About the Organisers

Eric Chen
Hong Kong
Plenary 2:
Youth Mental Health Needs in response to Social Unrest and Covid-19 Pandemics
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Professor Chen is Chi-li Pao Foundation Professor in Psychiatry and Chair and Head of Department of Psychiatry at The University of Hong Kong. He has been leading the development of the early intervention for psychosis program in Hong Kong (the Hospital Authority EASY program is one of the first comprehensive early psychosis programs in Asia). Under his leadership, the HKU Psychosis Studies and Intervention Unit has been conducting key studies on in schizophrenia and early psychosis. Studies have been published in over 250 papers in leading international journals including the British Medical Journal and the New England Journal of Medicine.

Internationally, Prof. Chen had served as Vice-President of the International Early Psychosis Association (with more than 2000 members worldwide) and the Foundation Chairman of the Asian Network for Early Psychosis (ANEP). He has also served on committees of prestigious international organizations such as the Schizophrenia International Research Society and the International Neuropsychiatric Association.

Prof. Chen is a recipient of The Richard J. Wyatt Award. The Richard J. Wyatt Award is awarded every two years at the International Early Psychosis Association Biennial Conference. It is awarded to an individual who has made a remarkable contribution to the area of early intervention.

Olayinka Omigbodun
Nigeria
Plenary 7:
One Hundred Child and Adolescent Mental Health Research Projects from sub Saharan Africa
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Olayinka Olusola Omigbodun is Professor of Psychiatry and Pioneer Director of the University of Ibadan’s Centre for Child and Adolescent Mental Health (CCAMH). CCAMH is a multidisciplinary centre for training, research, advocacy and service in Child and Adolescent Mental Health (CAMH), which started with funding from the John D and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Since training commenced in CCAMH in 2013, over 100 professionals from 14 countries in sub-Saharan Africa have completed an 18-month Master of Science degree programme in CCAMH.

Olayinka is also consultant in the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, Nigeria and served as Pioneer Head from 1999-2017. Olayinka is a Past President of the International Association for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Allied Professions (IACAPAP). She is a Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Science and a Foundation Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Medicine. She presently leads several research projects aimed at improving access to CAMH services and ensuring policy development that will improve the wellbeing of children and adolescents. She has over 100 journal articles and book chapters.

Guilherme V. Polanczyk
Brazil
Plenary 6:
Promotion of Development and Prevention of Mental Disorders
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Guilherme V. Polanczyk is an Associated Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the University of São Paulo Medical School, Brazil. He directs the Early Diagnosis and Interventions Program and the Inpatient Unit at the Child & Adolescent Psychiatric Division, Institute of Psychiatry at Hospital das Clinicas, University of São Paulo.

Dr Polanczyk completed the Adult Psychiatry and the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Training Programs at Hospital de Clinicas de Porto Alegre, Brazil, the MSc and PhD Programs at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, focused on genetic and epidemiological aspects of ADHD. Subsequently, he worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the MRC SGDP Centre Institute of Psychiatry King’s College London and at Duke University in the USA focused on the developmental origins and course of mental disorders. His research interests include epidemiology, early manifestations, course and treatment of ADHD and other neurodevelopmental disorders.

Currently, he is involved in national and international studies investigating the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on childhood mental health. His work has been funded by NARSAD, CNPq, FAPESP, Grand Challenges Canada, Bill & Mellinda Gates Foundation, Open Society Foundations, Fundação Maria Cecilia Souto Vidigal, Lemann Brazil Research Fund (Harvard University) and was recognized by awards from the Brazilian Psychiatric Association and the AACAP. He has approximately 140 papers published in peer-reviewed journals, 20.000 citations and h-index 36. He was listed in 2018 as a highly cited researcher by Clarivate Analytics.

James Hudziak
United States of America
Plenary 5:
Building Healthy Brains Through Promoting Healthy Families
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Dr. James Hudziak is the Director of the Vermont Center for Children, Youth, and Families at the UVM Medical Center and UVM’s College of Medicine. He is a Professor of Psychiatry, Medicine, Pediatrics, and Communication Sciences & Disorders, and the Thomas M Achenbach Chair of Developmental Psychopathology, holding Professorships at Washington University, Dartmouth, and Erasmus MC in Rotterdam.

He is known internationally for his work in genetic and environmental influences on developmental psychopathology and Wellness, and for his work in developmental neuroimaging of adversity and wellness outcomes. Dr. Hudziak has created clinical and health strategies aimed at developing healthy brains, so that healthy bodies will follow.

He is the creator of the Vermont Family Based Approach, an innovative health promotion and illness prevention model for children and families. He created the innovative Wellness Environment (WE) program at UVM which has garnered national and international attention for the approach of incentivizing young adults to pursue healthy lifestyle choices. He has been identified as being a member of the top 1% of Doctors in the United States, has over 200 peer-reviewed publications, and is considered a leader in the field of promoting brain health as a strategy to deal with life’s stresses.

