KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Emerita Associate Professor Astrid Berg
MBChB (Pret), FFPsych (SA), MPhil (Child & Adolescent Psychiatry)

University of Cape Town
A/Prof Extraordinary
University of Stellenbosch
President World Association for Infant Mental Health

Astrid Berg is a Psychiatrist, Child & Adolescent Psychiatrist as well as a Jungian Analyst. She is an Emerita A/Professor at the University of Cape Town and A/Professor Extraordinary at the Stellenbosch University. While she has been active in the International Association for Analytical Psychology (IAAP) in the past, she focused on and developed her clinical and academic interest in infant mental health, organizing two national and one international conference, all of which contributed to the development of the field in South Africa. She has been on the Executive Committee of the World Association for Infant Mental Health (WAIMH) and is its current President. 

Keynote Address:
“There is no such thing as a mother without a baby” – the importance of the infant for the parents’ mental health

Professor Emily Callander
Professor of Women’s Health Economics, Monash University

Professor Emily Callander is a health economist specialising in maternal and women's health. Emily is a Professor of Women’s Health Economics at Monash Centre for Health Research and Implementation, Monash University. 

Emily gained a PhD, and Postdoctoral training at the University of Sydney, School of Public Health, NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre and Charles Perkins Centre. She has held NHMRC Doctoral Scholarship, NHMRC Early Career Fellowship and NHMRC Career Development Fellowship support. 

Emily leads a Women’s Economics and Value-Based Care research program, externally funded by a number of NHMRC and MRFF grants. This includes undertaking economic evaluation alongside randomised controlled trials, measuring costs and outcomes with real-world linked administrative data, and conducting local-health service level economic modelling. This work has improved health service provision across Australia and internationally. 

Emily is a member of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee Economics Subcommittee, where she provides economic advice on all new drugs seeking public subsidisation through the PBS; and the Medical Services Advisory Committee Evaluation Subcommittee where she provides economic advice on all services seeking public subsidisation through Medicare. Emily is the only individual to sit across both committees.

Keynote Address:
Value in maternal health - costs, and physical and mental health outcomes for the benefit of women, families and infants

Geneva Foster
Strengthening Early Years Project Coordinator, Nunkuwarrin Yunti of SA Inc.

She is a proud Zenadth Kes woman with connections to Badhu Island and is a dedicated mother of four and Aucka to three beautiful grandbabies. Whilst being on her own journey to reconnect and re identify herself and family to culture, it has become her passion to connect other First Nations bubs and families to their culture too.

Geneva is an AHPRA registered Enrolled Nurse and has been working at Nunkuwarrin Yunti across several roles including maternity care, infant child health and development, and parenting and family support within Women Children and Family Health programs. Geneva has completed significant training relevant to her role in various areas including Introductory certificate in Infant Mental Health, Marte Meo, Circle of Security Parenting and Baby Massage for Bonding and has experience in applying a range of culturally validated tools used for screening and assessment in maternal and child health.

Geneva has been the project coordinator for Wakwakurnaku Kumangka Pudnathi, family support group for about a year and has been actively involved with the project since its conception at the beginning of 2023

Keynote Address:
Honouring First Nations children and families’ voices through Wakwakurnaku Kumangka Pudnanthi (Children’s Gathering Place) Family Support Group

Associate Professor Jane Kohlhoff
University of New South Wales & Karitane

Jane Kohlhoff is an Associate Professor in the Discipline of Psychiatry and Mental Health, University of New South Wales, Director of Research at Karitane, and a registered clinical psychologist. Jane conducts perinatal, infant and early childhood mental health research, with particular focus on attachment theory and clinical applications, prevention and early intervention models, and the roles of early environmental and biological factors in the intergenerational transmission of risk and resilience.

Together with colleagues, Jane has secured over $10 million in research funding including from the Australian Research Council (ARC), National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), NSW Ministry of Health, and Paul Ramsay Foundation. She collaborates widely and has published over 100 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters. She is a co-developer of an attachment-based early intervention program called Parent-Child Interaction Therapy with Toddlers, and has led several real-world trials to evaluate its effectiveness. She has led perinatal mental health research programs at several Sydney-based hospitals, and she currently leads the evaluation of the ForWhen national perinatal and infant mental health navigation service. She is an active member of Australian Infant Mental Health community, serving on the Australian Association for Infant Mental Health (AAIMH) Board of Directors and President of Healthy Attachment Australia and New Zealand (HAANZ).

