Australian Public Health Conference 2026

Nicole McCartney is a proud Yorta Yorta woman living on Bunurong country in Victoria. From a long line of strong matriarchs and advocates for Aboriginal rights, Nicole is a respected leader with over twenty years’ experience in Aboriginal health.

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As the inaugural Victorian Chief Aboriginal Health Adviser, Nicole has spearheaded the delivery of an Aboriginal Health and Wellbeing Division that is focused on embedding self-determination and cultural safety in the Victorian health system. Over the last 3 years, Nicole has worked tirelessly to deliver a culturally safe COVID-19 health response for Aboriginal people in Victoria.

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Jordie Campbell is a values-driven leader working at the intersection of Indigenous health, community wellbeing, sport, and systems change. With extensive experience across Aboriginal community engagement, program leadership, partnerships, and strategic advocacy, Jordie has built a strong reputation for creating culturally safe initiatives that improve outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

Jordie has led programs focused on participation, mental health, youth development, water safety, and community empowerment. His work has centred on ensuring Indigenous voices are not only consulted, but embedded in decision-making, governance, and long-term reform.

Jordie brings practical insight into how organisations can move beyond intention to measurable impact -through genuine partnership, self-determination, and strengths-based approaches to health. He is passionate about closing equity gaps by connecting culture, prevention, participation, and community-led leadership.

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Sandra, whose family are Noongar from the Minang, Goreng and Kaniyang clans in south-west Western Australia, has made outstanding contributions to the epidemiology of Indigenous child health in Australia, as well as national leadership in Indigenous health research. In 2003 Sandra was Australia's first Aboriginal medical doctor to be awarded a Doctorate of Philosophy, at the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research, in Perth. That same year, she was recognised as NSW Woman of the Year for her work in paediatric and perinatal epidemiology, identifying links between social factors, such as housing, and infant health. Sandra leads a new NHMRC Centre for Research Excellence focused on Aboriginal child and adolescent health, and is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Science.

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Professor Zoe Wainer is the inaugural Director General of the Australian Centre for Disease Control, where she is responsible for establishing Australia’s national public health agency and strengthening the nation’s preparedness for emerging health threats and future pandemics. The Australian CDC provides independent, expert advice on disease prevention, surveillance and response, working with state and territory governments and international partners to protect the health of Australians.  

Professor Wainer is a highly experienced, values-driven C-suite leader who has worked across government, health services, academia and the private sector. Prior to leading the Australian CDC, she served as Deputy Secretary for Community and Public Health at the Victorian Department of Health, where she led major statewide portfolios including communicable diseases, environmental health, emergency management, prevention and population health.

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Becky Freeman is a Professor in the School of Public Health, and a member of the Prevention Research Collaboration, at the University of Sydney. With twenty-five years of experience working in the tobacco control field, she is well versed in program and policy best practice. She is an internationally recognised expert in tobacco and vaping control, the commercial determinants of health, and the influence of digital and social media on public health policy and behaviour. Her research, including the Generation Vape study, is highly policy-focused and prioritises dissemination across all audiences and channels, from academic journals to news media, policy briefs, social platforms, and podcasts.

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Jane Martin is a leading Australian public health advocate who focuses on the commercial determinants of health, particularly corporate practices influencing diet, tobacco use, and alcohol consumption. She leads national food policy and advocacy at the Food for Health Alliance and Cancer Council Victoria and is known for translating evidence into policy change. Her contributions have been recognised through major leadership roles, including a Churchill fellowship and an Honorary Doctorate from Deakin University.
Her career spans research, policy development, mass reach behaviour change campaigns, advocacy, and regulatory reform, with a strong focus on countering industry influence on public health. She is known for translating evidence into policy change and building cross sector momentum for healthier food environments. 
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Roisin is a cross disciplinary digital health researcher at the intersection of healthcare and computing science. Her research focuses on the role of new and emerging technologies in supporting health and care needs, with a particular focus on brain and mental health (e.g. Parkinson's, Youth mental health, Parenting and maternal mental health, Eating disorder and body image, inclusive design in mental health services). She has specific expertise in co-design within these health communities and in ensuring that responsible innovation is embedded in the design process.