Gabrielle Carlson
United States of America
Plenary 4:
Emotionally Dysregulated Children: who are they, what happens to them, and what can we do about them?
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Gabrielle A. Carlson, M.D., professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics at State University of New York at Stony Brook since 1985, founded and directed the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry until 2013. She earned her MD degree from Cornell University Medical College. She trained at Washington University in St. Louis, the National Institutes of Mental Health and completed a fellowship in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at UCLA where she subsequently taught on the faculty.

Dr. Carlson has written over 275 papers and chapters on phenomenology and treatment of child and adolescent depression and bipolar disorder.

Dr. Carlson has won numerous awards including the APA’s Blanche F. Ittleson Award for research in child and adolescent psychiatry, the Agnes Purcell McGavin Award for Prevention in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and AACAP’s Virginia Q Anthony Outstanding Woman Leader award. She was also awarded the American Psychopathological Association’s Zubin Award, for her contributions to psychopathology research.

Dr. Carlson is past president of the International Society for Research in Child and Adolescent Psychopathology, past chair of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry’s Program Committee. She has also frequently been “the most requested speaker”. She is AACAP’s President from October 2019 to October 2020.

Michael Hong
South Korea
Plenary 3:
Clinical Implications of the East-West Cultural Differences in Asian countries; Does it really matter?
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Professor Kang-E Michael Hong was born and raised in South Korea, graduated Seoul National University College of Medicine in 1965. He received his General and Child Psychiatry training at University of Washington (1969-1973) and joined the faculty of University of Minnesota as an Assistant Professor of Child Psychiatry (1973-1979).

Upon his return to Korea, he joined the faculty of Seoul National University College of Medicine (1980-2006) and set up Division of Child &Adolescent Psychiatry, for the first time in Korea. He has devoted himself to establish a new discipline, Child Psychiatry in Korea for the past 40 years and has become founding presidents of several professional organizations such as Korean Academy of Child Psychiatry, Korean Association for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect, Korean Association for Persons with Autism. He is known as the pioneer and ‘grandfather’ of child psychiatry in Korea and received National Decoration of Honor in Child Mental Health Service (2011).

He was active in establishing Asian Society of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (ASCAPAP) (1996) and he also served as a vice-president of IACAPAP (2004-2010). His major research interests were in sociocultural changes and child mental health, Autism, ADHD, and role of parenting in child mental health. He also edited Korean Textbook of Child Psychiatry (2014) and published 200 articles in peer reviewed journals.

Valsamma Eapen
Australia
Plenary 1:
Early Life Determinants of Health
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Professor Eapen is Chair of Infant, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at UNSW Sydney, Head of the Academic Unit of Child Psychiatry South West Sydney (AUCS), and Director of BestSTART South West Sydney child health unit. She started her academic career at University College London after completing her graduate training in India and postgraduate training in Child Psychiatry through the Great Ormond Street Hospital Training Scheme, London, and PhD research at the National Hospital for Neurology & Neurosurgery, Queen Square, University of London. Her clinical and research interests centre on issues of early development and neurodevelopmental disorders including Tourette Syndrome and autism. She has authored around 300 scientific publications. She is a member of several international consortiums including Obsessive Compulsive Foundation Genetics Collaborative, Homozygosity Mapping Collaborative for Autism and Psychiatric Genomics Consortium. She is part of several collaborative grants with over $30 million in funding including from National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), Australian Research Council (ARC), and Co-operative Research Centre for autism where she is a Program Director. She leads the Clinical Academic Group on “Early Life Determinants of Health (ELDoH)” under the Sydney Partnership for Health Education Research and Enterprise (SPHERE), an NHMRC accredited Advanced Health Research and Translation Centre (AHRTC).

OEP, a well-rounded & multinational pharmaceutical company founded in 1982 and officially listed on the Taipei Exchange since 2003. OEP’s major business focuses on prescription medicines, nutricare and anti-aging. Furthermore, established subsidiary companies, OrientPharma and OP NanoPharma, to develop and manufacture new drugs to meet real human needs. The Company is committed to providing products and services that are valuable and unique. Through vertical integration, OEP provides clients with more comprehensive services, from clinical trial to marketing, and always striving to strategize in innovative fields, cultivating markets in the Asia Pacific and the US, and is working towards the goal of being the “Benchmark Enterprise in the Asia Pacific Region.”

Website: www.oepgroup.com
Email:

Michael Meaney
Canada
Keynote Lecture:
Developmental Processes & Epigenetics

Michael J Meaney is the Director of the Translational Neuroscience programme at the Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences, Professor of Paediatrics at the National University of Singapore, and a James McGill Professor of Medicine at McGill University.  Meaney’s research examines the molecular mechanisms underlying the sustained effects of early environmental influences on gene expression, brain development and behaviour in humans and model systems.  Meaney and his collaborators identified environmentally-regulated stable epigenetic signals, including methylation of DNA and histone proteins, as mechanisms linking early experience to vulnerability for psychopathology.  Meaney leads longitudinal birth cohort studies of gene x environment interactions of neurodevelopment with the discovery of novel biological mechanisms for the influence of early experience and their implications for understanding the origins of resilience and susceptibility in children.  Meaney has authored over 500 scientific papers with an h-index of 143.  The Meaney lab was designated as a “Mostly Highly Cited Researcher” in Neuroscience and Cross-Fields by the Institute for Scientific Information.  His awards include a NARDAS Distinguished Scientist Award, The Klerman Award (Cornell University), The Salomon Medal (New York Academy of Medicine), the Wilder Penfield Prize, the Chevalier de l’Order Nationale du Québec and the Order of Canada. 

