Our Staff
Professor Stuart Kinner
Available for supervision at Honours, Masters and PhD level.
Professor Stuart Kinner is the Head of the Justice Health Unit in the Centre for Health Equity. He also holds academic appointments at Murdoch Children's Research Institute, University of Queensland, Monash University, Griffith University, and the Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement.
Stuart’s research focusses on the health of marginalised and justice-involved people. He is experienced in longitudinal studies, data linkage, randomised controlled trials, program evaluation and policy analysis, systematic review and meta-analysis. He has produced almost 250 publications including 166 peer-reviewed papers, and attracted almost $25 million in research and consulting funds, mostly from nationally competitive schemes. He regularly presents by invitation at national and international meetings.
Stuart chairs the National Youth Justice Health Advisory Group, and Chairs the World Health Organization’s Health in Prison Programme Technical Expert Group. He co-convenes the Justice Health Special Interest Group in the Public Health Association of Australia, serves on the Steering Committee for the Worldwide Prison Health Research & Engagement Network, and serves on the Steering Group for the WHO Health in Prisons Programme.
A/Prof. Rohan Borschmann
Available for supervision at Honours, Masters and PhD level.
Associate Professor Rohan Borschmann is a Senior Research Fellow and psychologist in the Justice Health Unit. A former prison psychologist and probation officer, he completed his clinical doctorate in psychology in 2007 (QLD) and his PhD in psychiatry in 2014 (King's College London, UK). Rohan's research focuses on the mental health of adolescents and marginalised young people in Australia, with particular expertise in self-harm, substance use and antisocial behaviour during the teenage years. He has co-authored >115 peer-reviewed publications and secured >$15 million in competitive funding, including a 4-year Early Career Fellowship from Australia's National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) to examine suicide and self-harm in young justice-involved people and other marginalised groups.
In addition to his research activities, Rohan is a registered psychologist with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA). During the completion of his doctoral program he worked clinically with young people in community mental health settings, substance misuse treatment settings and with the Department of Corrective Services in Queensland, in both community and custodial settings. Additionally, he worked as a psychologist at Lotus Glen Correction Centre (LGCC) in Far North Queensland (Australia’s most northerly prison), where >70% of prisoners identify as Indigenous.
Rohan holds honorary appointments in the Centre for Adolescent Health (Murdoch Children's Research Institute, Melbourne), the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (King’s College London), and the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences (University of Melbourne).
Dr Jesse Young
Available for supervision at Honours, Masters and PhD level.
Dr Jesse Young is an NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellow in the Justice Health Unit. He holds Adjunct appointments in the School of Population and Global Health at The University of Western Australia and in the National Drug Research Institute at Curtin University. Specialising in psychiatric epidemiology and data linkage methodology, his research interests include mental health, intellectual disability, and inclusion health. He is a member of the Australian Institute for Health and Welfare’s National Prisoner Health Information Committee and Technical Expert Group, guiding the world-leading surveillance system for the health of justice-involved adults.
Louise Southalan
Louise Southalan has a background in law and policy. Her passion is finding ways to enable good evidence to usefully assist decision makers in justice systems, and on seeking to improve the health and wellbeing of people involved in detention settings. Within the Justice Health Unit Louise is engaged in several national and international projects to strengthen the evidence base and promote evidence-based decision making on health issues in prison and detention settings. She is a Churchill Fellow, and completed her report in 2020 on strategies for national agencies to improve state prison mental health systems and services. The Report is available here.
Louise works for the Western Australian Department of Justice, working on justice health reform projects. She is a lawyer who previously practised in criminal law, worked for seven years commissioning prison mental health services and developing forensic policy in the Western Australian Mental Health Commission, and also worked for Australian Red Cross monitoring conditions in immigration detention centres. She is a steering committee member of WEPHREN, the Worldwide Prison Health Research and Engagement Network. She holds a law degree and masters degrees in International Development and in Mental Health Policy and Services, and she is a board member of HepatitisWA.
