Dr Owen Bullock is a poet specialising in haiku and experimental works. He is Chief Investigator for the Poetry and Wellbeing program (UC Hospital), Co-Investigator on the Defence Arts for Recovery, Resilience, Teamwork and Skills (ARRTS) Program, and Discipline Lead for Creative Writing & Literary Studies at the University of Canberra.​

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Dr S.J. Burton is a poet and a novelist who has studied American poets and their mental illnesses. She has also written about connections between writers and how literary collectives are conducive to the production of creative work. She is currently a Research Fellow in English and a Curriculum Lead in Indigenous knowledges and perspectives for the College of Arts and Social Sciences at ANU.

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Dr Paul Collis is a Barkindji man. His early life was informed by Barkindji and Kunya and Murawarri, and Wongamara and Nyempa story tellers and artists, who taught him Aboriginal Culture and Law. This background informs Paul's work on the Story Ground project, running workshops to elicit creative writing on Country. Novelist, poet and Director of Indigenous Engagement in the Faculty of Arts and Design at the University of Canberra, Paul was awarded Elder Uncle of the Year at the All First Nations Awards for 2024.

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Associate Prof. Jen Crawford is a poet with an interest in collaboration. Her critical and creative work focusses on the poetics of place and cultural engagement. Jen was Chief Investigator on the major ILA project, Story Ground: Using Oral and Written Story to Engage Indigenous Community Members with University Study, and is a part of the ongoing Story Ground team, working with Indigenous communities in Barkindji, Nyempa, Ngunnawal, Ngamberi and Yuin lands.

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Dr Caren Florance is an adjunct assistant professor in UC's Centre for Creative and Cultural Research who juggles academic interests with her creative practice. Her word/image practice is strongly collaborative and centres upon textual poetics, using multiple techniques including handset letterpress. She has taught at university level as well as running workshops for multivarious community groups and is currently a visual arts mentor for the ARRTS program. She lives on Yuin-Monaro country.  

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Prof. Oz Hardwick is a poet and academic, with particular interests in prose poetry, ekphrasis, and collaborative composition. His recent work has focused upon creative writing and neurodiversity, and his current work explores temporal and textual fragmentation in relation to autism. His most recent poetry collection is the chapbook Retrofuturism for the Dispossessed (Hedgehog Poetry Press, 2024). Oz is Professor of Creative Writing at Leeds Trinity University (UK).​

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Dr Cathy Hope is a Senior Research Fellow in the Health Research Institute, University of Canberra, overseeing public space activation and community engagement for the Connect Up 2617 project – a preventative health research project connecting 18-30 year olds in Belconnen and Bruce. Cathy’s work operates at the intersection of community development, placemaking and research. She has co-facilitated numerous projects with and for the Canberra community and produced multiple government and industry reports to improve people and place outcomes. Cathy led the 2019 national award-winning Haig Park Experiments with a cross-sector consortium, which transformed the once unsafe and unused Canberra green space into a loved community hub.

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Dr Ella Kurz is a former midwife and current poet. She received the University of Canberra Stephen Parker medal for her PhD which explored how written memories can be used to understand how identities come into existence in the healthcare world - and how this understanding can lead to better healthcare experiences. She co-edited the poetry anthology What We Carry: Poetry on Childbearing and is the author of the early reader, My Mother is a Midwife. 

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Dr Vic McEwan is an artist, artistic director, and researcher, who works in collaboration with diverse non-arts partners to explore complex, and often difficult themes using sound, video, photography, installation, and performance. His artistic outcomes have toured at venues such as the National Museum of Australia, and Tate Liverpool. Some of these key projects include The Harmonic Oscillator, which investigates the adverse effects of noise in hospital environments and Face to Face: The New Normal, developed in partnership with the Sydney Facial Nerve Clinic. Vic sits on the executive of the Arts Health Network NSW/ACT (AHNNA), is a Creative Producer for the Griffith Hospital Redevelopment, was a co-author of the RPA Hospital Curatorial Strategy, and in 2024 provided feedback on the NSW Health and the Arts Framework V2.0. In 2023, Vic became the first artist to complete an arts-led PhD from the Faculty of Medicine and Health at the University of Sydney.

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Prof. Rachel Davey is the Foundation Director of the Health Research Institute with over 30 years of research experience in areas related to the prevention of non-communicable diseases. Rachel has extensive experience of conducting large-scale trials in both clinical and community settings in the area of physical activity, health and disease prevention. More recently, Rachel has focused on the use and development of ecological models that emphasize multiple levels of influence on health behaviours. She has designed and led large-scale community interventions that have resulted in sustained behaviour change and improved health. Rachel has been awarded over $20 million of research funding over the past 10 years and has supervised 24 PhD students to completion.  

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Associate Prof. Cathy Hope 

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Prof. Paul Magee is Director of the Centre for Creative and Cultural Research (CCCR) at the University of Canberra. He writes poetry, and has also published extensively on the history, ethnography and philosophy of poetic composition, the links between orality and writing, and the relationship between creativity and traumatic thought. Paul's long involvement in socially-impactful deployment of Creative Arts for wellbeing and repair includes his decade-long role as a Co-Investigator on the Defence ARRTS Programme and his work with Indigenous communities as a member of the Story Ground team.

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Prof. Maree Meredith a proud Bidjara woman, currently holds the position of Pro Vice-Chancellor Indigenous Leadership at the University of Canberra. Professor Meredith has a keen interest in promoting diversity and inclusion, and is excited to be providing Indigenous leadership to steer the University of Canberra into a new era. With a deeply held respect for Indigenous culture and the importance of consistently engaging with communities, Professor Meredith seeks out the wisdom, understanding and guidance of local Elders, and works closely with Indigenous communities at the University, in Canberra and the region. She is committed to embedding and celebrating local Indigenous heritage, and to building a respectful and inclusive community. Prof. Meredith studies art and health in and for Indigenous communities. 

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Dr Bridget Vincent works at the intersection of poetry and ethics. Her research interests include ecological writing, the ethical dimensions of ekphrasis, ecological writing, the changing critical and ideological fortunes of close reading. She is a lecturer in English at ANU.

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Assoc. Prof. Barbara Walsh

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Distinguished Prof. Jen Webb is Distinguished Professor of Creative Practice at the University of Canberra, where she researches the role of art and artists in society and writes poetry. Recent scholarly books focus on gender and the creative labour market and art and human rights in Asian contexts, while Jen’s poetry collections engage social, political and environmental issues. Her current research addresses the relationship between creative practice and wellbeing, specifically the role of arts mentors in health and wellbeing programs. She has supervised 52 PhD candidates to completion, and is currently primary supervisor for 6 PhD candidates, 5 of whom are working on arts/health projects.   ​​​​

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