CERVO Brain Research Centre
Cananda
Yves De Koninck, PhD, FCAHS, FRSC is professor of Psychiatry & Neuroscience at Université Laval, Scientific Director of the CERVO Brain Research Centre and Director of Research of the Quebec Integrated University Health and Social Services Centre. Former President of the Canadian Association for Neuroscience, he founded the Quebec Pain Research Network. Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, he served on advisory boards worldwide for Canadian, American, French, and British institutions, including NIH, NSF, INSERM, The Wellcome Trust and the Gairdner Foundation. He holds a Canada Research Chair in Chronic Pain and Related Brain Disorders.
He dedicated his career to understanding mechanisms underlying chronic pain. He earned international recognition for finding that chronic pain results from dysregulation of chloride ion homeostasis in spinal nerve cells, which launched the quest, in the pharmaceutical sector, for chloride regulators as novel pain therapeutics. For his accomplishments he received the Distinguished Career Award from the Canadian Pain Society, the Wilder Penfield Prize, the Chaire du Québec from the Royal Academy of Belgium, and the King Charles III’s Coronation Medal.
To push the frontiers of neuroscience he founded the Multi-institutional Neurophotonics Initiative (neurophotonics.ca), bringing together physicists, engineers, mathematicians, and biologists to stimulate technology development to probe the brain. Throughout his career he has been a strong advocate of breaking barriers between disciplines. He now leads Sentinel North a global initiative to harness the power of light for the benefit of health, environment and sustainable development in the North. He also leads the Canadian Brain Research Strategy. For his transdisciplinary achievements, he received the NSERC Brockhouse Canada Prize, the Emily Gray Award from the Biophysical Society and the Award for Education in Neuroscience from the Society for Neuroscience.
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.
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.
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.
University of South Australia
SA
Dr Emma Karran is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of South Australia 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
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.