Broken Sleep? 2021

Helen Ball is professor of anthropology and director of the Infancy & Sleep Centre (DISC) at Durham University. She founded Basis, the Baby Sleep Information Source in 2012 as an outreach project of DISC, and was awarded the Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Further & Higher Education in 2018. Her research examines the sleep ecology of infants and their parents including attitudes and practices regarding infant sleep, behavioural and physiological interactions of infants and their parents during sleep, infant sleep development, and the discordance between cultural and biological sleep needs. She conducts research in hospitals, the community, and her lab, and she contributes to national and international policy and practice guidelines on infant care. She is a board member of the International Society for the Study and Prevention of Infant Deaths (ISPID), chair of the Scientific Committee for the Lullaby Trust, and qualifications board member for Unicef UK Baby Friendly Initiative, and associate editor for the journal, Sleep Health.

Dr Julie Smith is an awarded Australian Research Council Future Fellow and Honorary Associate Professor at the Research School of Population Health, Australian National University. She is also a Fellow of the Tax and Transfer Policy Institute at the ANU Crawford School of Public Policy.

Her research focuses on gender analysis, taxation policy, and economic aspects of breastfeeding, with more than 45 peer reviewed articles, book chapters and books. She has been an expert advisor to national and international governments and NGOs.

She is a co-founder of WBTi Australia, and a former ABA director.

Tracy Cassels, PhD is the director of Evolutionary Parenting, a resource she founded for families in 2011 after the birth of her daughter. Currently she works directly with families consulting on a variety of parenting-related matters, but most specifically on sleep, and she also runs various self-paced courses for families on various topics.  Tracy serves as an Adviser to the Children’s Health & Human Rights Partnership, a non-profit agency dedicated to ending routine infant circumcision.  She has previously worked in the non-profit sector in agencies focused on education and social-emotional development.

She has a B.A. in Cognitive Science from the University of California, Berkeley, an M.A. in Clinical Psychology from the University of British Columbia, and a Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology, also from the University of British Columbia.  The focus of her dissertation work was on empathy and theory of mind in young children. Her academic works have been published in peer-reviewed journals, including Psychological Assessment, PLoS One, Personality and Individual Differences, Midwifery, and more. 

She is married and is a mother to two young kids and a “bonus mom” to one older kid.  She lives in a small town in Prince Edward County, Ontario, Canada.

Sarah Ockwell-Smith is a well-known childcare author who specialises in the psychology and science of parenting, ‘gentle parenting’ and attachment theory, with a particular interest in child sleep.

She has authored eleven parenting books, translated into over thirty languages, including the bestselling ‘The Gentle Sleep Book’ which has sold over 100,000 copies in the UK alone.

Nathan Wallis has a professional background in child counselling, teaching and social service management. He was a board member and senior trainer with the national body responsible for the dissemination of neuroscientific research to professionals.

He has a reputation as an engaging speaker who uses humour and plain language to make this complex topic come to life. Nathan has appeared on radio and TV shows in New Zealand.

His consultant practice delivers professional development training in the area of neuroscience discoveries and the practical implications for everyday practice.

Jennie Rosier is an associate professor of communication studies at James Madison University, director of the Relationships, Love, Happiness Project, host of the Love Matters podcast, and author of a textbook, 3 popular press books, and several digital workbooks.

As an expert in romantic and parent-child relationships, Jennie focuses on helping others create more realistic expectations while enhancing the communication skills needed to maintain these bonds including empathy, respect, and attachment; often with an emphasis in interpersonal neurobiology.

Dr David McIntosh is a paediatric ENT surgeon and an adjunct associate professor based in Queensland.

He specialises in managing upper airway obstruction in children and adults. He is an internationally recognised specialist in the field of the interplay between ENT and dentistry. He lectures internationally on the topic of snoring and its deleterious effects on health and wellbeing.

Dr Vincent Ho is a clinical academic gastroenterologist and leads the Translational Gastroenterology Research program at the School of Medicine focusing on basic science and clinical research in the gut.

He has a particular interest in the gut microbiome. Vincent is the gastroenterology education content convenor for the School of Medicine, has written extensively for The Conversation (over 6.3 million views) and has been interviewed on radio, television and newspapers.

Greer Kirshenbaum has a BSc in Neuroscience and a PhD in Neuroscience and Medical Science. She was a Canadian Institutes of Health Research Fellow at Columbia University.

An infant and family sleep specialist and a doula, Greer’s company, Nurture Neuroscience, is on a mission to revolutionize the future of health. Greer wants families and perinatal practitioners to understand how early caregiving experience can boost success, thriving and flourishing and diminish depression, anxiety and addiction in adulthood. We can promote a lifetime of health by shaping babies’ brains through simple intuitive nurturing experiences in pregnancy, birth and infancy.

Karen has been an IBCLC since 1991 and has worked in both private practice and hospital settings. She became a La Leche League (LLL) Leader in 1975, forming the first LLL group for mothers of multiples, after the birth of her twin sons.

She wrote the book “Mothering Multiples: Breastfeeding and Caring for Twins or More”, co-authored the book “Keys to Parenting Multiples” plus numerous articles and chapters about breastfeeding and caring for multiples. 

She co-founded a local group, RISCS (Resolving Infant Sleep Controversies Safely). A former ILCA president, she was designated Fellow of the International Lactation Consultant Association (FILCA).

Levita is a registered Counselling Psychologist and Lecturer within the Faculty of Education at Monash University. Her research interests are in the area of perinatal psychology, adverse childhood experiences and its impact on attachment patterns and subsequent parenting practices. Within this space, her current research projects are looking at fathers transition to fatherhood, father’s engagement in night-time infant care, and factors influencing parenting choices in relation to night-time infant care and uptake of safe sleep messages.

Shel Banks is an UK-based IBCLC, specialising in the unsettled baby with symptoms of colic, reflux, allergy and faltering weight. She also works in the NHS as well as working and volunteering for various national and international organisations in the world of infant feeding and early parenting. She was involved in 3 x infant feeding-focussed NICE Guidelines - including NG75 on Faltering weight in Infants and Young Children. In addition, Shel is Clinical Director for the mobile app Anya app, working to support improved pregnancy, parenting and infant feeding outcomes for families everywhere. Shel is currently undertaking her doctoral study on supporting parents of unsettled babies with colic, reflux and allergy, through the Maternal and Infant Nutrition and Nurture (MAINN) Group at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLAN), UK. She is the author of the book Why Formula Feeding Matters (2022).

Kumi obtained her medical degree in 1997 later followed by a year of psychiatry internship and PhD at Osaka University in 2002.

She studied the neural mechanism of parent-infant relationship as a postdoctoral researcher with Prof. Michel Meaney at McGill University and then at RIKEN Brain Science Institute. She has been the head of the Laboratory for Affiliative Social Behavior at RIKEN since 2008. She is a mother of four boys.