Velissa Aplin
Phil Batterham
Adam Bourne
Annette Brömdal
Morgan Carpenter
Bridget Haire
Bonnie Hart
Aileen Kennedy
Ashleigh Lin
Ainsley Newson
Ingrid Rowlands
Penelope Strauss
Velissa Aplin
Velissa Aplin is a Chief Investigator with the Interconnect Health Research Project, contributing to Work Packages 1 and 3 and the Project Management Committee.
She brings almost 30 years’ experience in the mental health and trauma informed care fields, during which time they have worked in leadership, training, policy, consulting, research and senior clinical roles. Velissa is currently the Profession Lead for Social Work for Canberra Health Services and the Coordinator of the Variations in Sex Characteristics Psychosocial Service in the ACT. Velissa has contributed to journal publications in the trauma informed care space.
Velissa holds degrees of Bachelor of Arts (Psychology) and Bachelor of Social Work.
Phil Batterham
Professor Phil Batterham is a Chief Investigator with the Interconnect Health Research Project, contributing to Work Package 1 and the Project Management Committee.
He is a Professor and Co-Head at the Centre for Mental Health Research, The Australian National University in Canberra, Australia. He brings to the project extensive experience in implementation science, research design, measurement and mental health. Phil is a research leader in trialing and implementing programs to prevent suicide and mental health problems, detecting mental ill health in the community, and reducing barriers to care.
Phil has won prestigious awards including Rising Star Awards from the International Society for Research on Internet Interventions and Society for Mental Health Research, the Commonwealth Health Minister’s Award for Excellence in Health and Medical Research, NHMRC Research Excellence Award, and the Paul Bourke Award from the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia. He has published >300 peer-reviewed journal articles related to mental health and received >$48M in competitive research funding as a chief investigator. He completed a PhD at ANU in 2011, a Master’s degree in Public Health (biostatistics, 2003, UCLA) and a Bachelor’s degree with honours in Psychology (UNSW, 1997).
Adam Bourne
Professor Adam Bourne is a Chief Investigator with the Interconnect Health Research Project, contributing to Work Package 2. He plays a key role in leading the survey of health and wellbeing among people with innate variations of sex characteristics.
They bring more than 15 years’ experience in health and wellbeing research among marginalised populations with a particular focus on LGBTIQ+ communities. Adam’s research has had wide-reaching impact on health policy, strategy and service provision all across Australia, and in other parts of the world – particularly in relation to suicidality or mental health, alcohol and other drug use, and family violence among LGBTIQ+ communities.
They are currently Director of the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society at La Trobe University and oversees a Centre of nearly 50 staff and 20 HDR students who work focusses on health equity, inclusion and human rights. Professor Bourne is Co-Chair of the Victorian LGBTIQ+ Whole of Government Ministerial Taskforce and served on the LGBTIQ+ Health and Wellbeing 10-year Action Plan Expert Advisory Group. He hold a BSc (Hons) and PhD in health psychology.
Connect with Adam on LinkedIn.
Annette Brömdal
Associate Professor Annette Brömdal is a Chief Investigator contributing to Interconnect’s Work Package 1.
Annette is an Associate Professor in Sport, Health and Physical Education at UniSQ. Prior to this, Annette worked at the United Nations Development Fund for Women (now UN WOMEN) and coordinated projects and initiatives preventing trafficking in women in Thailand by addressing normative dimensions of demand.
Annette’s health promotion and rights research focuses on bodies, gender, and sexuality through co-designing and working in partnerships with LGBTQIA+ Sistergirl and Brotherboy community stakeholders. As an internationally recognised expert, their research contributes to an important evidence-base utilised by multi-stakeholders to alleviate injustices for diverse LGBTQIA+ communities across societal settings.
They have been invited to deliver transgender affirming PDs to international staff caring for transgender persons in prison, provided policy directives to the VIC and the NT Departments of Corrections on transgender incarcerated persons, are currently an Editor for the International Journal of Transgender Health, and have had their work cited by the UN report “Mapping of Good Practices for the Management of Transgender Prisoners” (2020) and the recent Word Professional Association for Transgender Health’s Standards of Care (2022).
