Professor of Paediatrics and Child Health, University of Sydney Professor Elizabeth Elliott AM FAHMS FRSN MD MPhil MBBS FRACP FRCPCH FRCP is a Distinguished Professor in Paediatrics and Child Health at the University of Sydney; Consultant Paediatrician at the Sydney Children’s Hospitals Network (Westmead) and holds a prestigious National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia Leadership Fellowship. She is an elected Fellow and member of the Council of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Science, Fellow and James Cook Medallist of the Royal Society of NSW, and an Inaugural Fellow of the Academy of Child and Adolescent Health. She has specialist qualifications in paediatrics from the UK and Australia and is a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians; the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, UK; and the Royal College of Physicians, London. She has a research Doctorate in Medicine (oral rehydration therapy); and a Masters degree in Philosophy in Public Health (haemolytic uraemic syndrome) from the University of Sydney. Elizabeth has dedicated her career to advancing the human rights, health, and quality of life for ill and disadvantaged children in Australia and beyond, through education, research, clinical care and advocacy. Specific examples include promoting the health and human rights of children disabled by rare diseases, fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) and vaccine-preventable and other infectious diseases; Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, particularly in remote Australia; asylum seeker and refugee children, particularly in Immigration detention; children receiving cochlear implants; children with Female Genital Mutilation (FGMC); and children with cerebral palsy, including in developing countries in our region, particularly Vietnam. She vigorously promotes gender equity for girls and women and Chairs the Royal Australasian College of Physicians Gender Equity in Medicine Committee. She was a member of the Advisory group to guide the University of Sydney’s participation in the Athena Swan program, which aims for gender equity in STEMM (science, technology, engineering, maths and medicine) and the Sydney Medical School’s gender equity committee and an invited speaker for GenWomen at the 2018 Sydney Science Festival onWomen in STEMM smash the glass ceiling. She is the senior advisor on child health for UNICEF Australia and consultant to the WHO and the US National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. She chairs the Australian Government’s national FASD Advisory Group and is a Board Director for the National Organisation for FASD and Royal Far West. She is widely published and has been recognised for her work nationally and internationally.
Senior Lecturer, Nelson Mandela University Eileen Scheckle is a senior lecturer in language and literacy in the Faculty of Education at Nelson Mandela University. She is passionate about developing all forms of literacy, both inside and outside schools. She has been an active member of LITASA, the Literacy Association of South Africa, for a number of years and uses the LITASA conference to provide spaces for various literacy endeavours to be shared and promoted. She encourages all her students to read for enjoyment and have a repertoire of books they can recommend to classroom learners one day.
Associate Professor of Communication, University of Texas at Arlington Erika Pribanic-Smith conducts research examining political and activist communication in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century newspapers and magazines. She is co-editor of the book "Social Justice, Activism, and Diversity in U.S. Media History" (Routledge, 2023) and co-author of "Emma Goldman’s No-Conscription League and the First Amendment" (Routledge, 2018). She has authored multiple chapters in edited volumes on topics related to press partisanship, political advocacy, and Civil War journalism. In addition to the Emma Goldman book, her work on women in the political sphere has included a book chapter on nineteenth-century editor Sarah Hale and a journal article on the Mount Vernon Ladies Association. Dr. Pribanic-Smith is an associate professor of journalism at the University of Texas at Arlington, where she is Journalism Sequence Coordinator and Graduate Advisor in the Department of Communication. A working journalist since age 14, she earned her master’s and doctorate degrees from the University of Alabama, specializing in journalism history. She is a past president and current Executive Director of the American Journalism Historians Association (AJHA).
Associate Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Guelph Erin Nelson holds a B.A. in International Development Studies and PhD in Rural Studies from the University of Guelph, and an M.A. in Geography from the University of Waterloo. She is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Guelph and Affiliate Faculty with the Guelph Institute of Development Studies. Dr. Nelson's research explores the development of more sustainable food systems with a focus on agroecology initiatives in Canada and Latin America. She is interested in how knowledge-exchange builds capacity for agroecological production, and how agroecology contributes to ecological resilience and community wellbeing. As a community engaged scholar, she works in close collaboration with a wide range of partners, including civil society organizations and farmer networks in Canada, Mexico, and Cuba.
Pediatrician and Medical Editor at Nemours KidsHealth, Wellesley College Elana Pearl Ben-Joseph, MD, MPH, is a general pediatrician and medical editor at Nemours KidsHealth, part of Nemours Children’s Health. She received her MPH at Brown University in 2020. In her capacity as visiting scholar at the Wellesley Centers for Women, she is working with the Youth, Media & Wellbeing Research Lab studying the effects of social media on children and adolescents and how parental involvement can impact the experiences of youth when navigating the world of media and electronics.