Melissa Willoughby
Melissa Willoughby is a PhD candidate in the Justice Health Unit at the University of Melbourne, supported by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC). Melissa also holds a research assistant position in the Centre for Adolescent Health at Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. Her research interests centre around the health of marginalised populations and violence prevention. Her current research examines violence-related death and morbidity among adults and young people exposed to the criminal justice system. She is supervised by Professor Stuart Kinner, Dr Rohan Borschmann, Associate Professor Matt Spittal and Dr Jesse Young. She received First Class Honours in Justice and Criminology at RMIT University for her thesis examining the health, welfare and criminal justice service contacts among people who suicided after release from prison.
Claire Keen
Claire is an early career researcher who graduated from a Master of Public Health in 2018. Claire has worked as a research assistant and data analyst at the University of Melbourne and Monash University, completed an internship at the World Health Organization, and been a visiting researcher at the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control. Claire's research has focused on the health of people leaving prison, drug use, and overdose. Claire is passionate about health equity and addressing the health needs of people who are often ignored.
Emma Thomas
Emma Thomas holds an Honorary appointment with the Justice Health Unit. She is a doctoral student in the Department of Biostatistics at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Her thesis work has centred on developing Bayesian regression techniques for high-dimensional multi-outcome problems. Emma was a research assistant with the Justice Health Unit from 2013 to 2015 and joined again as an honorary in 2019. In this role, she is studying the association between psychological distress and pharmaceutical prescriptions following prison release using statistical methods developed during her PhD.
Lindsay Pearce
Lindsay Pearce is a Research Fellow with the Justice Health Unit. She completed her Master of Public Health at the University of British Columbia and an undergraduate degree in Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada. Lindsay’s research and work has focused on the health and health care experiences of vulnerable populations including people who use drugs, people living with HIV and Hepatitis C, and incarcerated populations. She is interested in the application of both quantitative and qualitative methodologies to elucidate the stories of these populations and drive evidence-informed health system change.
Dr Lucas Calais Ferreira
Dr Lucas Ferreira is a Research Fellow in the Justice Health Unit (Centre for Health Equity), and the Breast Cancer and Twins Research Australia units (Centre for Epidemiology and Biostatistics) in the Melbourne School of Population Health, The University of Melbourne. He focuses on traditional and genetic epidemiology to research risk factors for physical, mental and social outcomes in the population. Lucas has co-created the Brazilian Twin Registry and led collaborative efforts within the International Network of Twin Registries. He has conducted and facilitated several initiatives aimed at knowledge translation and stakeholder engagement in scientific research.
Alaina Vaisey
Alaina Vaisey joined the Justice Health Unit in early 2020. She completed a Master of Public Health at the University of Melbourne and a Bachelor of Science in Public Health at the George Washington University (USA). Alaina has over ten years’ research experience, primarily in sexual and reproductive health, young people’s health, control of sexually transmissible infections and general practice-based research. Her work focuses on qualitative research and the design, implementation and evaluation of public health interventions.
Kym Coupe
Kym Coupe is currently completing a Master of Public Health in the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health. She is undertaking a systematic review investigating non-fatal self-harm behaviour among people with dual diagnosis of mental illness and substance use disorder. Her research is supervised by Dr Jesse Young, Claire Keen and Dr Gregory Armstrong. Kym also works as a research assistant in the Justice Health Unit.
Alex Campbell
Alex is currently studying his Masters of Public Health at the University of Melbourne majoring in epidemiology and biostatistics. He is currently working as a research assistant in the Justice Health Unit under the supervision of Dr Jesse Young to conduct systematic reviews on self-harm and self-poisoning in people who have dual diagnosis of mental illness and substance addiction. He has previously worked as a research assistant studying baboon behaviour in South Africa.
Dr Clare Glover-Wright
Clare is an early career researcher and also completing a Master of Public Health at the University of Melbourne. She is currently working as a Research Assistant in the Justice Health Unit with Dr Jesse Young and has a particular interest in vulnerable populations. Originally from the UK, Clare gained both her undergraduate and postgraduate qualifications from the University of Leicester before moving into Regulatory and Scientific Affairs positions within local and international pharmaceutical companies and consultancies. She is currently working on a global review of the health outcomes associated with co-located mental health and alcohol and other drug (AOD) services.
Clare Chiminello
Clare is the administrative officer for the Justice Health Unit. Her background is in project administration in aged care, advance care planning, Aboriginal health and cultural respect in healthcare and healthcare education. She is committed to equity in health and education.