Annette’s publications include articles in scholarly journals such as the International Journal of Transgender Health and Intersex – A Challenge for Human Rights and Citizenship Rights (2008 VDM Verlag).
Annette has a Master of Social Sciences from Södertörn University, and a PhD from Monash University.
Morgan Carpenter
Associate Professor Morgan Carpenter is the Chief Investigator – A for the Interconnect Health Research Project, providing lived experience expertise across the Work Packages, and acting as Chair of Work Package 3.
Morgan is an Associate Professor at Sydney Health Ethics, in the University of Sydney School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine and Health. He is an internationally recognised expert on human rights and ethics in relation to the treatment of people with innate variations of sex characteristics (also known as intersex variations or differences of sex development). His work focuses on medicine, health policy and social policy.
Morgan is also the Executive Director of InterAction for Health and Human Rights, a charity that promotes the health and human rights of people with innate variations of sex characteristics through advocacy and psychosocial support services. He is also an inaugural member of the Australian Capital Territory’s new Restricted Medical Treatment Assessment Board, and the New South Wales government’s LGBTIQ+ Advisory Council.
Morgan has been contracted to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Australian Capital Territory government and the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. He is a reference or advisory group member for the Australian Department of Health and Aged Care, Australian Bureau of Statistics and New South Wales Health.
Bridget Haire
Associate Professor Bridget Haire is a Chief Investigator with the Interconnect Health Research Project, contributing to WP 2 (the population survey work package) and as deputy chair of WP 3 (the bioethics work package).
Bridget is an empirical bioethicist with over a decade’s experience in conducting participatory research on sex, sexuality and gender issues in collaboration with community partners. She lectures in public health ethics at UNSW Sydney, and is an associate of the Australian Human Rights Institute. She has an extensive professional background in the HIV community sector an advocate, journalist and policy analyst, and was the President of the Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations from 2015-18.
Bridget has authored more than 115 peer reviewed publications and 10 book chapters. She regularly writes for The Conversation
Bridget holds a Master of Bioethics (hons) and PhD from the University of Sydney.
Connect with Bridget on LinkedIn, ORCID, or Research Gate.
Bonnie Hart
Bonnie Hart is a member of Interconnect Health Research’s Project Management Committee, contributes across the project’s Work Packages and governance committees, and is the Lived Experience Lead and Chair of Work Package 1.
Bonnie is a Research Fellow (Intersex Psychosocial Models of Care) with the University of Southern Queensland, where she is also a PhD candidate. She has published 6 articles and 1 book, primarily on the lived experiences and healthcare and mental health needs of people with innate variations of sex characteristics.
Bonnie is the founding Service Manager of InterLink, the intersex psychosocial support service and is the Deputy Executive Director of InterAction for Health & Human Rights. She is a nationally recognised intersex content expert with 17 years working with the intersex community members as an intersex peer worker, systemic advocate, consultant and mental health worker. Bonnie was an organising signatory of the 2017 Darlington Statement of intersex community consensus and founder of the YellowTick intersex education and inclusion initiative.
Aileen Kennedy
Dr Aileen Kennedy is a Chief Investigator with the Interconnect Health Research Project, contributing to Work Package 3 and the Project Management Committee.
Aileen is a leading national and international scholar on law relating to sex and gender, with a specific focus on research and advocacy on intersex human rights law. She joined the UTS Law Health Justice Research Centre in April 2023 as a Chancellor’s Research Fellow. The focus of Aileen’s current research is to provide an analysis of Australian law as it impacts on the intersex population and develop a comprehensive suite of law reform proposals to promote the human rights of people with innate variations of sex characteristics (IVSC).