Robert Hendren
United States of America

Robert L. Hendren, D.O., is Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science; Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry; Co-Director of the UCSF Dyslexia Center; Director, Program for Research On Neurodevelopmental and Translational Outcomes (PRONTO); Attending, STAR Center for ASD and NDD; Department of Psychiatry & Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute, UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences, University of California, San Francisco.

Dr. Hendren is Past President of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (2007-2009). He has published well over 150 scientific papers and 5 books and has been listed in “The Best Doctors in America”, each year since it was first published in 1996. From 2001-2009, he was Professor of Psychiatry and Executive Director and Tsakopoulos-Vismara Chair at the University of California, Davis M.I.N.D. Institute (Medical Investigation of Neurodevelopmental Disorders).

His current areas of research and publication interests are translational interventional outcomes research including clinical pharmacology, nutraceutical and nutritional trials using biomarkers (metabolomics, measures of inflammation, oxidative stress, immune function, pharmacogenomics and neuroimaging) to enhance resilience in neurodevelopmental disorders.

Rebecca Ang
Singapore

Rebecca P. Ang is a Professor with the Psychology and Child & Human Development Academic Group, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NIE NTU Singapore). She obtained her PhD in School Psychology from Texas A&M University. She is a Nationally Certified School Psychologist in the USA, and a Registered Psychologist in Singapore.

Dr. Ang’s research and professional interests include developmental child psychopathology, and in particular antisocial, aggressive behavior, and related prevention and intervention work. She is also interested in children’s relationships with their parents and teachers, and the impact these relationships have on children’s adjustment and functioning.

Dr. Ang is a well-cited researcher whose scholarly work has been published in international peer reviewed journals. She serves on various committees and advisory boards within NTU, government ministries, as well as social service agencies. Some of her previous awards include the International Council of Psychologists Seisoh Sukemune/Bruce Bain Early Career Research Award, Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry Singapore Foundation Education Award, the NTU Nanyang Education Award (College), and the Singapore National Day Award – The Public Administration Medal (Bronze).

Paul Plener
Austria

Prof. Plener is the Chair of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the Medical University of Vienna, Austria and the head of the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Vienna General Hospital since 2018. He has worked at the University hospital of Ulm (2005-2015) and the Central Institute for Mental Health in Mannheim, Germany (2016), before becoming deputy director and receiving a full professorship at the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Ulm University, Ulm, Germany (2016-2018).

Prof. Plener is member of the Austrian high council of health and of the executive board of the Austrian Society for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. He is coordinator of the German clinical guidelines for Nonsuicidal Self-Injury (NSSI).

His research focus is on suicidality and NSSI in adolescents. Prof. Plener has conducted several studies in the fields of epidemiology and neurobiology of suicidality and NSSI. He received (among others) research funding from the German federal ministry of education and science (BMBF), the German research foundation (DFG), the Baden-Wuerttemberg Foundation and the Volkswagen Foundation adding to € 1.8 million. He has up to now published 140 papers in peer reviewed journals, three books and 42 book chapters.

Myrna M. Weissman
United States of America

Dr. Weissman is a Professor of Epidemiology in Psychiatry, College of Physicians and Surgeons and the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University and Chief of the Division of Translational Epidemiology at New York State Psychiatric Institute.

Her research is on understanding the rates and risks of mood disorders in families using methods of epidemiology, genetics, neuroimaging, and the application of these findings to develop and test empirically based treatments. Along with her late husband Gerald Klerman she developed Interpersonal Psychotherapy which now has over 135 clinical trials and is recommended in numerous treatment guidelines.

Dr. Weissman is a member of the National Academy of Medicine. In 2009, she was selected by the American College of Epidemiology as 1 of 10 epidemiologists in the United States who has had a major impact on public policy and public health. In 2016 she was listed as one of the 100 highly cited authors in Google Scholars Citation. In 2020 she won the Humanitarian Award from Brain and Behavior Foundation for her work on depression.

Karl Tomm
Canada

Karl Tomm, MD FRCPC, is a Professor of Psychiatry in the Cumming School of Medicine at the University of Calgary in Canada. In 1973 he founded the Family Therapy Program which became the Calgary Family Therapy Centre where he continues as its Director. Karl is deeply interested in the application of systems theory, narrative theory, social constructionism, and bringforthism to therapy.

