PhD.  Charles Alexander Nelson III – Invited speaker

Theme/subject: The NeuroFuture of Autism Treatment: Using Electrophysiological and Neuroimaging Tools for Early Identification of Autism

Short bio

Professor of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School
Director, Laboratories of Cognitive Neuroscience, Division of Developmental Medicine, Children’s Hospital Boston

Richard David Scott Chair in Pediatric Developmental Medicine Research, Children's Hospital Boston Harvard Medical School  (2005– Present)

Dr. Nelson received an honours degree in Psychology from McGill University, a Masters degree in Psychology from the University of Wisconsin, and his Ph.D. from the University of Kansas (in developmental and child psychology). He completed a postdoctoral fellowship in electrophysiology at the University of Minnesota, joined the faculty of Purdue University in 1984, moved to the University of Minnesota in 1986, and moved to Boston in 2005. Dr. Nelson chaired the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Early Experience and Brain Development, and served on the National Academy of Sciences panel that wrote From Neurons to Neighborhoods. His specific interests are concerned with the effects of early experience on brain and behavioral development, particularly as such experience influences the development of memory and the development of the ability to recognize faces. Nelson studies both typically developing children and children at risk for neurodevelopmental disorders, and he employs behavioral, electrophysiological (ERP), and metabolic (MRI) tools in his research.

PhD. Nathan A. Fox– Invited speaker

Short bio

Director Laboratory of Child Development, University of Maryland
A.B. With Honors in Political Science, Williams College,
Williamstown, Massachusetts, 1970.

Nathan A. Fox is Professor of Human Development at the University of Maryland,
College Park. He completed his undergraduate degree at Williams College and his doctorate at Harvard University. His interests are in the biological bases of individual differences in infant temperament and the role of early experience as it affects brain and behavior in the realm of social and emotional competencies. His research has been continuously funded for the past 20 years by the National Institutes of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) and he received a MERIT award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for his work on infant temperament. He currently receives funding from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) for work on temperament and psychopathology, and for a study examining the effects of early social learning in infants. He is a member of the Early Experience and Brain Development research network that is sponsored by the John D. and Catherine T. Macarthur Foundation. Through this network he is one of three co Principal Investigators of the Bucharest Early Intervention Project, involved in studying the effects of institutionalization on cognitive, social and emotional development in infants and young children in Romania. He is the author of over 100 empirical papers and 40 chapters in edited volumes. He served as Associate Editor of the journal Psychophysiology (1987-1990) and as Associate Editor of the journal Developmental Psychology (1992-1998) and was Editor of the journal Infant Behavior and Development (1997-1999). He is currently Associate Editor of the International Journal of Behavioral Development. He is past President of Division 7 of the American Psychological Association and of the International Society for Infant Studies and serves as chair of the Publications Committee for the infancy society. He recently received the Distinguished Investigator Award from the National Association for Research in Schizophrenia, Anxiety and Depression (2007).

PhD. Charles H. Zeanah, Jr, MD – Invited speaker 

Short bio

Sellars-Polchow Professor of Psychiatry
Professor of Clinical Pediatrics
Director of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (since 1998)
Vice Chair, Department of Psychiatry and Neurology
Executive Director, Institute of Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health
Director of Tulane Infant Team
Consultant, Early Childhood Support and Services

Charles Zeanah is a Professor of Psychiatry and Professor of Clinical Pediatrics, Director of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Vice-Chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Neurology at the Tulane University School of Medicine. He is also an Executive Director of the Institute of Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health.
Zeanah is the editor of the Handbook of Infant Mental Health. His particular field of research is in child psychopathology focussing on infant-parent relationships, attachment and its development in high-risk environments. Zeanah has many scientific papers in peer reviewed journals and books on these topics.
In 2005 Zeanah was the joint author, with N. Boris, of AACAP's Practice Parameter for the assessment and treatment of reactive attachment disorder. He was also a member of the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children (APSAC) Taskforce which reported on attachment therapy, reactive attachment disorder, and attachment problems in 2006.