Following a Bachelor of Arts/Law (Honours) at Macquarie University (1989) and a Master of Law at the University of Sydney (2006), Aileen completed her PhD at UTS (2021). Her thesis considered the impact of neurological theories of binary gender on judicial decision-making for transgender and intersex minors in Australia. Previously, she has worked in the legal profession and held academic roles at University of New England, University of Western Sydney, UNSW Sydney and Macquarie University.
Aileen is the author of Law, Gender Identity, and the Brain (2024) published by Routledge Press.
Ashleigh Lin
Professor Ashleigh Lin is a Chief Investigator with the Interconnect Health Research Project, the Deputy Chair of Work Package 2, and a member of the Project Management Committee.
Ashleigh is a youth mental health researcher conducting research on the mental health and wellbeing of marginalised young people. She is a Principal Senior Research Fellow at the School of Population and Global Health at The University of Western Australia, and an NHMRC Investigator Fellow. Ashleigh has previously held NHMRC Early Career and Career Development Fellowships.
In 2024, Ashleigh was awarded the UWA Vice Challenor’s Mid-Career Research Award. In 2023, she was awarded the Minister’s Award at the West Australian Mental Health Awards, which recognises someone who has displayed best practice at every level in the mental health sector and proven to hold an all-round skill set to benefit the outcomes of people living with mental health challenges in the community.
Ashleigh has over 200 peer-reviewed publications and has written 3 book chapters. She holds a BSc (Psychology) with Honours (2024) and Masters of Clinical Neuropsychology and PhD (2011) from the University of Melbourne.
Connect with Ashleigh on ORCID and Google Scholar.
Ainsley Newson
Professor Ainsley Newson (she/her) is a Chief Investigator with the Interconnect Health Research Project, contributing to Work Package 3 and the Project Management Committee.
Ainsley is Professor of Bioethics at Sydney Health Ethics, The University of Sydney. She is an internationally recognised expert in the ethical aspects of genomics and human reproduction.
An elected Fellow of the Royal Society of New South Wales (2023), Ainsley has received numerous awards including the Mito Foundation Award for Excellence in Research (2019). She is currently a member of the Australian Health Ethics Committee for the NHMRC, the Gene Technology Ethics and Community Consultative Committee for the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator, and an elected Board member for the International Association of Bioethics (IAB). Ainsley also serves on multiple other advisory bodies including the NSW Health Ethics Advisory Panel.
Ainsley’s work focuses on the appropriate implementation of genomic technologies in health. She has authored over 160 peer-reviewed publications and given more than 120 invited presentations internationally.
Ainsley holds a PhD in Bioethics, Bachelor of Laws (Hons), and Bachelor of Science (Hons) in Human Genetics from the University of Melbourne. Ainsley is endosex.
Ingrid Rowlands
Dr Ingrid Rowlands contributes to the Interconnect Health project as a Lived Experience Lead, Chief Investigator, and Chair of Work Package 2.
She is currently a Senior Research Officer at QIMR Berghofer, and an Honorary Fellow at the University of Queensland’s School of Public Health.
Ingrid has over 15 years’ experience in the management and analysis of complex data from large-scale cohort and case-control studies. Her research primarily focuses on women’s reproductive health across the life course, with expertise in the psychosocial aspects of adverse health conditions including miscarriage, infertility, endometriosis, and gynaecological cancer.
Ingrid has a PhD in Psychology from the University of Queensland, with her doctoral work examined women’s adjustment to miscarriage using data from more than 14,000 young women participating in the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health.
Connect with Ingrid on ORCID.
Penelope Strauss
Dr Penelope Strauss is a Chief Investigator contributing to Work Package 2.
Penelope is currently a Research Fellow in Youth Suicide Prevention at The Kids Research Institute Australia, and an Adjunct Research Fellow at the School of Population and Global Health, Population and Public Health at the University of Western Australia. She recently led the Trans Pathways project, which is the largest study conducted on the mental health of trans and gender diverse young people in Australia. Her current research aims to decrease rates of suicidality among high risk groups of young people in Australia with a current focus on LGBTQA+ young people and homeless young people.
Penelope holds a Master of Public Health from the University of Western Australia and a PhD.