His work has focused on clarifying the mental health effects of different patterns of interaction in family systems, the effects of social injustice on families, the influence on therapists of the distinctions they make regarding their clients, and on explicating the possible therapeutic and counter-therapeutic effects of the interviewing process itself.

Kai von Klitzing
Germany

Kai von Klitzing, MD is a Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in the University of Leipzig, Germany; Director of the Department of Child Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics at the Leipzig University Medical Center; a visiting professor at the Sapienza University in Rome; psychoanalyst for children, adolescents, and adults; Past- President of the World Association for Infant Mental Health (WAIMH); Editor of the Journal Kinderanalyse/Child Analysis; and Associate- editor of the Infant Mental Health Journal.

His scientific interests focus on developmental psychopathology, infant psychiatry, children’s narratives, psychotherapy research, childhood maltreatment, and biological stress regulation. He has also published books on attachment disorder, children of immigrant families, and child psychotherapy.

Christina Schwenck
Germany

Prof. Dr. Christina Schwenck is professor for Special Needs Educational and Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology at the University of Giessen, Germany. Dr. Schwenck has studied psychology at the Universities of Würzburg and Madrid and completed her PhD in Developmental Psychology at the University of Würzburg. She worked at the Departments of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy of different University hospitals. She is a trained child and adolescent psychotherapist (specification behavior therapy) and a trained supervisor. Her research interests comprise selective mutism, conduct disorder, and children of parents with mental illness.

Dr. Schwenck is currently the Secretary General of the International Association for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Allied Professions. Her vision is to strengthen training and promotion of child and adolescent mental health professionals, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, including long-term mentorships for early career scientists and clinicians in this important field. Furthermore, she aims at alluring allied professions for IACAPAP to enhance active collaboration between professions in order to provide optimal supply for children and adolescents with mental health problems.

Christel Maria Middeldorp
Australia

Prof Christel Middeldorp has a conjoint appointment with the Child Health Research Centre (CHRC), UQ, and Child and Youth Mental Health Service (CYMHS), Children’s Health Queensland Hospital and Health Services (CHQ HHS). She is also affiliated with the Department of Biological Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

The large burden of disease by mental disorders is partly due to the sometimes chronic course. Her aim is to improve prognosis by providing targeted treatment for children and families at high risk for persistent symptoms. To that end, her research focuses on 1) improving recognition of children that are at higher risk for a chronic course and, following up on these findings 2) developing targeted treatment to prevent this unfavourable course.

Christel is the PI of CAPICE: Childhood and Adolescence Psychopathology, unravelling the complex etiology by a large Interdisciplinary Collaboration in Europe, funded by an EU Marie Curie grant, coordinated by the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. This project aims to identify genetic variants underlying the development and persistence of common childhood psychopathology by using data from population based longitudinal child and adolescent cohorts from over the world. Many of these cohorts participate in the Early Genetics and Lifecourse Epidemiology (EAGLE) Consortium.

This research is complemented by studies in clinical populations. She established a clinical cohort of families with children with neurodevelopmental disorders. They are followed longitudinally to identify factors, including biomarkers influencing outcome. It is also investigated whether providing integrated care to parents and children improves outcomes. She also analyses the data as collected in electronic health records in the Child and Youth Mental Health Services to gain knowledge on treatment outcomes in the services and characteristics of the child, family and their circumstances thata are associated with these outcomes.

In 2019, Christel was appointed by the federal government as Co-Chair of the Childhood Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy Working Party. The working group is developing a strategy which will provide a framework that embeds protective skills in early childhood, creates mentally healthy home environments, supports parents, and prevents or treats early childhood trauma.

Cecilia Essau
United Kingdom

Cecilia A. Essau is Professor of Developmental Psychopathology, and Director of Centre for Applied Research and Assessment in Child and Adolescent Wellbeing at the University of Roehampton, UK. She is also a scientific advisor to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime project on “Treatnet Family Intervention” for adolescents with drug use disorders.

Prof Essau, born and raised in Sarawak, obtained her undergraduate and Master of Arts degree from Lakehead University (Canada), PhD from the University of Konstanz (Germany), and “Habilitation” (requirement to apply for tenure-track full professorships in Germany) in Clinical Psychology from the University of Bremen (Germany).

Prof Essau has Visiting Chairs at numerous universities, including the Norman Munn Distinguished Visiting Scholar at Flinders University, the Florey Medical Research Foundation Mental Health Visiting Professor at the University of Adelaide, and a Distinguished Visiting Professorship at De La Salle University. In 2011, she was made Fellow of the British Psychological Society in recognition of her contribution to the field of Psychology. Cecilia is also Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.

She is the author of 230 articles and 21 books in the area of youth mental health.

Bung-Nyun Kim
South Korea

Prof. Dr. Bung-Nyun, Kim is currently the Professor and director of division of child and adolescent psychiatry at Seoul National University Hospital. He is also a professor of Seoul National University, College of Medicine.

After receiving M.D. from Seoul National University in 1992, he completed his 4 year-residency of general psychiatry and 2 year-fellowship of child & adolescent psychiatry in 2001. Since 2002, He has been a professor in Seoul National University Hospital.

