The Macquarie University Lifespan Health
and Wellbeing Research Centre
Newsletter  

In this edition, we’re pleased to share a new round of achievements from our Centre members, along with updates from recent research and community events. 

Inside, you’ll find news on recent grant successes, awards and recognitions, highlights from symposiums and events, and research updates, including which anxiety treatments work best for older adults, the needs of informal dementia carers, whether personality can change, and how we might train the brain to ease overthinking in social situations.

We’re also inviting participants to take part in several upcoming studies.

Thank you for your ongoing support. We hope you enjoy exploring the impact and innovation happening across the Centre.

Funding and grant success

The Ian Potter Foundation
Professor Viviana Wuthrich, Dr Jessamine Chen, Professor Simon Willcock and partner organisation Eldercare: Ageing Wisely in Aged Care: An Implementation Trial $850,000

ARC Linkage Project
Professor Jo Earl: Generating the evidence and resources to support a successful retirement $396,250.00

ARC Discovery Projects
Dr Emily Hughes: Grief at the Margins: Conceptualising the Diversity of Loss $292,294.00

Prof Tiffany Jones, Prof Kay Bussey & Dr Emma Burns: How our gender and sexuality euphorias predict our identity development $663,830.00

Prof Richard Stevenson & A/Prof Heather Francis: Using multisensory illusions to test the cause of bodily desires $345,469.00

Dr Scott Barnes & Dr Joe Blythe: Deciphering the effects of self-repair on human language and communication $495,302.00

Australian Rotary Health Project Grant
Dr Lauren McLellan, Prof Ron Rapee, Prof Viv Wuthrich, Dr Ella Oar, A/Prof Louise Ellis, Traci Prendergast and Prof Mike Jones: Responding to rising child anxiety in schools - A scalable implementation of Cool Kids Online @ School $299,108

Awards and honours

2025 Macquarie University Academic Staff Awards: Research Excellence Award Finalists and Award Recipients 

Early Career Researcher of the Year 

• Highly Commended: Dr Madelyne Bisby
• Award recipient: Dr Diana Tan

Excellence in Graduate Research Awards

• Highly Commended: Dr Anthony Joffe

Excellence in Research – Five Future-Shaping Research Priorities 

• Highly Commended: Associate Professor Miri Forbes
• Highly Commended: The team of Henry Cutler, Associate Professor Jonas Fooken and Dr Anam Bilgrami 
• Award recipient: The team of Distinguished Professor Ron Rapee, Dr Heidi Lyneham, Professor Viviana Wuthrich, Dr Lauren McLellan, Associate Professor Carly Johnco, Dr Ella Oar and Professor Maria Kangas

The Jim Piper Award for Excellence in Research Leadership 

• Award recipient: Professor Viviana Wuthrich

PhD candidate receives conference award for research presentation about dynamic defensive responses to threats

Brandon Richards (supervised by Prof Jen Cornish) won the Best Poster Presentation Award at the 2025 Biological Psychiatry Australia meeting in Melbourne. He won the award for his poster entitled "RXFP3-expressing lateral hypothalamus/zona incerta cells exhibit projection-specific activity during a conditioned flight paradigm". Brandon's research focuses on the underlying neurobiology of how we perceive and respond to threats, which is often impaired in fear-related disorders like post-traumatic stress disorder.

Policy impact

Dr Anam Bilgrami, Professor Kompal Sinha and Professor Henry Cutler had their research on paid parental leave and maternal mental health outcomes cited in the World Health Organisation’s World Report on Social Determinants of Health Equity (2025). Mandated by the World Health Assembly, this landmark global report outlines 14 evidence-based recommendations to advance health equity worldwide. Their research contributes to Recommendation 3.4.2, which calls for expanding paid leave benefits for all workers, including those in precarious and informal employment.

Dr Anam Bilgrami, Professor Kompal Sinha and Professor Henry Cutler

Research highlights

Therapy or medication for anxiety in older adults – what works best?

Which anxiety treatments actually work best for older adults?

Anxiety affects around 1 in 10 older adults. We know that both psychological and medication-based treatments can be effective, but many people are left wondering - which is the right option for me? Until now, we haven’t had clear data on how effective different treatments are at achieving recovery.

Our new meta-analysis brings together findings from 22 randomised controlled trials involving over 2,300 people aged over 60 years old. Here’s what we found:
✅ Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) led to recovery (remission) in 53% of older adults.
💊 Pharmacological treatments (including SSRIs/SNRIs) led to 36% achieving remission.
📈 Compared to no treatment (or placebo), older adults were:
• 7 times more likely to recover with CBT
• 2 times more likely to recover with medication (especially SSRIs/SNRIs)

Although there was good data on diagnostic recovery, we uncovered a major problem: there’s no consistent way treatment response (a partial improvement in symptoms) is defined in treatment research. Across studies, we found 13 different definitions of treatment response. This makes it very hard to compare results. Our findings suggest a clear need to distinguish true recovery (remission) from partial improvement (response).

