CRE personnel
Chief Investigators
Stuart Kinner leads the Justice Health group at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute and is a Professor of Health Equity at Curtin University. Stuart’s research focusses on the health of marginalised and justice-involved people. 
Louisa Degenhardt is a Scientia Professor, Senior Principal Research Fellow and Deputy Director at the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre (NDARC), Faculty of Medicine, UNSW. Louisa conducts diverse epidemiological studies including analysis of large-scale community and clinical population surveys, data linkage studies focusing upon people with a history of drug dependence or chronic pain, and cohort studies of young people. 
Nicola Reavley is a Principal Research Fellow and Deputy Director of the Centre for Mental Health, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health at the University of Melbourne. Her research focuses on the population monitoring and interventions to improve population mental health and mental health literacy and reduce stigma and discrimination. 
Rebecca Ivers is Head, School of Population Health, UNSW Sydney, honorary Professorial Fellow at the George Institute for Global Health, and NHMRC Senior Research Fellow. Rebecca leads a global research program focusing on the prevention and management of injury. 
Alex Brown is an Aboriginal medical doctor and is the Scientific Director, Aboriginal Health Grand Challenge at Telethon Kids Institute. His research focuses on overcoming disparities in health outcomes for Aboriginal people, with a particular emphasis on chronic disease as the primary contributor to life expectancy differentials. 
Dr Nick Scott is the Head of Modelling and Biostatistics at the Burnet Institute. Using data collected through field studies and surveillance systems his models generate quantitative evidence on the expected population-level impact of interventions, which provides practical advice to policy makers on the appropriate level and timing of responses to diseases. 
Associate Investigators
Tim Olds is Professor of Behavioural Epidemiology at the University of South Australia. His recent research has been into how people use their time and how that impacts their health. 
Dr Kim Sweeny is a Principal Research Fellow in the Institute for Sustainable Industries and Liveable Cities (ISILC) at Victoria University. His current main research focus is health economics, specialising in estimating the returns to investment from interventions aimed at reducing the burden of disease. 
Associate Professor Rohan Borschmann is a Principal Research Fellow at the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health. His research focuses on the mental health of adolescents and marginalised young people, with particular expertise in self-harm, substance use and antisocial behaviour during adolescence. 
Professor James Scott leads the Child and Youth Research Group at the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute. His research interests include prevention and intervention strategies in youth mental health. 
Professor Harvey Whiteford is a psychiatrist and expert in psychiatric epidemiology and in mental health policy and services. He is Chair in Population Mental Health at the University of Queensland 
Dr Moreno-Betancur is a Senior Research Fellow at The University of Melbourne and the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. She leads research that focuses on the development of statistical methods that are motivated by the issues arising in clinical and population health research, with particular focus in the areas of causal inference, missing data and survival analysis. 
Dr Margie Peden is a Senior Research Fellow and Head of the Global Injury Programme at the George Institute for Global Health. Margie’s work focuses on how to prevent unintentional injuries, particularly in resource-strapped countries. 
Professor David Burgner is a paediatric infectious diseases clinician scientist. He has considerable experience of using data linkage, large population-derived and high-risk cohorts to understand the early development of cardiovascular and metabolic risk. 
David Wilson is a Professor of Data & Analytics with expertise in modelling, health economics, and data science. 
Emerging Leaders Network
The Emerging Leaders Network (ELN) of the Centre of Research Excellence for Driving Global Investment in Adolescent Health includes PhD students, post-doctoral researchers, and young professionals working in adolescent health. The ELN is a mechanism to encourage professional development via peer-to-peer learning and mentoring and further develop research skills with a goal of fostering young researchers and professionals in adolescent health to achieve independent funding and high level outputs.
Aaron Miatke completed a Bachelor of Human Movement in 2011 and Bachelor of Health Science (Honours) in 2016. Since then, he has worked as a research assistant on various research projects focused on physical activity, biomechanics and adolescent health. Aaron has recently started a PhD investigating empirical reallocation of time and the effects of these choices.
Alex Thomas is currently undertaking a Masters of Biostatistics with the Biostatics Consortium of Australia (BCA) through Monash University and has a keen interest in data driven and qualitative approaches to resolving health inequity. Alex completed his Bachelor of Psychological Science in 2016 with Griffith University in Queensland, taking an interest in cognitive neuroscience and community mental health. Throughout his career, Alex has worked in a range of community mental health and emergency relief organisations as a support worker.