His main research interests have been the areas of brain imaging and genetic studies of neurodevelopmental disorders, esp, Autism Spectrum Disorder, ADHD and Tourette Disorder.

He is also currently conducting researches in the community mental health and system development for the children and adolescents and serves as major committee members in Child mental health reform and School mental health system in Seoul Metropolitan city and Education office.

He is a president elect of Korean Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and a vice president of International Association for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (IACAPAP).

Andria Amador
United States of America

Andria Amador, CAGS, NCSP, is the Senior Director of Behavioral Health Services for the Boston Public Schools (BPS). Andria has dedicated her career to urban school psychology and began her career as a school psychologist before becoming an administrator.

Andria, along with her staff and partners, have developed the Comprehensive Behavioral Health Model (CBHM). CBHM is a multi-tiered system of supports designed to support the behavioral health needs of students across a continuum of prevention, early-intervention, and intensive services. Implementation of CBHM requires BPS school psychologists to expand their scope of service delivery to include all NASP Domains of Practice.

Andria was the Past President of Massachusetts School Psychology Association and currently has the pleasure of serving as the NASP Delegate for MA. She is also the coordinator of the NASP Supervision Interest Group and is the chair of the NASP Practice Model Committee. Mrs. Amador is currently completing her doctoral degree in Organizational Leadership at Northeastern University in Boston, MA.

Professor Eapen is Chair of Infant, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at UNSW Sydney, Head of the Academic Unit of Child Psychiatry South West Sydney (AUCS), and Director of BestSTART South West Sydney child health unit. She started her academic career at University College London after completing her graduate training in India and postgraduate training in Child Psychiatry through the Great Ormond Street Hospital Training Scheme, London, and PhD research at the National Hospital for Neurology & Neurosurgery, Queen Square, University of London. Her clinical and research interests centre on issues of early development and neurodevelopmental disorders including Tourette Syndrome and autism. She has authored around 300 scientific publications. She is a member of several international consortiums including Obsessive Compulsive Foundation Genetics Collaborative, Homozygosity Mapping Collaborative for Autism and Psychiatric Genomics Consortium. She is part of several collaborative grants with over $30 million in funding including from National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), Australian Research Council (ARC), and Co-operative Research Centre for autism where she is a Program Director. She leads the Clinical Academic Group on “Early Life Determinants of Health (ELDoH)” under the Sydney Partnership for Health Education Research and Enterprise (SPHERE), an NHMRC accredited Advanced Health Research and Translation Centre (AHRTC).

Cecilia A. Essau is Professor of Developmental Psychopathology, and Director of Centre for Applied Research and Assessment in Child and Adolescent Wellbeing at the University of Roehampton, UK. She is also a scientific advisor to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime project on “Treatnet Family Intervention” for adolescents with drug use disorders.

Prof Essau, born and raised in Sarawak, obtained her undergraduate and Master of Arts degree from Lakehead University (Canada), PhD from the University of Konstanz (Germany), and “Habilitation” (requirement to apply for tenure-track full professorships in Germany) in Clinical Psychology from the University of Bremen (Germany).

Prof Essau has Visiting Chairs at numerous universities, including the Norman Munn Distinguished Visiting Scholar at Flinders University, the Florey Medical Research Foundation Mental Health Visiting Professor at the University of Adelaide, and a Distinguished Visiting Professorship at De La Salle University. In 2011, she was made Fellow of the British Psychological Society in recognition of her contribution to the field of Psychology. Cecilia is also Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.

She is the author of 230 articles, and is the author/editor of 21 books in the area of youth mental health.

Prof Christel Middeldorp has a conjoint appointment with the Child Health Research Centre (CHRC), UQ, and Child and Youth Mental Health Service (CYMHS), Children’s Health Queensland Hospital and Health Services (CHQ HHS). She is also affiliated with the Department of Biological Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

The large burden of disease by mental disorders is partly due to the sometimes chronic course. Her aim is to improve prognosis by providing targeted treatment for children and families at high risk for persistent symptoms. To that end, her research focuses on 1) improving recognition of children that are at higher risk for a chronic course and, following up on these findings 2) developing targeted treatment to prevent this unfavourable course.

Christel is the PI of CAPICE: Childhood and Adolescence Psychopathology, unravelling the complex etiology by a large Interdisciplinary Collaboration in Europe, funded by an EU Marie Curie grant, coordinated by the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. This project aims to identify genetic variants underlying the development and persistence of common childhood psychopathology by using data from population based longitudinal child and adolescent cohorts from over the world. Many of these cohorts participate in the Early Genetics and Lifecourse Epidemiology (EAGLE) Consortium.

This research is complemented by studies in clinical populations. She established a clinical cohort of families with children with neurodevelopmental disorders. They are followed longitudinally to identify factors, including biomarkers influencing outcome. It is also investigated whether providing integrated care to parents and children improves outcomes. She also analyses the data as collected in electronic health records in the Child and Youth Mental Health Services to gain knowledge on treatment outcomes in the services and characteristics of the child, family and their circumstances thata are associated with these outcomes.