Keynote Address:
‘Scaling’ with heart and mind: Supporting the perinatal and infant mental health of regional, rural, and remote communities

Associate Professor Jacqui Macdonald
School of Psychology and SEED Lifespan Strategic Research Centre, Deakin University
Convener of the Australian Fatherhood Research Consortium

Associate Professor Jacqui Macdonald is an Australian research leader in paternal mental health and health system access from Deakin University’s SEED Lifespan Research Centre and School of Psychology. She convenes the Australian Fatherhood Research Consortium. She has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed publications and currently leads a Medical Research Future Fund project, 1 in 10 men: Informing prevention of and treatment for paternal mental health problems. She is a chief investigator on the Australian Research Council project, How Australian fathers shape the trajectory of their children’s wellbeing. She is a founding member of the Australian Men and Boys Health Alliance, a scientific advisor to the Australian Longitudinal Study of Male Health and on the Movember Global Men’s Health Advisory Committee. Much of her research uses longitudinal and intergenerational studies that track the lives of boys to men to fathers and then their children into the next generation. In these, she studies opportunities to prepare and then support men who go on to become parents. She is committed to collaborating with researchers, services, practitioners, policymakers and fathers from across Australia and internationally to ensure effective care is available for fathers, so that they may care for their families.
 
Keynote Address:
What about the dads? Building a system of care for fathers

Dr. Samantha Meltzer-Brody
MD, MPH

Executive Dean, UNC School of Medicine
Assad Meymandi Distinguished Professor
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Dr. Meltzer-Brody was named the Executive Dean of the UNC School of Medicine in January 2025.   From 2019 until March 2025, she served as the Assad Meymandi Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she also directed the UNC Center for Women’s Mood Disorders. Dr. Meltzer-Brody is an internationally recognized physician-scientist in perinatal depression. Her research has investigated epidemiologic and biological predictors of perinatal depression and innovative treatment approaches. She served as the academic PI for psychopharmacologic clinical trials to develop the first FDA approved medication for postpartum depression (brexanolone), and served as an investigator for the newly approved oral drug (zuranolone) for PPD.   She has also served as a co-PI for a PCORI funded study to scale psychotherapy for perinatal depression using trained non-specialists and virtual care delivery.  Dr. Meltzer-Brody has received numerous awards for her work.  She was awarded the 2023 NIH Clinical Center Distinguished Clinical Research Scholar and Educator in Residence, named to the 2022 Forbes list of 16 Healthcare Innovators You Should Know, and received the 2020 UNC O Max Gardner award, a UNC System Award (17 universities) for the highest faculty honor. 

Keynote Address (virtual):
From Bench to Bedside: The Development of Novel Neurosteroid Therapeutics as an Innovative, Rapidly Acting Treatment for Postpartum Depression  

Bec Turner
Connecting the Early Years Programs Manager, Nunkuwarrin Yunti of SA Inc.

Bec is a manager of programs supporting young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and families in metropolitan Adelaide and has almost 20 years’ experience working within the Aboriginal Community Controlled health and wellbeing sector. She is passionate about providing safe and nurturing environments and services for pregnant women, babies, children, and their families through holistic and culturally appropriate supports that are coordinated, responsive and accessible. Complimenting Bec’s professional experience is her lived experience of navigating services and systems as a parent of Aboriginal and neurodiverse children herself, giving her a genuinely felt experience of the challenges and barriers that families face. Bec has a strong appreciation of the role a non-Indigenous employee holds within a community-controlled organisation and recognises the need to preference First Nations’ ways of knowing, being and doing when working in this space. She strives to be continually experienced as an ally by truly embedding families’ lived and living expertise across the programs she manages and by ensuring the voices of children and their families are consistently informing practice and service delivery.

Keynote Address:
Honouring First Nations children and families’ voices through Wakwakurnaku Kumangka Pudnanthi (Children’s Gathering Place) Family Support Group