Dr Amy Peden is a Research Fellow and lecturer in Injury Prevention, Epidemiology and Control within the School of Public Health and Community Medicine at UNSW. Her research focuses on drowning prevention, with a focus on regional and remote communities, rivers, alcohol and social determinants of health.
After a 15-year clinical career as a physiotherapist, Dot started a PhD at UniSA in 2015. Her thesis presented a case for using compositional data analysis for time-use data (e.g., physical activity, sleep, sedentary behaviour). Dot commenced a co-funded NHMRC/Heart Foundation Early Career Fellowship in 2019 to explore how machine learning optimization methods can be used to describe optimal time use for health and wellbeing. 
Dr Farnaz Sabet is a General Practitioner with extensive experience in Global Health practice and policy. She recently completed her PhD, looking at “Evaluating the Outcomes of Participatory Women’s Groups for Pregnant Adolescents” using data from six trials and qualitative research from the state of Jharkhand, India.
Dr Jessica Kerr holds joint positions at University of Otago, Christchurch and the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, Melbourne. She has expertise in the fields of adolescent and adult nutrition, obesity, cardiovascular and mental health (with special interests in personality).
Karly Cini is a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne Department of Paediatrics, supported by a NHMRC postgraduate scholarship and a top-up scholarship from the Centre for Research Excellence – Driving Global Investment in Adolescent Health.
Kate Francis has completed a Masters of Biostatistics and works as a biostatistician with the Centre for Adolescent Health and the Clinical Epidemiology Biostatistics Unit, at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. Prior to completing studies in biostatistics and working at Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, Kate worked for over a decade as research fellow and project manager on a variety of behavioural and health research projects for universities and not‐for‐profit organisations.
Krystina Wallis is a Research Officer coordinating the National Adolescent Mental Health Surveys (NAMHS) project in Indonesia, Kenya and Vietnam. The project aims to gather nationally representative data to understand prevalence of mental disorders alongside risk and protective factors and service utilisation in adolescents.
Lindsay Pearce completed her Master of Public Health at the University of British Columbia (2017) and an undergraduate degree in Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University (2015) in Vancouver, Canada. She moved to Melbourne in January 2020 to join the Justice Health Unit (University of Melbourne) after several years coordinating and conducting research on issues relating to the opioid overdose crisis in British Columbia, Canada. Throughout her early career, Lindsay’s research and work has focused on the health and health care experiences of vulnerable populations including people who use drugs, people living with HIV and Hepatitis C, homeless and street-involved youth, and people exposed to the justice system. She is interested in the application of both quantitative and qualitative methodologies to elucidate the stories of these populations and drive evidence-informed health system change. 
Dr Lucas Calais Ferreira completed a PhD in Epidemiology and has expertise in traditional and genetic epidemiologic methods applied to observational study designs, and quantitative data analysis using Stata and R. 
Margaretha has worked as a lecturer in the Faculty of Psychology at Universitas Airlangga in Indonesia and as a professional Counsellor for children and adolescents.
Dr Patricia (Trish) Cullen is a provisionally registered psychologist and National Health and Medical Research Council Early Career Fellow in the School of Population Health at UNSW. Her research spans public health, psychology and implementation science. Incorporating multi-methodological approaches, my research centers on co-design, implementation and evaluation of optimal care for women and young people with a focus on integrating trauma and violence informed care in health settings. 
Dr Peijin Hu completed her PhD in the area of child and adolescent health at the Peking University Health Science Center. She participated in several nationwide surveys on constitution, health and health risk behaviours of children and adolescents in China, and has experience on study design, implementation and data analysis.
Seth Westhead is an Aboriginal Research Associate with Wardliparingga Aboriginal Health Equity Theme, South Australian Health & Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI). Through his research work, Seth strives to better understand how social and cultural determinants drive health and social inequities within society. He seeks to better equip Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities with tools and evidence for public health advocacy and enable the translation of research into meaningful action. 
Dr Shilpa Aggarwal is a child and adolescent psychiatrist based in India. She received her basic training in Medicine and Psychiatry from leading hospitals in Delhi and Mumbai, India and completed advanced training in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry from Australia. She is a passionate advocate for mental health for all and works towards developing the infrastructure to support research in low- and middle- income countries. Her research involves designing novel ways of delivery of mental health in resource limited settings. 
Dr Yanhui Dong is a researcher at the Institute of Child and Adolescent Health at the School of Public Health at Peking University. His career has focused on the nationwide epidemiological investigation of health problems occurring in children and adolescents exploring risk factors, relevant reasons and mechanisms.
