2026 Australian Pain Society 46th Annual Scientific Meetingin the IASP Global Year about Neuropathic Pain19 - 22 April 2026 | Adelaide Convention Centre, SA

Griffith University

QLD

Dr Samantha Bunzli is a senior research fellow in Physiotherapy who holds a conjoint position between the School of Health Sciences and Social Work at Griffith University and the Physiotherapy Department at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital.

In her program of musculoskeletal pain research, Dr Bunzli engages stakeholder (patient, clinician, community) voices through qualitative methods. Her research investigating the beliefs, behaviours and treatment experiences of people with persistent pain has advanced person-centred communication in musculoskeletal care and informed the design and implementation of interventions that meet patient needs and preferences.

Dr Bunzli has presented as keynote and invited speaker at national and international conferences on cognitive behavioural aspects of musculoskeletal pain. She has published >100 journal articles and her research is supported by $11 million in grant funding from the NHMRC, MRFF, Commonwealth Govt and Arthritis Australia. 

CERVO Brain Research Centre, Universite Laval
Canada

Yves is Professor of Psychiatry & Neuroscience at Université Laval and Scientific Director of the CERVO Brain Research Centre. His research focuses on altered synaptic function in pathological syndromes, including chronic pain, drug dependence, and cognitive decline.

Curtin Medical School

WA

Dr Flavia Di Pietro is a teaching and research Academic at Curtin Medical School and the Curtin Medical Research Institute, in Western Australia. After an NHMRC Early Career Fellowship (University of Sydney 2015 – 2019) that aimed to better our understanding of basic pain mechanisms with functional neuroimaging, Flavia’s research currently uses quantitative and qualitative methods to continue to address fundamental questions in pain, namely on sensory function, perception and threat.

Adelaide University

SA

Dr Emma Karran is a Senior Research Fellow at Adelaide University and has a background in clinical Physiotherapy and education. Emma’s PhD focussed on investigating strategies to optimise the clinical management of LBP. Her postdoctoral studies focussed on evaluating the role of the social determinants of health in pain experiences across low back pain and spinal cord injury groups. Emma’s current research interests primarily relate to understanding the role of the social determinants of health in persistent pain and promoting equity considerations in the pain field. In 2022 she led the development of the ‘Identifying Social Factors that Stratify Health Opportunities and Outcomes’ (ISSHOOs) in Pain Research’ project – a global, collaborative and interdisciplinary initiative to develop a standardised assessment tool to guide the collection of 'equity-relevant' data in all human pain research. Her contributions have been the basis for system change across injury compensation and public health systems in several countries. Emma serves on the IASP 2025 Global Year taskforce on Pain Education, Research, and Treatment in Low- and Middle-Income Settings. She lives and works on Kaurna Land.

HammondCare

NSW

Professor Melanie Lovell is a palliative medicine physician and senior staff specialist with HammondCare in Northern Sydney. She is a Clinical Professor with University of Sydney.

Melanie’s research interests are in cancer pain, spiritual care and health services research. She was founding Chair of the Cancer Council Australia’s Pain Management in Adults guideline. She is Chair of the Pain Node of Palliative Care Clinical Studies Collaborative (PaCCSC) and Cancer Symptom Trials groups which conducts trials across the spectrum of research methodologies and translation.

University of New South Wales

NSW

A/Professor Gila Moalem-Taylor graduated with a PhD from the Weizmann Institute of Science and completed a Rothschild Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Cincinnati Medical Centre, USA. She then joined the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, where she received the Vice-Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellowship (2004-2007) and the NSW Science and Medical Research Career Development Fellowship (2010-2013). In 2014, she became a combined track (teaching & research) academic in the Department of Physiology at UNSW, leading the Neuroimmune Pain Research Group. Her research focuses on neuroimmune mechanisms in chronic pain due to nerve injury, nervous system autoimmune diseases, and chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy.

President, IASP | Imperial College
UK

Andrew Rice is Professor of Pain Research at Imperial College London, where he leads the Pain Research Group. He is currently serving as President of the International Association for the Study of Pain.

