University of California San Fransisco
USA
Born in Montreal, Quebec, Allan Basbaum received his BSc from McGill University and his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania. After postdoctoral research at the University College London and then at the University California San Francisco he was appointed to the faculty of UCSF, where he is presently professor and Chair of the Department of Anatomy.
His research addresses the molecular mechanisms that underlie the generation of persistent pain after tissue or nerve injury. Most recently, his laboratory has focused on novel approaches to overcoming the neurological consequences of peripheral nerve damage, by transplanting embryonic cortical inhibitory precursor cells into the spinal cord. He has served as Editor-in-Chief of PAIN, the journal of the International Association for the Study of Pain and was recently appointed a member of the Council of the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke.
He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Sciences and is a fellow of the Royal Society in the United Kingdom.
University College London
UK
Amanda C de C Williams is Reader (Associate Professor) in clinical health psychology at University College London; consultant clinical psychologist at the Pain Management Centre, University College London Hospital, UK; and research consultant for the International Centre for Health and Human Rights. Her interests are evaluation of psychologically-based treatments by systematic review and meta-analysis; evolutionary perspectives on pain in humans and other animals; behavioural expression of pain; improving treatment of pain from torture; and wearable technology to extend rehabilitation into patients’ environments. She presents at national and international pain meetings and has written over 250 papers and chapters: see http://www.ucl.ac.uk/pals/people/profiles/academic-staff/amanda-c-de-c-williams
University of Oslo
Norway
Siri Leknes is a Professor of Social and Affective Neuroscience at the University of Oslo, Norway and a Senior Researcher at Oslo University Hospital. Her lab, the Leknes Affective Brain lab (LAB lab) studies how the brain and body give rise to pleasurable and painful feelings, and how these feelings are connected to decisions and behaviour. One interdisciplinary project centred on benefits of acute pain and was awarded The Daniel M. Wegner Theoretical Innovation Prize in social/personality psychology.
LAB lab's main methodology is experimental psychopharmacology in healthy humans, often centred on understanding how opioids modulate pain and pleasure. In addition, LAB lab studies modulation of pleasure and pain in opioid-treated clinical populations with and without chronic pain and substance use disorder. LAB lab is currently funded by an ERC grant to study state-dependent effects of opioids and their relation to social support, stress and dopamine, as well as Regional Health Authority funding for clinical studies.
University of Sydney
NSW Australia
Ian Cameron is a clinician researcher who has the Chair in Rehabilitation Medicine, and is Head of John Walsh Centre for Rehabilitation Research, at the University of Sydney. He has research and clinical interests in chronic pain. He is a NHMRC Practitioner Fellow conducting and translating research on injury related disability.
Pain Specialists Australia
VIC Australia
Dr Nick Christelis is medical director and co-founder of Pain Specialists Australia, a multidisciplinary pain clinic, that is tier 1 college accredited for pain medicine specialist training.
He holds two specialist pain medicine qualifications: one from Faculty of Pain Medicine of the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists (FFPMANZCA), the other, from the Faculty of Pain Medicine of the Royal College of Anaesthetists in London, UK (FFPMRCA).
He completed his specialist training in pain medicine and anaesthesia at London’s Imperial School of Anaesthesia and worked as a pain consultant at The Chelsea & Westminster Hospital before moving to Melbourne in 2009 to take up appointments as Consultant in Pain Medicine, Head of Pain Service, and Anaesthetist at The Alfred Hospital.
Nick now practices 100% within the field of pain medicine. He is an interventional pain specialist combining a multidisciplinary team approach with advanced pain interventional techniques like nerve and joint blocks, epidural injections, radiofrequency ablation, pulsed radiofrequency, spinal cord stimulation and other advanced neuromodulation techniques.
He serves on the executive board of the Neuromodulation Society of Australia and New Zealand (NSANZ) as well as the Faculty of Pain Medicine of the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists Interventional Procedures Clinical Care Standard Working Group.
Nick’s areas of expertise include back pain, neuropathic pain, lumbar radicular pain and sciatica, neck, shoulder and arm pain, facial pains/headaches, trigeminal neuralgia, CRPS, male and female pelvic pain, post-surgical neuropathic pain syndromes like post laminectomy pain, failed back surgery syndrome, ilioinguinal pain, thoracic pain.
Pain Specialists Australia was founded on the single belief that no one should suffer from pain.
Monash University
VIC Australia
Dr Bernadette Fitzgibbon is a Senior Research Fellow at Monash University and the head of the “Pain, Addiction and Mental Health Group” at the Epworth Centre for Innovation in Mental Health. Bernadette’s research program is dedicated to understanding the relationship between neurobiological and psychosocial mechanisms of the pain experience and how these may be harnessed to advance the application of non-invasive brain stimulation to treat persistent pain.