She is director of the CSIRO Next Generation of Graduates program in AI in Mental Health, which is working with a range of national scale partners to develop AI driven solutions to support organisational needs.

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Amy Peacock is an Associate Professor, National Health and Medical Research Council Emerging Leadership Fellow and Deputy Director of the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, University of New South Wales. She is also Program Lead for Drug Trends, a national monitoring system identifying trends in illicit drug use, markets and harms that is funded by the Australian Government Department of Health, Disability and Ageing.

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Dr Debbie Eagles is the Director of CSIRO’s Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness (ACDP), where she oversees Australia’s high containment national biosecurity facility in Geelong, Victoria. ACDP plays a critical role in protecting Australia’s multi billion dollar livestock and aquaculture industries and in safeguarding the community from emerging infectious disease threats.

Debbie has made significant contributions to national and international responses to major animal and zoonotic disease incidents, including during the COVID 19 pandemic. Her leadership experience includes leading science strategy and facility operations, crisis responses, and large multidisciplinary teams working at the interface of science, policy and public good.  She is a strong advocate for modern biosecurity systems, integration of science into policy decision making and public communication of science. 

Debbie has extensive experience working across Australia and the Asia Pacific region and is internationally recognised for her expertise in animal health and biosecurity. She is a World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) Reference Laboratory expert for bluetongue virus and a WOAH  and Australian qualified expert on the United Nations Secretary General’s Mechanism roster for investigating alleged use of chemical, biological or toxin weapons.

Debbie has been at ACDP for 18 years, serving in a range of different positions during this time. Prior to this she was a private practice veterinarian.

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Daniel O’Brien is an Infectious Diseases Specialist. He completed his medical degree in 1990 at Melbourne University, and his Infectious Diseases in 1999 following training at the Royal Melbourne and Royal Darwin Hospitals. 

Currently he is the Director of the Department of Infectious Diseases at The University Hospital Geelong , Australia, and is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Victorian Infectious Diseases Service and Department of Medicine (University of Melbourne) at The Royal Melbourne Hospital, Melbourne, Australia. 

His main interests are Buruli ulcer, Mycobacterial diseases, International Health and Immigrant/refugee health. He is currently a member of the Victorian Department of Health Buruli ulcer and Tuberculosis advisory committees as well as the World Health Organisation technical working group for the drug treatment of Buruli ulcer. Over more than 25 years he has worked with health programmes in more than 30 resource-limited countries worldwide.

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Dr. Raffaele F. Ciriello is a scholar of compassionate digital innovation at the University of Sydney. His research examines ethical dilemmas in sociotechnical change, focusing on AI companions, decentralised platforms, and public digital infrastructure. His work appears in leading journals (e.g. Nature Machine Intelligence, The Lancet), alongside his book Compassionate Digital Innovation(Routledge). A Distinguished Member of the AIS, he serves in editorial roles at leading IS journals (EJIS, ISJ, JAIS) and has contributed over 300 reviews. He is also Debates Editor at CAIS and founding chair of the ACIS track on Digital Innovation for the Common Good, supporting socially engaged IS scholarship. He engages in public debate, contributing over 100 media commentaries (e.g. The Economist, Financial Times, 60 Minutes) and advising government bodies, including the NSW Department of Education and Australia’s eSafety Commissioner. He currently focuses on designing and governing emerging technologies for the common good.

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Dr Liyana Pathirana is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Deakin Centre for Global Preventive Health and Nutrition (GLOBE). She is a multidisciplinary researcher with expertise in ecological and digital approaches to food and nutrition policy, with a strong focus on health-harming digital marketing. Her research spans public health, environmental economics, and AI-assisted policy evaluation. She leads the award-winning, multi-million-dollar #DigitalYouth study that quantifies Australian children and youth’s exposure to harmful digital marketing using the AI tool SCANNER, overseeing data collection, analysis, and stakeholder engagement. She is also part of the operational team that developed SCANNER for detecting and classifying marketing of alcohol, gambling, unhealthy foods, and other harmful products. Her work has informed national policy discussions, including presentations at Parliament House and citations in government submissions and legislation.

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