Encouragingly, people were just as likely to stick with therapy as with medication, with around 1 in 5 discontinuing both treatments—highlighting similar levels of acceptability.

🔗 Link to the full open-access paper here.
👉 Read the story here. 

Do people with social anxiety actually get more anxious bodily sensations? Or does it just feel that way?

People with social anxiety often walk away from social situations convinced they looked nervous and performed poorly, even when others say they did well. This is called the self-observer discrepancy. But why does this happen? We compared adults with high and low levels of social anxiety during a speech and found that:

• there was no difference in the actual levels of anxious bodily sensations (heart rate and skin conductance) between people with high and low levels of social anxiety. 
• However, people with high levels of social anxiety reported feeling like they had more anxious bodily sensations (even though they didn’t), and were more focused on themselves during their speech.
• Being self-focused and misinterpreting anxious bodily sensations during their speech were key reasons why people were more critical of their speech performance, but their actual level of anxious bodily sensations wasn’t.

What this means: People with social anxiety don’t underestimate their performance because their body is actually more anxious, and is ‘giving them away’. Instead, they tend to misinterpret normal levels of bodily sensation and focus their attention internally on this, which make them feel like they’ve done worse than they have. Treatments (e.g., CBT) that help people rethink how they interpret their anxious sensations and reduce how much they focus on themselves (e.g., using video feedback or attention-training) are likely to be more helpful than approaches that simply try to lower physical anxiety symptoms (e.g., relaxation).

🔗 Link to the open access paper here.

Real world impact and engagement​​​​​​

Is it possible to change your personality?

Associate Professor Carly Johnco joins ABC Life Matters to explore the science of personality and what psychology tells us about making real, lasting changes in our lives. Listen to the interview. 

A/Prof Carly Johnco

NSW Parliamentary report on loneliness

Prof Viviana Wuthrich led a submission from the Lifespan Health & Wellbeing Research Centre, with contributions from several Centre members, including Dr Jessamine Chen, Dr Diana Matovic, Prof Kerry Sherman, Dr Emily Hughes and Catherine Lourey.

The report explores the causes, prevalence, and impact of loneliness across NSW, drawing on research and lived experience. Read the report in full.

Community engagement

15th Annual Mental Health Month Public Lecture

During Mental Health Month, we held our 15th Annual Mental Health Month Public Lecture, presented by Professor Viviana Wuthrich, who delivered an engaging seminar on the science behind common mental disorders.

We explored what causes anxiety and mood disorders, how to recognise them, and effective ways to treat and manage them.

Couldn’t make it on the day? Watch the event recording anytime.

Professor Viviana Wuthrich

NSW Smart Senor Network Ageing Forum – NSW Parliament House

Dr Gabi Picard attended the NSW Smart Sensor Network Ageing Forum, along with a colleague from computing, Yimeng Feng, to progress some cool ideas about how to support older adults to live at home longer. 

The day was filled with insightful talks and panel discussions, and a robotics demonstration to illustrate how we can use smart sensors to support healthy ageing and care provision. 

Dr Gabi Picard and Dr Yimeng Feng

How is dementia different from normal ageing-related cognitive decline? How is maintaining good mental health and social connections related dementia prevention?

In the final week of Mental Health Month, Dr Jessamine Chen delivered a presentation on dementia prevention and the role of social connection in maintaining cognitive health to Chinese-speaking older adults in Mandarin.

The session explored how dementia differs from typical age-related cognitive changes, and how good mental health and strong social networks can play a protective role.

Dr Jessamine Chen

Mental Health Month City of Canada Bay and 3Bridges presentation

As part of Mental Health Month, Dr Gabi Picard delivered a presentation for the City of Canada Bay and 3Bridges, speaking with local older adults about maintaining good mental health later in life. The session covered common mental-health challenges faced by older community members, practical strategies for staying well, and the importance of staying socially connected.

It was a valuable opportunity to support the community with evidence-based information and encourage conversations about wellbeing, connection and ageing.

Concord Oval Recreation Centre

Dementia prevention and the importance of staying socially connected

Dr Diana Matovic delivered a series of community talks on dementia prevention and the importance of staying socially connected. These sessions have reached diverse audiences across Sydney, including U3A at PHIVE, West Ryde Community Hall (with live Indonesian translation), U3A Epping and Woodstock Community Centre in Burwood (with live Korean translation).

Her work is helping communities better understand practical steps to support healthy ageing and cognitive wellbeing.