In 2019, Christel was appointed by the federal government as Co-Chair of the Childhood Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy Working Party. The working group is developing a strategy which will provide a framework that embeds protective skills in early childhood, creates mentally healthy home environments, supports parents, and prevents or treats early childhood trauma.

University of Sydney, Australia

Dr Nick Kowalenko is Deputy Chair, of Emerging Minds, Senior Clinical Lecturer at University of Sydney and IACAPAP Oceania Coordinator and Vice President.

He is senior clinical advisor at Emerging Minds for the National Workforce Centre for Children’s Mental Health providing a range of digital resources to build workforce capacity for children’s mental health in Australia.

He chairs the Child and Adolescent Psychiatrists’ International Relations Sub-committee in Australia and New Zealand leading a range of education, training and mentoring initiatives in Australia and New Zealand, Asia and Pacific Island nations. This includes promoting and delivering iCAMH training in partnership.

His academic interests in child psychiatry at University of Sydney are in early intervention research, including for children of parents with mental illness, perinatal and infant mental health, outcome measurement and workforce capacity building.

Co-founder of Physician Support Line (COVID-19 Response)
George Washington University Medical Centre, United States of America

Suzan Song, MD, MPH, PhD is a humanitarian child/adult psychiatrist and leading advocate for the most vulnerable populations of the world. She is Director of the Division of Child/Adolescent & Family Psychiatry at George Washington University, adviser to the U.S. State Department on human trafficking, and a humanitarian protection consultant.

After training at the University of Chicago, Harvard, Stanford, and the University of Amsterdam, she worked with forcibly displaced youth and families and former child soldiers in Sierra Leone, Burundi, Liberia, Ethiopia, Haiti, DR Congo, and the Syrian refugee camps in Jordan as an adviser for humanitarian agencies such as UNICEF and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

She has also worked domestically as a child psychiatrist for over a decade with survivors of torture and human rights violations, and is subject matter expert to the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement on unaccompanied minors, Spokesperson for Refugee Mental Health for the American Psychiatric Association, and a Fulbright Specialist. Her book,Child/Adolescent & Family Refugee Mental Health: A Global Perspective, was recently published with the senior mental health adviser to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees

President of IACAPAP
Institute of Mental Health, Singapore

Dr Daniel Fung is married to Joyce and the father of 5 grown up children. He is currently the Chairman Medical Board of Singapore’s Institute of Mental Health since 2011. Dr Fung is an Adjunct Associate Professor at all 3 medical schools in Singapore.

Dr Fung is currently the President of the International Association for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Allied Professions. He was awarded the National Day (Public Service Administration (Bronze)) Award in 2017 and the National Medical Excellence Award (Team) in 2018 for his work on community and school based mental health.

Dr Fung is interested in the treatment of emotional and behavioural disorders in children and he has advocated for the development of child mental health services and strategies through his research.

Dr Fung’s research is supported by the National Medical Research Council and other agencies. He has co-authored over 160 peer reviewed research papers (118), books (32) and book chapters(18).

Director of CESP/INSERM U1018
Université Paris-Sud, France

After some initial training in mathematics and fundamental physics (Ecole Polytechnique, Paris), Bruno Falissard engaged in medical studies and specialized in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in 1991. His PhD was in biostatistics and his post doc in psychometrics and exploratory multimensional methods. He was an assistant professor in child and adolescent psychiatry in 1996-1997, associate professor in Public Health in and full professor in Public health from 2002. He is at the head of the “Center of Epidemiology and Population Health” (500 members). He is co-author of about 400 papers and author of 4 books. He has a clinical activity in child and adolescent psychiatry. His personal areas of research are about methodology and epistemology of mental health research.  In 2015 he became president of IACAPAP (International Association of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Allied Professions, the term ended in 2018) and member of the French Academy of Medicine.

Professor of Psychiatry and Pioneer Director
University of Ibadan’s Centre for Child and Adolescent Mental Health (CCAMH), Nigeria

Olayinka Olusola Omigbodun is Professor of Psychiatry and Pioneer Director of the University of Ibadan’s Centre for Child and Adolescent Mental Health (CCAMH). CCAMH is a multidisciplinary centre for training, research, advocacy and service in Child and Adolescent Mental Health (CAMH), which started with funding from the John D and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Since training commenced in CCAMH in 2013, over 100 professionals from 14 countries in sub-Saharan Africa have completed an 18-month Master of Science degree programme in CAMH. Olayinka is also consultant in the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, Nigeria and served as Pioneer Head from 1999-2017. Olayinka is a Past President of the International Association for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Allied Professions (IACAPAP). She is a Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Science and a Foundation Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Medicine. She presently leads several research projects aimed at improving access to CAMH services and ensuring policy development that will improve the wellbeing of children and adolescents. She has over 100 journal articles and book chapters.

