Symposium

The Western Alliance Symposium returns to lovely Lorne this year

The annual Western Alliance Symposium is an opportunity to reconnect with colleagues and forge new collaborations, and to showcase some of the fantastic research from across western Victoria and beyond.

This year’s Symposium is on beautiful Gadubanud Country at The Mantra Hotel Lorne, Mountjoy Parade, Lorne on Monday 16 and Tuesday 17 November 2026.

Monday 16 November:

• Deakin Rural Health workshop: Thinking Big – Transforming Research into Real-World Impact. Featuring:
  • Keynote: From Local Questions to Lasting Change: Achieving Research Impact in Rural and Regional Health by Ken Knight, Research Impact and Involvement Specialist; Honorary Senior Fellow, University of Melbourne
  • Case study: From Evidence to Expansion: The Partnered Pharmacist Medication Charting Journey by Gail Edwards, Lead Pharmacist, General Medicine, Alfred Health
  • Panel: Research Impact Unscripted: Pathways, Challenges and Lessons Learned
  • Workshop: Purpose → People → Pathway Workshop: Bring a project. Build its impact pathway
• Spotlight on large regional research projects supported by Western Alliance
• DELIVER Program update
• STaRR Emerging Researcher Showcase
• Networking event at The Rooftop at Lorne Hotel, with cocktail style dinner

Tuesday 17 November:

• Welcome to Country and Smoking Ceremony
• Release of the 2027 – 2030 Western Alliance Strategic Plan
• Announcement of Western Alliance Rapid Research Translation Grant recipients
• Keynote: From Commitment to Contribution, Necessary Conditions for First Peoples Research Excellence by Ms. Fiona Cornforth, Director, Yardhura Walani, ANU
• Keynote: Clinical priorities, research partnerships and shared solutions: Implementing and sustaining change in developmental assessment services by Dr. Kelsie Boulton, Senior Research Fellow, University of Sydney
• Building the Western Alliance Consumer & Community Involvement (CCI) Hub by Ms. Jessica Franks & Ms. Steph Thow, Western Alliance/ Health Voices Victoria
• Concurrent Sessions showcasing projects influencing health policy, practice and outcomes across rural and regional Victoria
• Keynote: Beyond AI scribes: Leveraging AI for data-based decision making by Prof Karin Verspoor, Dean of the School of Computing Technologies, RMIT
• Keynote: The Power of Connections: Building Networks to Improve Parkinson’s Care and Research in Rural and Regional Australia Prof Michelle Callisaya, University of Tasmania

To view the 2026 Western Alliance Symposium program, click here.

Meet our Keynote Speakers 

Ken Knight (day 1 Deakin Rural Health Research Impact workshop)

Ken Knight (he/they) is a nationally recognised expert in health and medical research impact, with more than 15 years’ experience across health, government and the social sector. He co-led development of Australia’s first research impact framework for the medical research institute sector, and his work focuses on how evidence and participation can shape practice, policy and transformative systems change.

Ken is a Senior Fellow at the University of Melbourne, where he teaches approaches to impact and involvement. He led Research Impact and Consumer Involvement at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute and is former Chair and current Special Advisor to the Association of Australian Medical Research Institutes’ National Research Impact Committee. He is a Chief Investigator on co-designed projects spanning mental health, research ethics, trans and gender-diverse health, and children’s participation.

Gail Edwards (day 1 Deakin Rural Health Research Impact workshop)

Gail Edwards is the Lead Pharmacist for General Medicine and Clinical Innovation at Alfred Health, where she manages the clinical pharmacy service as well as professional development of junior staff.

She is a member of the AdPHA general medicine leadership committee and is a strong advocate for pharmacists working collaboratively and in more advanced roles. Gail leads the Partnered Pharmacist Medication Charting program internally, and to external organisations. Gail is currently a part-time PhD candidate looking at the role and education of pharmacists as member of rapid response teams.

Fiona Cornforth (day 2)

Fiona is of the Wuthathi and Maluligal peoples and holds national roles for creating meaningful systems change, contributing knowledge on what heals, as well as the power and strengths of First Peoples’ cultures to lead that change. She has served as CEO of The Healing Foundation, is the inaugural Director of Yardhura Walani at Australia’s National University, and a founding board director of the National Centre for Action on Child Sexual Abuse.

In all spaces, Fiona shares a message of celebration and gratitude for the greatness of ancestors, Elders, and the ontology and authority that holds individuals, families and nations.

Kelsie is a Postdoctoral Researcher at The University of Sydney and Research Fellow in the CAN Research team. She completed her PhD in 2019, with her doctoral work focussing on attentional and behavioural underpinnings of social processing in neurodevelopmental and anxiety disorders. She works closely with services across the Sydney Children’s Hospital Network to integrate research with clinical practice and identify and respond to transdiagnostic needs in children and families accessing these services. 

Dr Boulton was awarded the Sydney Health Partners Annual Award for Researcher–Health Professional Collaboration in 2025 for her project that embedded digital tools for neurodevelopmental assessment of children at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead.

Professor Karin Verspoor (day 2)

Distinguished Professor Karin Verspoor is Dean of the School of Computing Technologies at RMIT. Karin is passionate about using artificial intelligence to enable biological discovery and clinical decision support from data. Her work has a specific emphasis on the use of natural language processing to transform unstructured data in biomedicine into actionable information. She has made significant contributions through her interdisciplinary work in digital health, bioinformatics, and cheminformatics.

For over two decades, Karin has been applying her AI skills in the biomedical domain, receiving numerous awards and accolades during this time. Most recently, she was selected as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, and for the past few years she has consistently been recognised as a top 2% scientist by Elsevier/Stanford. Karin is also a champion of diversity and inclusion, participating in strategic initiatives at RMIT to support women and girls in technology.

Professor Michele Callisaya (day 2)

Michele is a Professor of Physiotherapy at the Menzies Institute for Medical Research, University of Tasmania.  Her research focuses on improving access to allied health for people with progressive neurological conditions. She has been awarded over $43 million in research funding and has published over 200 research papers or book chapters. She is the principal investigator for a MRFF funded project “Implementing ParkinsonNet to improve equitable access to high quality care for people with Parkinson’s disease in rural and remote Australia”.

Michele is also a board member of the National Parkinson’s Alliance who developed Australia’s first National Action Plan for Parkinson’s and is co-lead of the University of Tasmania Parkinson’s MOOC online course that has reached over 30,000 people worldwide.