Dr. Lumley's primary scholarly interests are on emotions, stress, and physical health. Much of the research that he, his students, and colleagues conduct involves developing and testing emotion-focused interventions to reduce stress and improve health. For example, in numerous studies, they have examined the effects of written or verbal emotional disclosure. More recently, they have developed and tested "Emotional Awareness and Expression Therapy" (EAET) for people who have primary pain conditions, such as fibromyalgia, headaches, chronic musculoskeletal pain, irritable bowel syndrome and pelvic pain.

Dr. Meulders is Associate Professor of Experimental Health Psychology at the UM Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience and visiting professor at KU Leuven. She is an experimental psychologist and pain scientist with extensive expertise in learning theory and laboratory conditioning models. Her research has focused on the psychological mechanisms in the transition from acute to chronic pain, and particularly, on learning processes in pain-related fear and avoidance behavior, and more recently, on how social factors may influence these learning processes. Her research group develops and employs sophisticated experimental, ecologically valid, and clinically relevant paradigms (robotic-arm operant avoidance paradigm) and novel techniques (VR) both in healthy volunteers and clinical populations, to increase fundamental knowledge about these learning processes to ultimately promote treatment innovation and tackle pain-related disability.

Associate Professor Fereshteh Pourkazemi is a researcher, artists, a clinical physiotherapist with over 18 years of experience and a leading academic within the Discipline of Physiotherapy at The University of Sydney. She is internationally recognised for reshaping models of chronic ankle instability management, integrating her expertise in chronic pain assessment and management into this field. A/Prof Pourkazemi currently leads multidisciplinary projects exploring innovative social interventions (including arts) for managing chronic pain and other chronic health conditions. As an educator, she holds the Senior Fellowship of Advanced Higher Education, and recently (2021-23) led the development of the Doctor of Physiotherapy (DPT) program at The University of Sydney. 

Mr. Taverner has lived experience with numerous chronic conditions, including Fibromyalgia, Functional Neurological Disorder, Arthritis, Prinzmetal Angina, Anxiety, Depression and Glaucoma. And cooking is his go to therapy!  

Ian now provides cooking demos, talks, classes and programmes to numerous Charities, Hopsitals, Organisations and Expo Events all over the world, championing accessible, repeatable and enjoyable cooking

Dr. Hirsh is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at Indiana University Indianapolis and Director of the Pain Research Laboratory. He received his PhD in Clinical & Health Psychology from the University of Florida and completed postdoctoral training in rehabilitation research at the University of Washington School of Medicine. His laboratory examines how individual-level factors (e.g., biology, cognition, emotions) interact with interpersonal and socio-contextual factors (e.g., cultural heritage, social class, relationship status) to influence the experience of and judgments about pain. These research findings are then used to develop, test, and implement interventions to enhance equity and outcomes in pain care.

Associate Professor Tasha Stanton leads the Persistent Pain Research Group at the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI) and is co-Director of IIMPACT in Health at The University of South Australia, Adelaide. She is a clinical pain neuroscientist, with original training as a physiotherapist. Her research group works closely with consumers and with clinicians to identify real-world problems and devise new solutions. She has a specific interest in chronic pain, osteoarthritis, pain science education, and novel technologies, such as virtual and mediated reality, to enhance exercise engagement.

Adrienne is a physiotherapist and clinician scientist with 30 years of clinical, research and education experience. She is a Team Leader/Senior Research Fellow at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute and Associate Professor within the Department of Paediatrics at the University of Melbourne. In 2019 she was awarded a Translation of Research into Practice Fellowship through the Medical Research Future Fund.

Adrienne's passion for improving the lives of children with cerebral palsy and other developmental disabilities and their families grew from her PhD studies completed in 2008 and a two-year post-doctoral fellowship at McMaster University, Canada. Since then her clinical research activities have grown substantially.

Adrienne has presented extensively on the management of children with cerebral palsy and have developed strong collaborations with key clinicians and researchers nationally and internationally.

Meredith Smith is a Lecturer in Physiotherapy within the School of Allied Health Science and Practice. She is a clinical paediatric physiotherapist, with expertise in paediatric rehabilitation and three dimensional gait analysis. Meredith is currently completing a PhD on the topic 'Tailoring Chronic Pain Assessment for Children and Young People with Cerebral Palsy'. Meredith previously completed a Masters of Advanced Paediatric Physiotherapy Practice through Monash University, including a research translation project focusing on community physiotherapy surveillance in cerebral palsy. Meredith is a titled APA Paediatric Physiotherapist and a committee member for the APA Paediatric special interest group. Meredith also continues to work clinically at Novita and the Women's and Children's Hospital.

Nadine is a physiotherapist who works in the movement program, Kids Rehab WA at Perth Children's Hospital. She has a special interest in children who have dyskinetic cerebral palsy and assessment of pain when children cannot self-report. Her recent research has focussed on movement interventions for children to decrease pain.

Thomas Nevian studied physics and biophysics in Heidelberg, Germany, St. Andrews, UK and at the Cornell University, USA. He performed his PhD work with Prof. Dr. Bert Sakmann at the Max-Planck-Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg, investigating cellular mechanisms of plasticity in cortical neurons. After his dissertation in 2003 and two further years as post-doc in Heidelberg, he became a group leader in the Department of Physiology at the University of Bern (Switzerland).  In 2010 he received a Research-Professorship of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF-Professor). In 2012 he was appointed Tenure-Track-Assistentprofessor and since 2014 he is Full Professor of Physiology (Ordinarius) at the University of Bern and Co-Director of the Department of Physiology. His research in Neuroscience was awarded with the Pfizer Research Prize twice (2008, 2016) and in 2012 he received the Theodor-Kocher-Preis as best young researcher of the University of Bern. In 2015 he received an ERC-Consolidator grant to study the neuronal networks involved in pain processing in the cerebral cortex. He is a member of the steering committee of the Clinical Neurosciences Bern (CNB) and was Secretary of the Swiss Society for Neuroscience.

Thomas Nevian investigates the fundamental mechanisms of signal processing in the brain using state-of-the-art microscopy and electrophysiology techniques. His research group investigates the biophysics of neurons, principles of memory formation and the development of chronic pain. Here the main focus is to understand nociceptive processing in the anterior cingulate cortex, a brain region that is involved in the emotional evaluation of the experience that comprises pain.

Daniel Segelcke graduated at the Ruhr University of Bochum, where he received extensive training in behavioral biology and animal pain models for migraine. Following his PhD in 2012, he joined the laboratories of Esther Pogatzki-Zahn (EPZ) at the University of Münster to investigate behavioral, cerebral processing and proteome signatures in animal models for post-surgical, pathogene pain, neuropathic pain, and bone-tumor induced pain. He successfully established novel rodent behavior assays, devices and analytic methods to investigate multidimensional pain modalities in rats and mice in longitudinal studies. Machine learning approaches performs some of these analysis methods. During his time at the University of Münster, he raised peer-reviewed funding for a preclinical systematic review, which investigate the impact of buprenorphine (opioid) in biomedical animal research. During his time at the University of Münster, he raised peer-reviewed funding for a preclinical systematic review, which investigate the impact of buprenorphine (opioid) in biomedical animal research.

David Finn is Established Professor of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Principal Investigator and Founding Co-Director of the Centre for Pain Research at University of Galway, Ireland. Professor Finn graduated with a BSc (Hons) in Biotechnology from University of Galway and a PhD in Neuroscience from University of Bristol, and he worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Nottingham.  His research focuses on the affective and cognitive dimensions of pain, stress-pain interactions, and neuroinflammatory processes, with an emphasis on the endogenous cannabinoid system. He is Past-President of the International Cannabinoid Research Society (ICRS) and of the Irish Pain Society. He has been a member of the Presidential Task Forces for Cannabis, Cannabinoids and Chronic Pain of both the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) and the European Pain Federation (EFIC), and leader of the Basic Science Work Package for the IASP Task Force. He is a member of the EFIC Working Groups for Translational Pain Research and Pain Research Strategy, the IASP Task Force for Use of Animals in Pain Research, a member of the Scientific Programme Committees for the IASP 2026 and 2024 World Pain Congresses, NeuPSIG 2025, EFIC 2022, and a member of EFIC Council.   Professor Finn is a member of the Editorial Boards of multiple international scientific journals including Pain, Journal of Psychopharmacology, Frontiers in Neuropharmacology, Frontiers in Pain Research, and the Scandinavian Journal of Pain. He has published over 190 peer-reviewed journal papers and book chapters and frequently lectures at international conferences.

Anthony is a Nurse Practitioner in Queensland, Australia. He completed his PhD on pain management for caesarean section in 2016 as part of his leadership role in the acute pain service at Ipswich Hospital. His RCT considered the biopsychosocial nature of acute pain and included a follow-up study three months after caesarean delivery. In the following year, his work was recognised with an Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Award by the Faculty of Health, Queensland University of Technology. Since then, Anthony has worked as a clinician managing pain for chronic disease and disability in the correctional setting followed by three years in palliative care. Anthony has published his clinical insights and expertise by writing pain management textbook material for Elsevier in Fundamentals of Nursing Practice and Lewis’s Medical Surgical-Nursing. He hopes to conduct future research on nurse practitioner well-being and support in the workplace. 

Anthony is married 30 years and has two sons plus one grandson. He is a fanatic rugby union fan, recently attending the Rugby World Cup in France 2023. Otherwise, the house and garden call on him to support his wife who is a busy primary school teacher.

Marc obtained his medical degree at the Catholic University Leuven Belgium. He completed his anesthesiology residency in 1996 and in 2000, he received his PhD degree following research related to metabolic support of the stunned myocardium. Until 2010 he was clinical director of obstetric anesthesia and non-operating room anesthesia. From 2010 till 2022 he was Head of the Department of Anesthesiology at UZLeuven.  Currently, he is Coordinator of the Anesthesia training/residency program and Professor at the Leuven University. He has given >650 invited lectures, has published over 390 articles and more than 30 book chapters. His H-index at SCOPUS is 58. He was within the top 1% most cited authors in his field in 2020 and within 0.1% in 2021. 

He is editor of 4 textbooks in obstetric anesthesia: “Maternal Critical Care” (2013, Cambridge University Press), “Obstetric Anesthesia” (2016, Oxford University Press), “Anesthesie en de Normale Zwangerschap” (2017, Acco) and “Anesthesiologie en Zwangerschap” (2024, Acco). He was President of ESRA, he is member of the Executive Committee of the OAA and he is PROSPECT Chair. Currently he is Editor-In-Chief of the European Journal of Anaesthesiology and of the European Journal of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care. 

His current research focuses on obstetric anesthesia and postoperative pain management. 

He is married with Eva and has five children, Sofie, Michiel, Bas, Ella and Juliette. He loves to travel and play golf. Italian food and wine make him smile ! Dog Toto and cat Copper make sure he is never bored. Dog Toto accompanies him at his regular early morning runs.