Associate Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
University of São Paulo Medical School, Brazil

Guilherme V. Polanczyk is an Associated Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the University of São Paulo Medical School, Brazil. He directs the Early Diagnosis and Interventions Program and the Inpatient Unit at the Child & Adolescent Psychiatric Division, Institute of Psychiatry at Hospital das Clinicas, University of São Paulo. Dr Polanczyk completed the Adult Psychiatry and the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Training Programs at Hospital de Clinicas de Porto Alegre, Brazil, the MSc and PhD Programs at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, focused on genetic and epidemiological aspects of ADHD. Subsequently, he worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the MRC SGDP Centre Institute of Psychiatry King’s College London and at Duke University in the USA focused on the developmental origins and course of mental disorders. His research interests include epidemiology, early manifestations, course and treatment of ADHD and other neurodevelopmental disorders. Currently, he is involved in national and international studies investigating the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on childhood mental health. His work has been funded by NARSAD, CNPq, FAPESP, Grand Challenges Canada, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Open Society Foundations, Fundação Maria Cecilia Souto Vidigal, Lemann Brazil Research Fund (Harvard University) and was recognized by awards from the Brazilian Psychiatric Association and the AACAP.  He has approximately 140 papers published in peer-reviewed journals, 20.000 citations and h-index 36. He was listed in 2018 as a highly cited researcher by Clarivate Analytics.

Professor and Director of Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
Seoul National University Hospital, South Korea

Prof. Dr. Bung-Nyun, Kim is currently the Professor and director of division of child and adolescent psychiatry at Seoul National University Hospital. He is also a professor at Seoul National University, College of Medicine.

After receiving M.D. from Seoul National University in 1992, he completed his 4 year-residency of general psychiatry and 2 year-fellowship of child & adolescent psychiatry in 2001. Since 2002, He has been a professor in Seoul National University Hospital.

His main research interests have been the areas of brain imaging and genetic studies of neurodevelopmental disorders, esp, Autism Spectrum Disorder, ADHD and Tourette Disorder.

He is also currently conducting researches in the community mental health and system development for the children and adolescents and serves as major committee members in Child mental health reform and School mental health system in Seoul Metropolitan city and Education office.

He is a president elect of Korean Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and a vice president of International Association for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (IACAPAP).

Professor and Director of the Mental Health Center for Children
Institute of Mental Health, Peking University, China

Dr. Jing Liu graduated from Peking University and has been a child and adolescent psychiatrist for 30 years. She is the Professor and Director of the Mental Health Center for Children in Peking University Institute of Mental Health (Sixth Hospital). She holds multiple roles in various organisations, including being an EC member of IACAPAP, Vice President of ASCAPAP and Chinese Society for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Over the years she has acquired extensive experience in the evaluation, diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders in children and adolescents. Her projects on autism, schizophrenia and mood disorder in children and adolescents are supported by the National Natural Science Foundation and Ministry of Science and Technology of China. On top of her professional experience, Dr. Liu is also the chief editor of several child and adolescent psychiatry textbooks and treatment guidelines including “Guidelines for Diagnosis, Treatment and Rehabilitation of Autism” and “Chinese Guideline for the Prevention and Treatment of ADHD (2nd version)”. To share her expertise further, she is dedicated to training young child and adolescent psychiatrists in China, and her effort was rewarded with the Excellent Psychiatrist Award by the Chinese Psychiatrist Association.

Join us at the 1st webinar of IACAPAP 2020!

COVID-19: Child and Adolescent Mental Healthcare – Disruption or Evolution?

Monday, 20 July 2020, 19:00 – 21:00 hours (SGT)

We will be announcing further details for registration to attend the webinar. Should you require any further information or assistance, please do not hesitation to email us at .

The Korean Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry started as a research society in 1983, and was formally established as the Korean Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (KACAP) in 1986. Through annual academic conferences and publication of an English journal, we seek to promote research, education, and interaction among members, and to fundamentally contribute to the improvement of mental health in Korean children and adolescents.

www.kacap.or.kr

Olayinka Olusola Omigbodun is Professor of Psychiatry and Pioneer Director of the University of Ibadan’s Centre for Child and Adolescent Mental Health (CCAMH). CCAMH is a multidisciplinary centre for training, research, advocacy and service in Child and Adolescent Mental Health (CAMH), which started with funding from the John D and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Since training commenced in CCAMH in 2013, over 100 professionals from 14 countries in sub-Saharan Africa have completed an 18-month Master of Science degree programme in CAMH. Olayinka is also consultant in the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, Nigeria and served as Pioneer Head from 1999-2017. Olayinka is a Past President of the International Association for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Allied Professions (IACAPAP). She is a Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Science and a Foundation Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Medicine. She presently leads several research projects aimed at improving access to CAMH services and ensuring policy development that will improve the well being of children and adolescents. She has over 100 journal articles and book chapters.

I graduated from Nippon Medical School in 1987, and in 1992 I joined Cornell Medical School, Westchester Division as a visiting fellow. In 1993, I embarked on a residency training program in psychiatry at Montefiore Medical Center/Albert Einstein College of Medicine, which I completed in 1997. I was then appointed Chief Resident and was charged with supervising the psychiatry residents. Subsequently, I became a research fellow, during which time I conducted clinical research and provided patient care at the Bronx Psychiatric Center. After completing my fellowship, I became a faculty member in the department. As a fellow, I pursued training in molecular genetics techniques and statistics. Over the years, I received research grants from the American Psychiatric Association and NARSAD that allowed me to work for the Basic Research Division in the Department of Psychiatry, where I focused particularly on identifying a genetic locus on chromosome 22q11 in multiple psychiatric disorders and neurodevelopmental disorders. In 2005, I returned to Nippon Medical School, Japan, where I established a child and adolescent clinic and focused on mood disorder and neurodevelopmental disorder. In 2014, I moved to Hokkaido University and started a new Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

Prof. Plener is the Chair of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the Medical University of Vienna, Austria and the head of the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Vienna General Hospital since 2018. He has worked at the University hospital of Ulm (2005-2015) and the Central Institute for Mental Health in Mannheim, Germany (2016), before becoming deputy director and receiving a full professorship at the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Ulm University, Ulm, Germany (2016-2018). Prof. Plener is member of the Austrian high council of health and of the executive board of the Austrian Society for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. He is coordinator of the German clinical guidelines for Nonsuicidal Self-Injury (NSSI).

His research focus is on suicidality and NSSI in adolescents. Prof. Plener has conducted several studies in the fields of epidemiology and neurobiology of suicidality and NSSI. He received (among others) research funding from the German federal ministry of education and science (BMBF), the German research foundation (DFG), the Baden-Wuerttemberg Foundation and the Volkswagen Foundation adding to € 1.8 million. He has up to now published 140 papers in peer reviewed journals, three books and 42 book chapters.

Robert L. Hendren, D.O., is Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science; Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry; Co-Director of the UCSF Dyslexia Center; Director, Program for Research On Neurodevelopmental and Translational Outcomes (PRONTO); Attending, STAR Center for ASD and NDD; Department of Psychiatry & Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute, UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences, University of California, San Francisco.

Dr. Hendren is Past President of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (2007-2009). He has published well over 150 scientific papers and 5 books and has been listed in “The Best Doctors in America”, each year since it was first published in 1996. From 2001-2009, he was Professor of Psychiatry and Executive Director and Tsakopoulos-Vismara Chair at the University of California, Davis M.I.N.D. Institute (Medical Investigation of Neurodevelopmental Disorders).

His current areas of research and publication interests are translational interventional outcomes research including clinical pharmacology, nutraceutical and nutritional trials using biomarkers (metabolomics, measures of inflammation, oxidative stress, immune function, pharmacogenomics and neuroimaging) to enhance resilience in neurodevelopmental disorders.

Kai von Klitzing, MD, Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University of Leipzig, Germany, Director of the Department of Child Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics at the Leipzig University Medical Center; visiting professor at the Sapienza University in Rome, psychoanalyst for children, adolescents, and adults, Past- President of the World Association for Infant Mental Health (WAIMH), Editor of the Journal Kinderanalyse/Child Analysis, Associate- editor of the Infant Mental Health Journal. Scientific interests: Developmental psychopathology, infant psychiatry, children’s narratives, psychotherapy research, childhood maltreatment, and biological stress regulation. Books on attachment disorder, children of immigrant families, child psychotherapy.

We are Singapore’s leading specialty pharmaceutical and consumer healthcare group, leveraging on our diverse footprint in ASEAN countries. In part of our vision to provide a better quality of life to patients, we are constantly on the pulse of our industry’s innovation to meet patients’ needs. Hyphens Pharma is a part of the Hyphens Group.

Listed on the Catalist board of Singapore Exchange (SGX).

www.hyphens.com.sg

Break the Stigma for Families (BtSfF) is an initiative centred on bicycles and cycling, aimed to spread the message that children’s mental illnesses are a family affair, and that families not only suffer together, but more importantly, heal and grow together. BtSfF seeks to inform its local host communities that children’s mental illnesses are real, common, treatable and preventable; to help destigmatise these conditions and make them open for discussion. BtSfF celebrates the role of family, friends and community in the healing process.

BtSfF started in the Netherlands in 2018, has since had meetings in the United States, Netherlands and Stockholm, Sweden. A signature event in 2020, BtSfF Singapore, will take place on Saturday, July 18, in anticipation of the IACAPAP World Congress, which will start that Monday (the 20th). The BtSfF event involves a closed group of cyclists who will complete a cycling trail around Singapore, with the endpoint being the Institute of Mental Health where a mental health carnival that is open to the general public will be held.

Routledge is the world’s leading academic publisher in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Routledge publishes a comprehensive portfolio of books, journals and other resources on Counseling, Child & Adolescent Mental Health, Clinical Psychology & Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, and more topics in Mental Health, serving scholars, instructors, and professional communities worldwide.

https://www.routledge.com/