Dr Diana Matovic

Mass Layoffs and Mental Health Care Use

In 2025, a MUCHE project funded by research grant from the e61 Research Institute and Macquarie Business School, Mass Layoffs and Mental Health Care Use, led by PI Dr Anam Bilgrami with CIs A/Prof Yuanyuan Gu, Dr Dandan Yu and Noura Saba (all MUCHE), Dr Rohan Best (MQ Econ), and AIs Prof Marco Bertoni (University of Padua, Italy) and Dr My Tran (ANU), made significant progress in advancing evidence on the mental healthcare impacts of economic shocks.

The team disseminated emerging findings internationally, including a presentation by Dr Bilgrami at the International Health Economics Association (iHEA) World Congress in Bali (19–23 July 2025), and to interdisciplinary staff and external stakeholders at the Annual Lifespan Health & Wellbeing Research Centre Conference (18 September 2025), where she received the Best ECR Presentation Award. Further strengthening collaboration, Dr Bilgrami hosted Prof Marco Bertoni for a week-long visit (29 September–3 October 2025), during which the team advanced analytical work, explored future joint grant opportunities, and Prof Bertoni delivered an external seminar on ADHD prescriptions in youth.

Dr Anam Bilgrami

Event highlights

2025 Lifespan Health & Wellbeing Research Centre Conference

We were delighted to see our community connect at the annual Lifespan Health & Wellbeing Research Centre Conference.

The program was packed with energy and ideas, with inspiring keynote presentations from Professor Henry Cutler and Associate Professor Miri Forbes, 25 speakers covering a wide range of multi-disciplinary research projects, 5 poster presentations and rapid-fire 3-minute presentations

Congratulations to our award winners:
✨ Dr Anam Bilgrami: ECR Presentation Award
✨ Bethany Biggs: HDR Presentation Award
✨ Sam Cuming: Rapid Presentation Award
✨ Dr Gabi Picard: Poster Presentation Award

It was fantastic to see such a strong turnout from our members, industry partners, and members of the Centre’s consumer network. The day was a wonderful opportunity to share knowledge and strengthen connections across research, practice, and lived experience.

Giving Minds a Future 

Each year, hundreds of thousands of Australians and their families live with neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's, Parkinson’s and motor neuron disease (MND). Macquarie University hosted the inaugural Giving Minds a Future event, spotlighting urgent health challenges including Motor Neurone Disease, dementia, and Parkinson’s Disease.

Experts in the field, including Centre Director Professor Viviana Wuthrich, took part in a Research Insights Panel to share their latest findings, discuss emerging approaches to care, and highlight opportunities to improve outcomes for individuals, families and communities. The team also presented two posters at the event: Supporting Informal Caregivers of a Person Living with Dementia and Ageing Well Tool: Keeping Brains Healthy for Longer Through General Practice.

Webinars

Have you seen our webinars on study stress and child anxiety? Check out the recordings below. 

Catch up on other webinars, including older workers and retirement planning, the impacts of sleep on mental health, and social connections in older adulthood on our website. 

Help your teen cope with Year 11 and 12 study stress

As preparation for Year 11 & 12 exams ramps up, stress levels can rise - not just for students, but for parents too.

In this webinar, Dr Jessica Belcher explores why students feel stressed, how stress can show up, and when it might be a cause for concern. She also shares practical, research-backed tips to help parents support their teens through the final years of high school.

Watch the webinar here and learn how to help your teen manage exam stress with confidence.

Cool Little Kids Anxiety Program

The Cool Little Kids program is an early intervention program targeted at caregivers of three to six year old children who exhibit excessive shyness, separation anxiety and lack of confidence.

This webinar covers the signs of anxiety in pre-schoolers and how best to equip yourself with both knowledge and practical skills for how to help children manage and overcome anxiety. Watch the webinar here and learn more about the program. 

Call for research participants

Eating & Drinking in Dementia study

We are inviting past (last year) and current carers of adults with dementia to participate in a 30-minute online survey. The study is investigating two things. First, the eating and drinking problems that some people living with dementia can have. Second, how their carers cope with these problems. 

Our longer-term aim is help other carers better cope with these issues by developing carer resources for evaluation in a future study. 

If you decide to participate, you will be asked (1) some demographic questions about yourself and the person you care or cared for; (2) some questions about the body weight of the person you care or cared for; (3) some questions about the eating and drinking habits of the person you care or cared for; and (4) how you manage or managed any difficult behaviours.

Complete the online survey here. 

The study is run by Richard Stevenson, Heather Francis, Viviana Wuthrich, Diana Matovic, Simon Willcock, Andreea Heriseanu, Melissa Norberg, Vince Oxenham, and Alice Powell.

Please contact Prof. Dick Stevenson at dick.stevenson@mq.edu.au if you would like more information.

Are you living with chronic disease?