PhD.  Marilyn Campbell– Invited speaker

 

Outline of the presentation

Theme/subject: Cyberbullying

Cyberbullying is new form of an old problem. Its prevalence and psychological consquences for young people are concerning. Various proposed solutions such as invoking criminal and civil law, technological solutions and educational approaches to reduce the problem will be explored.

Short bio

Dr Marilyn Campbell is currently an associate professor at the Queensland University of Technology. She is a registered teacher and a registered psychologist. Previously Marilyn supervised school counsellors and has worked in infants, primary and secondary schools as a teacher, teacher-librarian and school counsellor. Her main clinical and research interests are the prevention and intervention of anxiety disorders in young people and the effects of bullying, especially cyberbullying in schools.

PhD. Peter Mitchell – Invited speaker

 

Outline of the presentation

Theme/subject: How do we interpret other people’s thoughts and emotions? Insights from autism

Information emanating from people’s eyes provides a rich source of psychological information, revealing what they are thinking and what kind of emotional state they are experiencing. Our research using eye tracking and behavioural methods shows that people with autism differ in a very subtle way from people who do not have a clinical condition in their ability to interpret other’s thoughts and feelings. In summary, it is not that people with autism spend less time looking at the eyes, rather they are slower to look at the eyes but relatively quick to look at physical objects. The opposite is true in people without autism, reflecting a reversal in processing priority.

 

Short bio
Peter Mitchell is Professor in Psychology and Dean of Science at the University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus, based in Semenyih, near Kuala Lumpur. Previously, he was Head of the School of Psychology in Nottingham UK. He has published around 100 scientific articles in leading international journals, has published six books and he is editor of the British Journal of Psychology. His research has won national prizes in the UK (The Neil O’Connor Prize for the UK’s best article on cognitive aspects of developmental disorders in 2007) and his paper on cognitive theories of autism, published in Developmental Review, ranks number 1 as the journal’s most downloaded article. He has served as Chair of the Developmental Section of the British Psychological Society and as Chief Examiner for the Economic and Social Research Council UK PhD studentship competition. Before joining Nottingham University he worked at the University of Birmingham, University of Oxford, University of Wales and University of Warwick. He also served as visiting professor at McGill University in Canada.

PhD.   Ken Evans – Invited speaker

Theme/subject - Psychotherapy in the 21^stCentury : Challenges and Opportunities

 

Short bio

He was the President of the European Association for Psychotherapy (EAP) in  1994-95, the Founding President (1996-99), of the European Association for Integrative Psychotherapy (EAIP), he was elected a Fellow of the EAIP and in present  is the current Registrar. He was President of the European Association for Gestalt Therapy (EAGT) 2002-2008 and he has been awarded European certification with EAP, EAGT and EAIP and is registered with UKCP. He is an Officer of the Training Standards of the Council for Psychotherapy in U.K.(UKCP), being awarded with a medal for the services brought to psychotherapy in U.K. Ken Evans is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Senior Consultant to the Scarborough Psychotherapy Training Institute UK. He facilitates training programs, Masterclasses and Doctorate Program in Psychotherapy  for experienced therapists in 14 countries from UK and Europe like France, Romania, Croatia, Slovenia, Scandinavia, Denmark, Italy, etc. He is the Co-Founder Director of The European Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies (Eurocps), which is committed to high quality provision of psychotherapy training and continued professional development. He is Supervisor and a Trainer of the Training Program in Integrative Psychotherapy of the Romanian Association of Integrative Psychotherapy (ARPI) of Romania and has a workshop also in IRPI. He is a Visiting Trainer at several European training centers and particularly interested in the interface between spirituality and therapeutic engagement in Clinical Practice and Organizational settings as well as issues connected with Human Rights and Social Responsibility. He has written several articles and books and is currently co-editor of the European Journal for Qualitative Research in Psychotherapy. He is co-author with Linda Finlay of the book: Relational Centered Research for Psychotherapists. He has co-authored two books with Maria Gilbert in Integrative Psychotherapy Introduction and Psychotherapy Supervision (now published in 7 languages).

Dr. Gernot Schuhfried – Invited speaker

Theme/subject - "New challenges in psychological assessment: a test publisher view"