Keynote Speakers

Keynote speakers are internationally recognised experts in their field, promising delegates an exciting and challenging program. Keynote speakers confirmed to attend include:

Professor Judy Atkinson
Director, Gnibi College of Indigenous Australian Peoples, Southern Cross University
Professor Judy Atkinson identifies as a Jiman / Bundjalung woman who also has Anglo-Celtic, and German heritage. With a PhD from QUT, her primary academic and research focus is in the area of violence and relational trauma, with its attendant substance misuse, and healing for Indigenous, indeed all peoples. She developed the Masters in Indigenous Studies (wellbeing); the undergraduate degree Trauma and Healing , and the Diploma of Community Recovery. Her book: Trauma Trails – Recreating Songlines: The transgenerational effects of Trauma in Indigenous Australia, provides context to the life stories of people who have moved/been moved from their country in a process that has created trauma trails, and the changes that can occur in the lives of people make connections with each other and share their stories of healing.
Professor Steve Allsop
Director, National Drug Research Institute, Curtin University of Technology
Professor Steve Allsop is the Director of the National Drug Research Institute at Curtin University of Technology. He has previously worked as the A/Executive Director, Drug and Alcohol Office, Western Australia. He acts as:
- Chair of the Australian Capital Cities Lord Mayors Drug Advisory Group;
- Chair, Brand Advisory Committee, Healthway;
- Deputy Chair of the Board of the Drug and Alcohol Office (WA);
- Member of the Child Death Review Advisory Panel, Ombudsman (WA); and
- Member, Health Advisory Committee, Healthway.
He is a Senior Editor for the international journal Addiction and a member of the International Editorial Board of the journal Drugs: education, prevention and policy. He has almost 30 years experience in the drug field working with health, law enforcement, education, welfare staff and community organisations.
Viki Briggs
Manager, Centre for Excellence in Indigenous Tobacco Control
University of Melbourne
Viki is a Yorta Yorta woman from Northern Victoria. She is the Manager of the Centre for Excellence in Indigenous Tobacco Control (CEITC), a national tobacco research, policy and advocacy program that seeks to increase knowledge and capacity in the area. She is also a Senior Lecturer in Indigenous Health Promotion at The University of Melbourne. Previously, Viki was for eleven years the Aboriginal Program Coordinator at the Quit Campaign based at the Cancer Council of Victoria. She also sits on committees relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tobacco control and health promotion including the Department of Health and Ageing Tobacco Reference Group and was a member of the Tobacco Working Party with the Preventative Health Taskforce. Viki has authored and presented papers at a number of national and international health-related conferences. This is Viki's twenty-fifth year working in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health eighteen of which have been in Indigenous Tobacco Control.
Professor Rob Donovan
Professor of Behavioural Research & Professor of Social Marketing
Curtin University of Technology, WA
Rob Donovan is Professor of Behavioural Research in the Faculty of Health Sciences, Adjunct Professor of Social Marketing in the School of Marketing at Curtin University, and principal of Mentally Healthy WA’s Act-Belong-Commit campaign. He has held academic positions in marketing in several US universities and been a Visiting Scientist at the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia. He has had extensive commercial marketing and advertising experience for a variety of state and national clients (including a stint in the marketing department of a major brewery). In 1974 he founded Donovan Research, a marketing research company which was absorbed first by NFO WorldWide and is now part of TNS Research. He has an international reputation in social marketing and health promotion with approximately 175 (co-authored) books, book chapters and journal publications since returning to academia in the early 1990s. He has provided expert court testimony on the marketing practices of the tobacco and pharmaceutical industries and served on many state and national committees on a variety of topics. He is currently a Vice-president of the Board of Relationships Australia WA, Deputy Chair of the WA Ministerial Council on Suicide Prevention and Australia’s representative on the World Anti-Doping Agency’s Education Committee.
Dr Martin Iguchi
Professor and Chair, Department of Community Health Sciences
UCLA School of Public Health, Los Angeles
Martin Y. Iguchi is Professor and Chair, Department of Community Health Sciences, UCLA School of Public Health, and Adjunct Senior Behavioral Scientist, RAND, where he formerly served as Director of the Drug Policy Research Center. Iguchi is PI of the coordinating center for a multi-city Sexual Acquisition and Transmission of HIV Cooperative Agreement Program funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA); PI of the Los Angeles site of a two city (NY and LA) study of aging performing artists, and Pacific Node PI of a three node CTN study of barriers to treatment entry and retention among API drug users.

His recent publications examine the sexual diffusion of HIV from drug users to non-drug users, drug courts, how the criminalization of drug use exacerbates health disparities in Black and Hispanic communities, racial differences in marijuana acquisition behaviors that might elevate risk for arrest, motivational interviewing, cost-effectiveness, health-related quality of life in methamphetamine users, drug policies, contingency management treatment for chronically depressed cocaine abusers, shaping abstinence in smokers, HIV medication adherence, and prescription drug abuse. Iguchi has extensive experience working in community treatment and prevention settings.

