Conference speakers

Professor Craig Anderson

Distinguished Professor Craig Anderson from the Department of Psychology at Iowa State University is the Director of the Centre for the Study of Violence and is President (elect) of the International Society for Research on Aggression. He is one of the world’s leading scholars on the link between violent media exposure and aggressive behaviour, and has done extensive research on the effects of violent video games in particular. Craig’s aggression research has appeared in all of the top psychology journals, including the top public policy journal, and his work has had a major impact on public policy at local, state, national and international levels.

Professor Ed Donnerstein is Dean of the College of Social & Behavioral Sciences at the University of Arizona. His major research interests are in mass media violence, as well as mass media policy. He has published over 200 scientific articles in these areas and serves on the editorial boards of a number of academic journals in both psychology and communication. He was a member of the American Psychological Association's Commission on Violence and Youth, and the APA's Task Force on Television and Society. He recently served on a new Surgeon General's panel on youth violence. He currently serves on the Advisory Council of the American Medical Association Alliance's violence prevention program.

Dr Cordelia Fine
Dr Cordelia Fine is Research Associate, Centre for Agency, Values and Ethics, Department of Philosophy, Macquarie University and is the author of A Mind of Its Own: How your brain distorts and deceives. Cordelia also wrote the introduction for the Britannica Guide to the Brain, and her new book, Delusions of Gender: How our minds, society, and neurosexism create difference will be published in August 2010. She has been described as "that rare academic who's also an excellent writer" (Library Journal), "clear, engaging, humorous" (Science Books & Films), and a "cognitive neuroscientist with a sharp sense of humour and an intelligent sense of reality" (The Times). Cordelia will discuss what cognitive science tells us about how marketing influences us, and the implications of this for marketing to children.

Professor Elizabeth Handsley

Professor Elizabeth Handsley is Professor of Law, Flinders University (specialising in children and the media); Vice-President of Australian Council on Children and the Media

Elizabeth has a special interest in media law as it affects young audiences, and she conducts research and is supervising an LLM thesis on the regulation of food advertising in Australia, New Zealand, North America and Europe.

Professor L. Rowell Huesmann
Professor Huesmann is the Amos N. Tversky Collegiate Professor of Psychology and Communication Studies at the University of Michigan and Director of the Research Center for Group Dynamics at Michigan’s Institute for Social Research. Huesmann’s research focuses on the psychological foundations of aggressive behavior and in particular on how violence in the mass media and video games influences the development of aggressive and violent behavior. Huesmann has authored over 100 widely cited scientific articles and books including Growing Up To Be Violent (1977), Television and the Aggressive Child (1986), and Aggressive Behavior (1994). He is Editor of the international journal Aggressive Behavior and was the 2005 recipient of the American Psychological Association's award for Distinguished Lifetime Contributions to Media Psychology.

Professor Louise Newman
Louise Newman has been Professor of Developmental Psychiatry and Director of the Monash University Centre for Developmental Psychiatry & Psychology since March 2009. Prior to this appointment she was the Chair of Perinatal and Infant Psychiatry at the University of Newcastle and the previous Director of the New South Wales Institute of Psychiatry. Professor is a practising infant psychiatrist with expertise in the area of disorders of early parenting and attachment difficulties in infants. She has undertaken research into the issues confronting parents with borderline personality disorder and histories of early trauma and the impact on infant neurobiological and psychological development. Her current research is focussing on the evaluation of infant-parent interventions in high-risk populations, the concept of parental reflective functioning in mothers with borderline disorders and the neurobiology of parenting disturbance. She is currently planning research into the impact on child development of sexualisation in the media.

Professor Newman is involved in the education of psychiatrists and a range of mental health professionals in the areas of attachment theory, psychoanalytic and development theory and infant-parent psychotherapies.

Professor Newman is involved in advocacy for refugees and asylum seekers and is the Convener of the Alliance of Health Professional for asylum seekers.She represents the RANZCP on issues relating to asylum seekers mental health.

Dr Wayne Warburton
Dr Wayne Warburton is a lecturer in developmental psychology with the Department of Psychology and is the Deputy Director of the Children and Families Research Centre at Macquarie University (Sydney). Wayne is also a registered psychologist, and is a consumer director on the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman’s governing council. He has a number of publications in scientific journals and books, primarily on topics around aggressive behaviour. Wayne is currently researching the development of aggressive thought patterns in children from violent homes, the thought processes underlying domestic violence and child abuse, the pro-social and anti-social effects of various media, and the comparative effects of violent music and violent visual media.