Strategic Communications Subcommittee

Natalie Amos

Dr Natalie Amos is a Research Fellow with the Interconnect Health Research Project, contributing to Work Package 2. Natalie will help manage the design and conduct of the survey of health and wellbeing among people with innate variations of sex characteristics.

Natalie is a Research Fellow with the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society (ARCSHS), La Trobe University, specialising in LGBTIQA+ health and wellbeing. She led the knowledge translation of findings from Australia’s two largest surveys, to date, on the health and wellbeing of LGBTQA+ young people (Writing Themselves In 4) and adults (Private Lives 3). She also currently leads the evaluation of the How2 training program, designed to assist organisations to provide inclusive environments and services for LGBTIQA+ individuals, as well as the Accessible Pride project, which is developing training and resources to improve the capacity of those in the LGBTIQA+ and disability sector to work inclusively with LGBTIQA+ people with intellectual disability. These projects are central to informing and shaping national health policies and practices.

Kate Burry

Dr Kate Burry is a Post-doctoral Research Fellow with the Interconnect Health Research project, contributing to Work Packages 2 and 3. She is also an Associate with the Australian Human Rights Institute, UNSW.

Kate brings over a decade of experience in sexual, domestic and family violence, human rights, and sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice. She has led research on the sexual and reproductive health and rights of sex workers in Luganville, Vanuatu; barriers to sexual and reproductive health services remote communities in Vanuatu; and reproductive abuse and coercion in New Zealand and Australia. Kate’s PhD explored reproductive (in)justice in the Pacific islands and included an empirical study on Cook Islands women’s experiences accessing abortion from their legally restricted context.

Kate has published in bioethics, health and social work journals, and in a book on sexual and reproductive justice.

Kate holds a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Development Studies from Victoria University of Wellington, and a Doctor of Philosophy in Medicine from the University of New South Wales.   

Connect with Kate on LinkedIn and ORCID.

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 or has been a reference or advisory group member for the Australian Department of Health and Aged Care, Australian Bureau of Statistics and New South Wales Health.

Connect with Morgan on LinkedIn, ORCID, and BlueSky.

James Fowler

Dr James Fowler (he/they) is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow within the Interconnect Health Research Project and based at The University of Southern Queensland. James contributes to Work Package 1 including the evaluation of the InterLink Program.

James’ background is in the design and evaluation of mental health support programs and building affirming and inclusive models of care. This includes their PhD, which explored the acceptability and efficacy of digital, self-guided mental health programs for LGBTQ+ people in Australia. James holds a simultaneous appointment at The University of Queensland, Poche Centre for Indigenous Health, where they coordinate the ‘Blak and Proud’ study. Beyond this, James is involved in a range of projects focused on healthcare access and utilisation, primarily within LGBTQ+ communities and using mixed-method designs.

James currently serves on the Queensland Government’s LGBTQIA+ roundtable and previously was a Youth Advisor for Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Foundation. In acknowledgement of James’ contributions to diversity and inclusion, James was nominated for two ‘Queens Ball’ awards in 2023 and won The University of Queensland’s ‘Ally Award’ in 2022.

James holds a Bachelor of Psychological Science (Honours I) from The University of Queensland and will complete his PhD in 2025. James is also an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

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.

Connect with Bonnie on LinkedIn and ORCID.

Katie Gabriel

Katie Gabriel is the Project Coordinator supporting the Interconnect Health Research Project.

Katie has more than 10 years’ experience supporting public engagement programs and community-engaged research in the social justice and public policy spaces. She is passionate about applying her extensive administrative, project management and operational management skills to support projects that make life better for underserved communities

She previously served as Executive Officer at the Sydney Peace Foundation and Sydney Policy Lab at the University of Sydney, and was the Institute Coordinator at the NSW Public Policy Institute (now Australian Public Policy Institute) during its establishment period.

Katie has a Bachelors of Arts, with double majors in Politics/International Relations and Social Justice from the University of Notre Dame Australia.

Connect with Katie on LinkedIn.

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.

Connect with Aileen on LinkedIn and ORCID.

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.

Alyssa Morse

Dr Alyssa Morse is a Chief Investigator with the Interconnect Health Research Project, contributing to Work Package 1, and is Chair of the Interconnect Strategic Communications Subcommittee.

Alyssa is an emerging leader in lived experience mental health research. Currently, she is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Mental Health Research, The Australian National University (https://researchportalplus.anu.edu.au/en/persons/alyssa-morse). Previously, Alyssa held a Suicide Prevention Australia Post-Doctoral Fellowship. She led the South Western Sydney Local Health District (SWSLHD) arm of a co-created evaluation of Safe Haven suicide prevention services, working in partnership with the SWSLHD Towards Zero Suicides Initiative team. Alyssa’s research focuses on three main areas: (1) improving lived experience involvement in health policy, services and research, (2) prevention and promotion in youth mental health, and (3) mental health service evaluation.

Alyssa is a co-author of “This is doin’ My Head in’: The Ethics of Psychological Research” a chapter in the recently published Routledge Handbook of Human Research Ethics and Integrity in Australia (Edited by Bruce M. Smyth, Michael A. Martin, and Mandy Downing, 2024, Routledge International Handbooks).

Alyssa holds a PhD from the John Curtin School of Medical Research, ANU.

Connect with Alyssa via ORCID.

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.