He has developed and directed community drug abuse treatment intervention programs including methadone treatment, treatment of stimulant use, transitional case management, and street-outreach to individuals at risk for HIV. He was a founding Board member of AIDS Services in Asian Communities (ASIAC), a Philadelphia CBO providing services to gay asian men for the past 14 years.
Professor Neil McKeganey
BA MSc PhD FRSA
Professor and Director Centre for Drug Misuse Research
University of Glasgow
Neil McKeganey is a sociologist by training and has undertaken research into areas as diverse as drugs and prostitution, drugs and crime, drug abuse treatment the impact of parental drug use on children, drug policy and drug prevalence. He is the author of over 150 academic papers and six books including "Beating the Dragon the Recovery from Dependent Drug Use".
In 1994 Neil McKeganey opened the Centre for Drug Misuse Research at the University of Glasgow which has grown into one of the leading research groups working in the substance use field in the UK.
In 2008 Professor McKeganey was invited to the White House to discuss his research particularly around young people's drug use. Professor McKeganey has written about the development of harm reduction in drug policy and practice and in 2010 will publish his latest book "Controversies in Drugs Policy and Practice" (Palgrave).
Professor McKeganey is a frequent commentator in the media on drug related matters although he does not hold any governmental advisory positions stressing instead the importance of academic independence.
Professor Tim Stockwell
Director, Centre for Addictions Research of BC and Co-Leader of the BC Mental Health and Addictions Research Network
Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Victoria, Canada
Tim Stockwell was Director of Australia's National Drug Research Institute and Team Leader for NDRI's Alcohol Policy Team from 1996 until mid-2004 before taking his present appointment in Canada. His research has covered a wide range of aspects of alcohol policy, treatment methods, liquor licensing issues, taxation and the measurement of drinking patterns and their consequences. He previously served as a Lecturer at the Addiction Research Unit, Institute of Psychiatry, University of London and as a Principal Clinical Psychologist for Alcohol and Drug Services, Exeter Health Authority, England.

He has undertaken research for organizations such as the World Health Organization, Health Canada, the Department of Health (UK), Health Departments of several Australian and Canadian jurisdictions, the Australian Department of Health and Family Services, the National Mental Health and Research Council, the WA Health Promotion Foundation, the Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission and the United Nations Drug Control Program. He served as a Director of the Alcohol Education and Research Foundation (Australia), a member of the Board of the Drug and Alcohol Office of Western Australia, the Australian National Expert Advisory Committee on Alcohol, the National Alcohol Strategy Working Group (Canada), the WHO Alcohol Policy Strategy Committee and as President of the international Kettil Bruun Society for Social and Epidemiological Studies on Alcohol.
Dr Norman Swan
Master of Ceremonies
Host of the Health Report, on ABC Radio National, presenter of Health Minutes on ABC News Radio, health commentator, speaker and facilitator, Dr Norman Swan, is a multi-award winning broadcaster and journalist.

One of the first medically qualified journalists in Australia, Norman was born in Scotland, graduated in medicine from the University of Aberdeen and later obtained his postgraduate qualifications in Paediatrics.

Joining the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in 1982, he has won numerous awards for his journalism and broadcasting.

In addition to the Health Report and Health Minutes, Norman edits his own newsletter, The Choice Health Reader, which is published in partnership with CHOICE.

On television, Dr Swan has hosted ABC Television's science program, Quantum, and is a guest reporter on Catalyst and has been a reporter on Four Corners. He hosted Health Dimensions on ABC Television, and created, wrote and narrated a four part series on disease and civilisation, "Invisible Enemies", made for Channel 4(UK) and SBS Television.
Dr Alex Wodak
Director, Alcohol and Drug Service, St Vincent's Hospital, Victoria
Dr Alex Wodak is a physician and has been Director of the Alcohol and Drug Service, St Vincent’s Hospital since 1982. His major interests include prevention of HIV among injecting drug users, brief interventions for problem drinkers, prevention of alcohol problems, treatment of drug users and drug policy reform.

Dr Wodak is President of the Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation and was President of the International Harm Reduction Association (1996-2004). He helped establish the first needle syringe programme (1986) and the first medically supervised injecting centre (1999) in Australia when both were pre-legal. He often works in developing countries on HIV control among injecting drug users. He has published over 200 scientific papers. Dr Wodak helped establish the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre (1987), the NSW Users AIDS Association (1989), the Australasian Society of HIV Medicine (1990) and the Australian needle syringe programme annual survey (1995).
Dallas McKeown-Young
Centre for Excellence in Indigenous Tobacco Control
Onemda VicHealth Koori Health Unit
Centre for Health
Dallas McKeown-Young is a Project Officer with the Centre for Excellence in Indigenous Tobacco Control at the University of Melbourne. Dallas has been involved in the area of Indigenous health for many years and has extensive experience in tobacco control including program development and implementation, research and evaluation through to policy advice. Dallas facilitates a one day course, "Talkin' Up Good Air" which supports Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities to address tobacco smoking.