Shortcuts for (E)motion Perception
Professor Marta Garrido leads the Cognitive Neuroscience and Computational Psychiatry Laboratory, is a Chief Investigator on the ARC Centre of Excellence for Quantum Biotechnology and is the Director of the MEG facility at The University of Melbourne. Prof Garrido initially trained in Engineering Physics at the University of Lisbon and then did a PhD in Neuroscience at University College London. Prof Garrido has over 20 years of experience in the fields of human neuroscience, brain imaging (fMRI, DWI, MEG, EEG) and computational modelling. Her team seeks to understand how the brains of typical individuals and people with psychiatric conditions learn from experience and make decisions. To date, Prof Garrido has produced over 100 peer-reviewed publications, some in the world’s most prestigious journals including Science, Nature Neuroscience, Nature Mental Health, Nature Communications, Nature Methods, eLife, Current Biology, and PNAS. Her work has been cited over 8000 times, and she has secured over A$60 million in competitive funding as a chief investigator. The quality of her work has been recognised by prestigious awards including the Paxinos-Watson Prize and the Aubrey Lewis Award. Marta is a past Program Chair of the International Organisation for Human Brain Mapping and an advocate for Open Science.
BARRY DICKSON
NHMRC Leadership Fellow, Queensland Brain Institute
ANS PLENARY LECTURE
PRESENTATION TITLE: Neural Circuits for Spatial Navigation in Drosophila
JOHN CRYAN
Professor & Chair, Anatomy & Neuroscience, University College Cork
Principal Investigator, APC Microbiome Institute
ANS INTERNATIONAL PLENARY LECTURE
PRESENTATION TITLE: Gut Feelings: The Microbiome as a Key Regulator of Brain & Behaviour Across the Lifespan
John F. Cryan is Professor and Chair of the Department of Anatomy & Neuroscience at University College Cork (UCC) and has served as Vice President for Research & Innovation since 2021. He is also a Principal Investigator at the APC Microbiome Institute. He holds a BSc in Biochemistry and a PhD in Pharmacology from the University of Galway, Ireland. He was a visiting fellow at the University of Melbourne in 1996/1997 before completing postdoctoral training at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia and The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla. He spent four years as a Group Leader at Novartis in Basel before returning to Ireland and UCC in 2005.
His research focuses on the microbiome-gut–brain axis and its role in stress, psychiatric, and immune-related disorders across the lifespan. He is co-author of the bestselling book The Psychobiotic Revolution and serves on more than 15 different editorial boards.
Prof. Cryan has received numerous international awards and was elected to the Royal Irish Academy in 2017. A past president of the European Behavioural Pharmacology Society, he is currently Treasurer of European College of Neuropsychopharmacology. An avid science communicator, he has delivered TEDMED and TEDx talks and was featured in the Netflix documentary Hack Your Health: The Secrets of the Gut.
ANTONIO DI IEVA
Professor of Neurosurgery, Macquarie University
Professor of Neurosurgery, Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research
Associate Professor of Neuroanatomy, Medical University of Vienna
ANS ECCLES PLENARY LECTURE
PRESENTATION TITLE: Brain Patterns: In search of the Holy Grail of Neuroscience
Dr. Antonio Di Ieva is Professor of Neurosurgery at Macquarie University, Professor of Neurosurgery at the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research, and Associate Professor of Neuroanatomy at the Medical University of Vienna. He specialises in neuro-oncology, skull base surgery, microneurosurgery and endoscopic neurosurgery, pain neuromodulation, peripheral nerve surgery, spine surgery, and computational neurosurgery.
He leads the Computational NeuroSurgery (CNS) Lab, which he founded in 2018. Prof. Di Ieva has published more than 200 peer-reviewed articles and five textbooks, including the Handbook of Skull Base Surgery (Thieme, 2015), The Fractal Geometry of the Brain (Springer, 1st Ed. 2016; 2nd Ed. 2024), the Computational Neurosurgery textbook (Springer, 2024), and Computational Neuroscience (Springer, 2026). He has also authored an educational book on biology (in Italian).
