KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Alison is Professor in Human Nutrition and Director of the Alliance for Research in Exercise, Nutrition and Activity (ARENA) Research Centre based in Allied Health and Human Performance at the University of South Australia. She is a Registered Nutritionist and the Immediate Past President of the Nutrition Society of Australia.

Alison's research focuses on dietary strategies to improve cardiovascular and metabolic function with a focus on bioactive nutrients in foods and supplements, as well as the impact of altered timing of eating. She is currently working on weight loss trials in adults focused on a wide range of health outcomes.

Dr. FLAV is a Brazilian-born, Canadian-raised, Australian-made scientist, dietitian, nutritionist, researcher and entrepreneur. She was the first dietitian in Australia to be internationally board-certified in Lifestyle Medicine. She believes that science, technology, and creativity can go a long way in solving some of the problems we face globally in health and wellbeing.

Dr. FLAV is a natural science translator and is passionate about simplifying science to empower people with knowledge. She is an engaging speaker that has the ability to use great analogies to explain complex science to her audience. Dr. FLAV loves nutrition science, and makes it fun.

As the founder and CEO of NRAUS (Nutrition Research Australia), she maintains her independent and credible voice on all things nutrition, health and wellbeing. She is also the co-founder of Food is Cool, where nutrition in schools is done differently. Food is Cool empowers everyone to have a positive relationship with food for life, while making food cool! Dr. FLAV is also a fellow of the Australasian Society of Lifestyle Medicine, Adjunct Lecturer at Newcastle University and Honorary Associate at the University of Sydney.

Professor Adrienne O'Neil is the Co-Director of the Food & Mood Centre and an NHMRC Emerging Leader (2). She is a behavioural scientist who specialises in promoting the use and quality of evidence-based lifestyle medicine and rehabilitation in mental health and cardiac settings. Her research focuses on understanding shared pathways, pathophysiology, risk factors and treatment of mental and physical disorders with a focus on lifestyle interventions.

Adrienne has led several large trials evaluating lifestyle therapies for mental health and was the co-Chair of the World Federation of the Society of Biological Psychiatry first ever clinical guidelines for lifestyle based mental health care for depression. She has 145 publications and $25 million in research funding.

Carmine M. Pariante is Professor of Biological Psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London, and Consultant Perinatal Psychiatrist at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust.

He investigates the role of stress and inflammation in the pathogenesis of mental disorders and in the response to psychotropic drugs, both in clinical samples and experimental settings.

His work focuses on depression and fatigue, with a particular interest in the perinatal period and in subjects with medical disorders. Moreover, he also uses experimental and cellular models. More recently, he has developed an interest in the effects of the arts, social prescribing, and nutritional interventions, on mental health.

He has published more that 450 papers, with a Google Scholar H-Index of >100, and has received numerous awards for his research, most recently the 2012 "Academic Psychiatrist of the Year" Award from the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the 2015 Anna-Monika Prize for Research on Depression, the 2016 PNIRS Normal Cousins Award for Research in Psychoneuroimmunology, the 2017 Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Field of Infant Mental Health, the 2017 NARSAD Distinguished Investigator Award (one of the most prestigious international research awards in psychiatry), the 2018 Art of Neuroscience Award, Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Netherlands) and the 2021 Psychiatric Communicator of the Year by the Royal College of Psychiatrists. He is also the appointed Editor in Chief of the journal Brain Behaviour and Immunity, the President of the International Society for Psychoneuroendocrinology, and a 2018-2021 Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researcher.

His dream is that new therapeutic tools targeting the stress and inflammatory systems will soon be available to alleviate the suffering of patients with mental health problems.

Professor Pariante has extensive experience in reaching out to the press on topics related to mental health, with >60 media appearances in newspapers, magazines, radio and TV. He can be followed on Twitter and Instagram on @Pariantelab and on the digital publication that he edits, www.inspirethemind.org.

Zoltán is Professor at James Cook University. He was previously University Lecturer in the Department of Pharmacology, University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Pembroke College, where he was Director of Studies for Medicine. He trained at McLean Hospital at Harvard Medical School and at The Rockefeller University, supported by the DuPont-Warren Award and a NARSAD Young Investigator Award, respectively. His group described the role of stress neuropeptides oxytocin and corticotropin-releasing factor in addiction, for which he was awarded the Richter Prize by the International Society of Psychoneuroendocrinology and the efficacy of ketogenic diet in preclinical models of schizophrenia.

Zoltán was appointed Lady Davis Visiting Professor at Technion-Israel Institute of Technology to study the neuro-metabolic aspects of schizophrenia. He currently serves on the Executive Committee International Society for Nutritional Psychiatry Research. He is Associate Editor for Nutritional Neuroscience and Frontiers in Neuroscience, and editorial board member of Stress.

Jonathan Swann is a Professor of Biomolecular Medicine in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Southampton and Visiting Professor in the Department of Metabolism, Digestion, and Reproduction at Imperial College London. He leads a metabolomic-based research programme to understand the influence of gene-environment interactions on the mammalian metabolic system and their implications for development, health, and disease. His primary interests involve developing analytical techniques and models to study the metabolic interactions between the gut microbiome and the mammalian host and he has a specific interest in the microbiota-gut-brain axis.