CREYATE (CRE Youth Advocates TEam)
Objectives
The CRE is proud to have appointed a partnership group of young advocates. CREYATE is a group of young people from Australia, China and Indonesia with varying levels of experience in research and advocacy. CREYATE was formed to provide a youth perspective to the CRE, and to assist in ensuring the research is relevant to the lived experience of young people and aligns with existing advocacy efforts.
The objectives for this group are to:
- Ensure youth perspectives inform the CRE work plan.
- Facilitate communication with young people, advocates and their organisations about the work of the CRE.
- Discussion of further priority areas for the CREs research.
- Ensure research outputs are useful to the work of youth advocates.
- Advise on strategies for CRE program areas to engage meaningfully with young people.
- Support CRE partnerships with young advocates, their networks and organisations.
Angelica Ojinnaka (she/her) is a researcher and youth advocate, with expertise in the public health, youth mental health, advocacy, and policy sector on both national and international forums. Angelica is a Master of Research Candidate at Western Sydney University, exploring children and young people’s experiences within the Australian service system. Her interests include addressing intersecting marginalisation, health inequities, and youth leadership. Angelica is a founding member of the African Australian Youth Suicide Prevention Group, and recipient of the 2021 NSW Premier’s Youth Medal. She is a Nigerian second-generation migrant, currently living on the Wattamattagal land of the Darug Nation.
Diandra Priambodo (she/her) is a clinical year medical student at Universitas Indonesia with experience in medical research. Her growing passion for adolescent health in the past year has connected her to peers in the area. Currently she is active in different groups, including the Indonesian Adolescent Health Association (AKAR Indonesia) and The SMART TEENS Project (The Social Skills Mastery and Resilience Training against Tobacco and E-Cigarette using E-Learning and Social Media Project) under the Indonesian Pediatric Society. She also writes content for Reprodukasi, where she advocates for accessible sexual and reproductive health (SRH) education for Indonesian adolescents. Outside of health, Diandra’s love for connecting with people drives her eagerness to be active in the Australia-Indonesia space where she is presently involved with the Australia-Indonesia Youth Association (AIYA) and Asia Options. 
Effy Abbsar (She/Her) Effy currently lives in Clayton, on the land of the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung and Bunurong People. She is studying a Bachelor of Arts and Sciences at Monash University, majoring in psychology and mathematics with a philosophy minor. She is currently an ACCESS Monash Mentor and English and Mathematics MYLN tutor for the Department of Education and has worked with the City of Greater Dandenong as a peer-research assistant. Her research on pregnancy infrastructure and gender equality was presented at the 2020 International Conference of Undergraduate Research, and she plans to pursue further research through a Masters in data/computer science.
Ivy Craw (she/her) is a Project Assistant and musician currently living on the Wathaurong land of the Kulin Nation. On the sidelines, Ivy is passionate about using community events as conduits to enable support services to engage with young people directly. In this space, she volunteers at farmers markets with the Queenscliff Rural Australians for Refugees and works in the music industry as a youth advocate/artist in local rock outfit ‘Porpoise Spit’.
Luo Li (she/her) currently lives in China, is a Master of Public Health student, with a biomedical background from the university of Melbourne. She is an aspiring public-health focused graduate researcher and advocate who is also a passionate volunteer who has been involved in some non-for-profit organisations and university communities. Ashley is the current vice-president of Melbourne Population and Global Health Student Society, which is dedicated to improving student life at the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health. 
Jasmine Elliott (she/her) is a 4th year medical student at Monash University on Wurundjeri Land but calls Gladstone (QLD) home. Her lived experience with mental illness in regional Australia has given Jasmine insight into the impact of fragmented care on recovery and an appreciation for the importance of strong transitions between acute and community, and youth and adult services. She is a Young Leader with the CHF Youth Health Forum, member of the headspace National Youth Reference Group, eheadspace Peer Support Moderator and Chair of the Australian Medical Students’ Association Rural Health Committee. 
Sophia Garlick Bock (she/they) – currently lives on Gadigal land. Sophia has a background in psychology and criminology, and currently works as a Research and Evaluation Coordinator at ReachOut. Sophia’s interests include youth mental health, LGBTIQ+ health and comorbidity between mental health and drug and alcohol use. Sophia has been on both sides of co-design with young people and is extremely passionate about youth voices being amplified in research.