He has secured more than $9 million in research funding, including a prestigious Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellowship, several major grants from the NHMRC, and the John Mitchell Crouch Fellowship from the RACS. A global pioneer in computational modelling, fractal analysis, and AI in neurosurgery, Prof. Di Ieva established the world’s first Computational Neurosurgery Fellowship and organised the inaugural World Conference of Computational Neurosurgery (Sydney, February 2026).
He also leads courses on neuroanatomy and connectomics in Australia and abroad, having introduced the first hands-on workshops on white matter dissection in Australia, attended annually by 20 neurosurgeons and trainees. Beyond the foundation of the computational neurosurgery field, his research contributions include the description of new neuroanatomical structures, the concept of clinical aggressiveness in pituitary neuroendocrine tumours, the application of computational fractal-based analysis to neuro-oncology and to the cognitive neurosciences, advances in neuroimaging sequences and connectomics, the advancement of the use of the endoscope in skull base surgery (including orbital
surgery), and the standardisation of neurotraumatology protocols. Furthermore, Prof. Di Ieva operates pro bono in the Solomon Islands.
BRONWYN GRAHAM
Professor in Psychology, UNSW Sydney
Director, Centre for Sex & Gender Equity in Health & Medicine at the George Institute for Global Health
BPA ISAAC SCHWEITZER LECTURE
PRESENTATION TITLE: Ovarian Hormones and Female Mental Health: Separating Fact from Fiction
Bronwyn Graham is a Professor in the School of Psychology at UNSW Sydney and the inaugural Director of the Centre for Sex & Gender Equity in Health & Medicine at the George Institute for Global Health. A clinical psychologist and behavioural neuroscientist, Bronwyn has dedicated her career to improving women’s mental health by researching how the female brain regulates emotions and translating the findings to clinical settings and beyond. Her work has led to new practice guidelines for treating anxiety disorders in women, and RACGP-accredited training programs for mental health care professionals. At the Centre, Bronwyn's team has led policy changes to improve the integration of sex and gender considerations in medical research and healthcare, and raised awareness of sex and gender differences in health and disease amongst researchers, health practitioners, and the general public. Bronwyn is funded by the Australian Research Council, the National Health & Medical Research Council, the Wellcome Trust, and she has held numerous national and international fellowships. She has published over 90 research articles and chapters, and has supervised over 40 honours and postgraduate students.
TREVOR STEWARD
Associate Professor, University of Melbourne
Director, Brain and Mental Health Hub
BPA AUBREY LEWIS AWARD
PRESENTATION TITLE: When the Self Turns Against Itself: The Neuroscience of Negative Self-Beliefs
Trevor Steward is an Associate Professor at the University of Melbourne and Director of the Brain and Mental Health Hub, where he leads interdisciplinary research on the brain mechanisms that contribute to transdiagnostic mental health symptoms. His work has a strong focus on eating disorders, with a track record of designing and directing large research programs, mentoring emerging scientists, and building collaborative research networks that bridge psychology, psychiatry, and neuroscience. He is the co-author of over 110 publications, including in leading journals such as Molecular Psychiatry, Nature Mental Health, and Biological Psychiatry.
Redmond O'Connell
Professor in Decision Neuroscience, Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience
ACNS PLENARY LECTURE
PRESENTATION TITLE: Tracing Decisions as they Evolve in the Human Brain
Redmond O’Connell is Professor in Decision Neuroscience at the Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience and School of Psychology, Trinity College Dublin. He received his BA and PhD from Trinity College Dublin in 2003 and 2007 and has held Senior Research Fellowships at the University of Queensland and Monash University. The O’Connell lab have used a combination of psychophysics, computational modelling and a variety of neuroimaging techniques to examine the neural processes that underpin perceptual decisions. This has led to significant progress in our understanding of the reference frame for representing decisions in the brain, the regulation of speed-accuracy tradeoffs and the origins of choice biases. Redmond’s work has been funded by European Research Council Starting (2015-2020) and Consolidator (2021-2026) awards as well as numerous project grants from Research Ireland, the Australian Research Council and the National Science Foundation (USA). He is currently a member of the Board of Reviewing Editors at eLife.