His research focusses on translational research in neuropathic pain in the context of infection (HIV, leprosy, HTLV-1 & zoster), diabetes, conflict-related trauma and non-freezing cold injury. Having been active in pre-clinical pain research (esp pathophysiology of HIV neuropathy, animal modelling and cannabinoid pharmacology), he now works on innovating pre-clinical experimental design, validity and evidence synthesis.  Andrew’s clinical research includes deep profiling of neuropathic pain patients with a view to elucidating risk and enabling precision medicine, clinical trials and evidence synthesis. He collaborates with historians on aspects of neuropathic pain.

Andrew has authored ~250 publications (H-index 67), many in the leading specialist journal (PAIN). He has published in other notable journals including: Lancet, Brain, Lancet Neurology, Nature Methods, NEJM & BMJ.

Andrew has served as a Councillor of the International Association for the Study of Pain, liaison to South-East and is currently South Asia liaison. He was Chair of the Scientific Programme Committee for the 18th World Congress on Pain and of the Taskforce on Cannabinoid Analgesia. He previously held leadership positions in the IASP Special Interest Group on Neuropathic Pain.  

Andrew has received multiple awards including Imperial College’s Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Animal Research; the Patrick Wall Lecturer at both the British Pain Society and the Faculty of Pain Medicine and the Michael Cousins lecturer at the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists.

www.imperial.ac.uk/people/a.rice

Oxford University
UK

Annina Schmid is Professor of Pain Neurosciences and a Specialist Musculoskeletal Physiotherapist at the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences at Oxford University in the UK. She leads the Neuromusculoskeletal Health and Science Lab (https://www.ndcn.ox.ac.uk/research/neuromusculoskeletal-health-and-science-lab) which uses a translational and interdisciplinary approach to study the pathophysiology of neuromusculoskeletal conditions with the ultimate goal to improve management for patients. 

Annina and her team specialise in deep clinical phenotyping combining clinical methodologies (e.g. psychophysical testing, neurophysiological recordings, sensory profiling) with advanced neuroimaging (e.g. diffusion tensor imaging, MR neurography) and cellular and molecular analyses of human bio-samples to gain a detailed understanding of changes associated with nerve injuries and neuropathic pain. Annina also has a special interest in the physiotherapeutic management of neuropathic pain, entrapment neuropathies and other neuromusculoskeletal conditions with the ambition to develop precision therapy for these patients.

Annina has published her work in leading clinical and basic science journals. Her research contribution is recognised by the award of several prizes, most recently the prestigious Emerging Leaders Prize in Pain Research from the Medical Research Foundation. She has won seven highly competitive fellowships and has been the first allied health professional to be awarded the Clinical Research Career Development Fellowship from the Wellcome Trust. 

In addition to her research activities, Annina teaches postgraduate courses related to pain and neuroscience internationally. She also maintains a weekly caseload as a specialist musculoskeletal Physiotherapist. Further information can be found at https://www.ndcn.ox.ac.uk/team/annina-schmid.

University of Sydney

NSW Australia

Associate Professor Chris Williams is a clinical and implementation scientist with an interest in the 'what and how’ of better integrated care for chronic pain and associated lifestyle disease. He has qualifications in exercise science and physiotherapy, and postgraduate training in biostatistics. Chris leads an embedded research program across three regional NSW Local Health Districts, designed to advance Learning Health Systems activities that continuously improve care through comparative effectiveness trials and quality improvement initiatives. The program brings together support for rural health challenges through research capacity building, infrastructure, meaningful collaborative trials and community involvement to deliver tangible benefits for patients and communities. He serves in various roles including Research Development Manager (Mid North Coast Local Health District, since 2021),  Director of Research (University Centre for Rural Health, since 2023) and co-chair of the Australian Clinical Trials Alliance Raising Equity of Access to Clinical Trials (REACT) Special Interest Group. His work is supported by philanthropic, federal and state government funding including NHRMC Investigator Grant (EL2) and MRFF project funding.