Lucinda Brogden AM (B.Comm., M.OrgPsych.) is the Chair of the National Mental Health Commission, and has a strong commitment to helping others. Her primary areas of focus are issues facing Women and Girls and Mental Health and Wellbeing particularly in the workplace. She takes an evidenced based approach to problem solving and social investment. (NSW)
Professor Allan Fels AO, former Chair of the National Mental Health Commission and former Commissioner of the Victorian Royal Commission into Mental Health is best known in Australia as former high-profile Chair of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC). He chairs the Haven Foundation which provides accommodation, care and support for persons with severe and persistent mental illness. Professor Fels was a winner of the Australian Mental Health Prize in 2017.
Sophie Scott is the ABCs National Medical Reporter. Sophie has won the Australian Museum Eureka Prize for Medical Reporting, and is also a recipient of Research Australias Health Research in the Media Award. She is an Author, and currently a board member of the Australian Medical Association NSW Charitable Foundation. (NSW)
Melinda Upton is a senior business leader, intellectual property lawyer, board advisor and mental health activist who firmly believes in placing wellbeing at the heart of successful business strategy to unlock the full potential of high performing teams. She is the Chair of Minds Count and a member of the Board of the Corporate Mental Health Alliance (Australia).
Jeremy Coggin has worked on boards with a mental health mission since 2012, starting at mental health carer ARAFMI Victoria through to its merger with Mind Australia. He is currently president of Mental Health Carers Australia, the only national group solely concerned with advocacy on behalf of mental health carers, and is also a board member of Mind Australia. He is passionate about how we can design person-led systems and services by embedding the voice of consumers, family and carers, and service providers at the heart.
Associate Professor Mat Coleman is a rural psychiatrist in WA and has recently completed two terms as a Commissioner with the National Mental Health Commission. He has qualifications in addition, child and adolescent psychiatry but fundamentally considers himself a rural general psychiatrist. He is a clinical academic with the Rural clinical school of WA and his research touches on a wide range of topics including AOD, youth MH, service design and rural workforce development. He is currently the clinical director of two WA country regions as well as chair of the Rural Section of Psychiatry, Australian Government Funded Training Programs Committee and the Steering group for the Regional, Rural and Remote Training Pathways Committee for the RANZCP.
Scientia Professor Henry Brodaty AO is Scientia Professor of Ageing and Mental Health and Co-Director of the Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing at UNSW Sydney; Honorary Medical Officer, Older People’s Mental Health Service, Prince of Wales Hospital.
Scientia Professor Philip Mitchell AM is a member of the NHMRC Research Committee; a Consultant Psychiatrist at the Prince of Wales Hospital, and Director of the Bipolar Disorders Clinic at the Black Dog Institute. He was also Head of the School of Psychiatry at UNSW Australia. He has previously been a Guest Professor at the Shanghai Jiaotong University, and Visiting Professor at Harbin Medical University, China. He is a Board Member of the Black Dog Institute, and Board Member of the Anika Foundation for Adolescent Depression and Suicide.
Professor Valsamma Eapen is Chair of the Infant, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the UNSW Australia and Head of the Academic Unit of Child Psychiatry, South West Sydney (AUCS). She is a Board Director for Karitane, research theme leader for the Autism Co-operative Research Centre and Stream leader for “Early Life Determinants of Health” in the Sydney Partnership for Health, Education, Research and Enterprise (SPHERE).
Professor Kimberlie Dean is a forensic psychiatrist and Head of the School of Psychiatry at UNSW, as well as Academic Program Director for the Forensic Mental Health program at UNSW.
Professor Maree Toombs is proud Euralayie/Kooma woman from North-Western NSW. She is the Associate Dean Indigenous for the UNSW Faculty of Medicine & Health and the 2023 recipient of the Australian Mental Health Prize in the Professional category.
Working across research, health and education, Professor Toombs has a track record of impactful work, improving the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Partnering locally and internationally, Professor Toombs’s expertise in codesign and culturally safe practices is foundational to her global impact.
The Australian Mental Health Prize Advisory Committee would like to acknowledge the contributions by the following former members of the Committee:
