Newsletter: March, 2026

^{Head of Department, Professor Chris Davey}

Welcome to the first Department of Psychiatry Newsletter for 2026. The academic year is well underway now, and we already have a number of successes to celebrate.

I want to congratulate Alfred Lo, Lieselotte Claes and Georgia Caruana, who were each awarded the Graham Burrows Travelling Scholarship; Jackson Lee, who was awarded the Nikolaos and Dimitra Pantelis Travelling Scholarship; and Dr Hope O’Brien, Dr Remika Mito and Dr Elysha Ringin, who were awarded EMCA Travel Support grants.

Congratulations also to Associate Professor Ravi Bhat who was recently honoured with the inaugural RANZCP Rural Champion award.

We have started a new non-award teaching program for psychiatry trainees, the Clinical Psychiatry Course. I am delighted to report that enrolments are very strong, and the Master of Psychiatry program has shown sustained enrolments too.

The year ahead features a number of academic events, including our regular Academic Seminar Series, which I encourage everyone to attend (either in person or via Zoom). The 2026 Beattie Smith Public Lecture will take place on 26 March, with Professor Soraya Seedat of Stellenbosch University as this year's invited speaker. I hope you can make it to that.

We are now well underway with establishing our Department of Psychiatry Research Themes: Neuroscience in Ageing; Mood, Anxiety and Trauma;  Neuropsychiatry; and Systems Neuroscience. I encourage you to contact the theme leads to find out how you can participate.

Finally, a reminder to all research teams who are currently recruiting study participants to take advantage of the "Take part in Research" page on the department website to promote your study.

Professor Chris Davey
Head, Department of Psychiatry

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