She has received several awards for her research including the 2018 Australasian Brain Stimulation Society Early Career Award, with her broader scientific contributions recognised through a Young Tall Poppy Science Award from the Australian Institute of Policy and Science and her selection into the VESKI inspiring women STEM side-by-side program. Bernadette was also the inaugural Chair (2017-2020) of the Brain Science Network, an initiative of the Australian Academy of Science and Australian Brain Alliance to establish a platform for early-to-mid career brain scientists to develop into future leaders and to drive Australian brain science forward.
John Hunter Children's Hospital Newcastle
NSW Australia
Dr Susie Lord is a Specialist Pain Medicine Physician, leading the Children's Complex Pain Service, John Hunter Children’s Hospital, and a Conjoint Senior Lecturer, School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Newcastle.
After internship, Susie undertook doctoral studies into procedures for the diagnosis and treatment of cervical spinal pain and was awarded the IASP Ronald Dubner Research Prize for that work. She then trained in Anaesthesia and Pain Medicine in Newcastle, with a focussed Fellowship year in Paediatric Pain in Sydney. She has been delivering pain services to children in the Hunter New England region for the past 15 years. Advocacy efforts saw establishment of the interdisciplinary Children’s Complex Pain Service in 2013, the first such service to children outside a state capital.
Susie seeks to better understand sociocultural determinants of children’s pain experience and access to care, and how to ethically ration resource-limited pain services and better reach children with pain living in regional, rural and remote areas. She is a Faculty of Pain Medicine board member and is involved in the ePPOC Clinical and Management Advisory Committee, the Cochrane Pain, Palliative and Supportive Care Group, and national and international guideline development.
University of South Australia
SA Australia
Professor Lorimer Moseley (DSc PhD FAAHMS FFPMANZCA (Hon) MAPA (Hon) FACP) is a pain scientist, clinician and educator. He has authored 350 papers and five books. His public education and outreach articles and videos have had over 9 million reads/views. He leads Innovation in Implementation & Clinical Translation (IIMPACT) in Health at the University of South Australia, is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health & Medical Research, an Honorary Fellow of the Faculty of Pain Medicine and an Honoured Member of the APA. He has been recognised by awards from government or society organisation in 13 countries.
University of Tasmania
TAS Australia
**Dr Feng Pan is the 2021 Rising Star Award Recipient**
Dr Feng Pan is a Senior Research Fellow at University of Tasmania Menzies Institute for Medical Research, supported by NHMRC Early Career Fellowship. He has been researching on both epidemiology and clinical interventions to osteoarthritis-related pain. Much of his work has been on identifying biomechanical risk factors for chronic pain and osteoarthritis, identifying pain and osteoarthritis phenotypes and testing new therapeutic treatments.
Dr Pan has received several awards for his research including Tasmania STEM Young Researcher of the Year award, Royal Society of Tasmania Annual Doctoral Awards, International Osteoporosis Foundation Young Investigator Award, Osteoarthritis Research Society International (OARSI) Scholarship, Bone, Muscles & Joint Diseases Young Scientist Award, etc. He is a General Officer of the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP), Musculoskeletal pain. Dr. Pan is an editorial member of peer-reviewed journals including Pain and Therapy, Frontiers in Medicine, BMC Public Health, BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders, and PLOS ONE.
University of Queensland
QLD Australia
Dr Samuel Robinson is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience, University Of Queensland. He is the 2020 Australian Pain Society Rising Star Award Winner.
His research expertise is in the discovery of new plant and animal toxins and investigation of their structure, function and potential for biomedical applications. Sam is an expert on plants and animals that sting, and the biology, chemistry, pharmacology and pathophysiology underlying those stings.
His research is providing new understanding on the mechanisms of chemical defense and predation used by animals and plants. The new toxins he has discovered are being used as tools for improving our understanding of the human body and designing new and better treatments for certain diseases.
University of Queensland
QLD Australia
Maree Smith AC, is Emeritus Professor and Director of the Centre for Integrated Preclinical Drug Development (CIPDD) in the School of Biomedical Sciences at The University of Queensland. Internationally, she is a leading researcher in biomedical discovery/translation with particular expertise in the novel pain therapeutics field. She is inventor on a patented novel analgesic technology that was licensed to the UQ spin-out company, Spinifex Pharmaceuticals, for commercialization and acquired by Novartis in 2015. Although her focus is on IP-sensitive research, she has maintained an excellent publication output, with 170 publications to date. She has also advised/co-advised 30 PhD students and 50 Research Masters/Honours students to completion, as well as mentored numerous researchers in the past three decades.