7th National Brain Injury Conference – Speakers announced

John Corrigan, Emeritus Professor in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Ohio State University in the United States, will deliver the Transport Accident Commission International Keynote Address to the Conference. He is also Director of the Ohio Valley Center for Brain Injury Prevention and Rehabilitation and, since 1997, has led the Ohio Regional Traumatic Brain Injury Model System – the longest, continuously-funded of 16 centres throughout the United States, aimed at improving the lives of 1,150 Ohioans who have sustained a traumatic brain injury, their families and communities by creating and disseminating new knowledge about the course, treatment and outcomes relating to their disability. He is also Editor-in-Chief of the most prestigious international journal in traumatic brain injury, the Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Brain Injury Association of America and the Neurological and Behavioral Health Subcommittee of the United States’ Department of Defense’s Defense Health Board. He has authored more than 150 peer reviewed publications and has received many awards for his service to brain injury rehabilitation, including the Brain Injury Association of America’s William Fields Caveness Award, the 2007 Robert L. Moody Prize and the Gold Key Award from the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine. Alongside delivering the Transport Accident Commission International Keynote Address, Professor Corrigan will also participate in panel discussions on domestic and family violence and brain injury, and concussion and “mild” traumatic brain injury.

Jennie Ponsford AO is Professor of Neuropsychology and Director of Clinical Programs in the School of Psychological Sciences at Monash University and Director of the Monash-Epworth Rehabilitation Research Centre at Epworth Hospital in Melbourne. She has spent almost 40 years years engaged in clinical work and research with adults and children with brain injury. Her research has investigated outcomes following mild, moderate and severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) and factors predicting outcome. She has also evaluated the efficacy of numerous rehabilitative interventions to improve outcome. She has published over 320 journal articles and book chapters, and two books on rehabilitation following traumatic brain injury. Professor Ponsford is Past-President of the International Neuropsychological Society, Past-President of the International Association for the Study of Traumatic Brain Injury and the Australasian Society for the Study of Brain Impairment (ASSBI), and serves on the Executive of the International Brain Injury Association and ASSBI. In 2013, she was awarded the Robert L. Moody prize for Distinguished Initiatives in Brain Injury and Rehabilitation and, in 2015, the International Neuropsychological Society’s Paul Satz Career Mentoring Award. In June 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.

Peter Schofield is Conjoint Professor in the School of Medicine and Public Health and in the School of Psychology at the University of Newcastle. He is Clinical Director of the Neuropsychiatry Service and a senior staff specialist in Neurology with the Hunter New England Local Health District. Trained in neurology and geriatrics in Australia and in behavioural neurology and epidemiology at the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Centre and Columbia University in the United States, his practice includes the evaluation of patients with a wide range of neuropsychiatric disorders, including those secondary to traumatic brain injury. His research interests include the epidemiology of dementing disorders, the development of novel instruments for the early detection of cognitive disorders and Alzheimer’s disease, and neuropsychiatric issues in offending populations, particularly traumatic brain injury and violence.

Judge Eugene M. Hyman was a Judge of the Superior Court of California, for the County of Santa Clara for 20 years. He presided over domestic violence-related cases in the criminal, family, probate, and juvenile divisions of the Court. In 1999, with assistance of the probation department, the Juvenile Domestic Violence and Family Violence Court was founded, believed to be the first dedicated juvenile court in the US.  The Court received a United Nations Public Service Award in 2008 for its innovation. Judge Hyman has lectured in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Germany, besides the US on domestic violence prevention. Judge Hyman gave evidence to the Victorian Royal Commission Into Family Violence.

Jo Tully is Deputy Director of the Victorian Forensic Paediatric Medical Service at the Royal Children’s and Monash Children’s hospitals. Jo was a general paediatrician for 20 years before deciding to specialise in forensic paediatrics. Her work with the Service involves providing a medical service to children under the age of 18 years in whom physical or sexual abuse, neglect or emotional maltreatment is suspected. Jo has extensive experience in the evaluation of infants and children who have suffered inflicted traumatic brain injury, presenting evidence in court and education and training in the field of childhood inflicted head trauma.

Professor Bruce Bonyhady AM is the Executive Chair and Director of the Melbourne Disability Institute at the University of Melbourne. He is also an Enterprise Professor in Disability Economics, one of the key architects of the National Disability Insurance Scheme and was Chairman of the National Disability Insurance Agency from 2013 to 2016.

Discounted Conference “early bird” registration is now open. Spaces are strictly limited. Register for the Conference, here.

Further information about the Conference program will follow shortly. For more information, contact the Conference producer, Interpoint Events, on 1300 789 845 or info@interpoint.com.au