You are invited to take part in this research project if you have lived experience with chronic illness. This study aims to understand the relationship between chronic illness, social isolation, and loneliness. You will be asked to complete a short online screening survey to work out if you are eligible. If you proceed, you will be asked to participate in a 30-45 minute online survey.

To be eligible to participate, you must:

• Be 60 years and over;
• Be diagnosed with at least one of the nine common physical chronic diseases (i.e., arthritis, asthma, diabetes, back pain, cancer, chronic kidney disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease);
• Be able to read and write English (to the level of the daily newspaper);
• Reside in Australia;
• Not have a cognitive impairment (e.g., due to dementia or brain injury) or significant psychiatric comorbidity (e.g. psychosis, delirium).

Complete the Participant Information and Consent form here.

Is your child often worried, nervous or scared?

Does your teenager struggle with reading?

We are investigating social support and emotional wellbeing in high school students with reading difficulties (e.g., dyslexia). The study would involve your teenager completing an online survey and brief reading assessment. They will be reimbursed $20 for their time.

Do you know a teenager who can help us? Email alana.jones@mq.edu.au for more information. 

Differences in Children's Honest Responding

We are looking for volunteers to participate in a study aiming to understand developmental and behavioural differences in honest responding in autistic and neurotypical children. Participation will involve parents completing a consent form and brief online questionnaire, and a one-hour face-to-face session at Macquarie University where their child will complete a psychometric assessment and guessing game. Each participant will receive an e-Giftcard to the value of $30. Learn more about this study. 

Is your child struggling to sleep?

Is your child aged 6-11 years having trouble falling asleep, waking often during the night, or waking too early?

Macquarie University is running a sleep study testing a brief program designed to help kids sleep better. Families will take part in two sessions with a psychologist (in-person or via telehealth), complete sleep diaries, and answer questionnaires.

Join today to support your child’s sleep and contribute to important research.

Ready to apply? Follow the link or scan the QR code below for details.

Older Adult Research Database

We are looking for older adults who are interested in registering in our Older Adult Research Database. This database will list the contact information of participants interested in receiving information about research participation opportunities that we have at Macquarie University. The research database is aimed at research associated with understanding mental health and wellbeing in adults aged over 60 years. Join the database.

We want to hear from you

Are you interested in playing a key role in shaping research? We are seeking individuals who are enthusiastic, engaged, and genuinely interested in influencing research and promoting consumer interests.

Our Consumer Engagement Network is a vital community of consumers who help inform and guide our research initiatives. As a member, you will provide valuable insights, feedback, and perspectives that contribute to the success and relevance of our research projects.

Find out more about the Consumer Network including our research aims and what is involved here. Register your interest in joining this important group by completing this form.

Emotional Health Clinic update 

The Emotional Health Clinic offers face-to-face and online options for accessing our evidence-based treatment programs for children, teens and their caregivers across the Lifespan.
 

Tailored individual therapy
Psychologists at the Emotional Health Clinic work with clients of all ages, including children, adolescents, adults and older adults. 

Visit our website for more information about our treatments, fees and rebates. 

Cool Kids Anxiety Programs 
The Cool Kids Program is a world renowned cognitive-behavioural skills-based program that teaches children, teenagers and their caregivers how to better manage anxiety. 

The original Cool Kids Program aims to provide children and caregivers with skills and strategies to help them better manage anxiety.

• Cool Kids is designed for children aged 7 to 12 years old (primary school)
• Chilled is designed for teenagers aged 12 to 17 (high school).

Cool Kids is available face-to-face via our North Ryde clinic as well as a network of trained and accredited providers around the world. It is also available direct to your home via our online treatment platform.

For more information: 
Download the Cool Kids flyer (for face-to-face treatment in our North Ryde Clinic)
Download the Cool Kids Online flyer (for online treatment available to families across Australia)
Download the Chilled Out Online flyer (for online treatment available to teenagers across Australia)

Cool Kids Autism Group Sessions

Does your child with autism experience anxiety and need extra support?

Our Cool Kids Autism Group is designed for children experiencing anxiety, helping them develop coping skills, build confidence, and manage worries in a supportive group setting.

Expressions of interest for 2026 are open now.

Register your interest here or learn more via our website. 

Discover more about our services and programs. Alternatively, please contact the Emotional Health Clinic on +61 (2) 9850 8711 or email ehc.admin@mq.edu.au with any queries.

A small donation can make a huge difference

The Macquarie University Lifespan Health and Wellbeing Research Centre seeks to maximise emotional, social and cognitive health and wellbeing for all Australians regardless of age, background, or psychosocial advantage.

We want to help people live their best life by producing high quality research, engaging in community outreach, and providing mental health training and treatment services via our online and face-to-face clinic. With your help (large or small), we can develop and provide programs for change, promoting healthier and happier families, people and communities.