Speakers

We have a distinguished line up of speakers from across the region that will delve into critical issues, share groundbreaking research, and foster collaborations that will shape the future of investigations in the Asia Pacific region and beyond.

Meg Bignell

Author/Writer of 4 books

Meg Bignell

Author/Writer of 4 books

Meg Bignell is a writer whose career began in regional television production. Her third novel, The Angry Women’s Choir (Penguin, 2022) was shortlisted for the 2022 Margaret and Colin Roderick Literary Award, and won the 2025 Tasmanian people’s choice award for fiction. Meg is also the author of The Good Losers (Penguin 2025), The Sparkle Pages (Penguin, 2019), Welcome to Nowhere River (Penguin, 2021) and Tasmanian Gardens (Thames and Hudson, 2024). She has written and performed for cabaret, stage and television, and lives on a dairy farm in Tasmania with her husband, three children, one dog and one thousand cows.

Dr Samuel Cornell

PhD Candidate, Social Media Research
University of Queensland

Dr Samuel Cornell

PHD Candiciate who led the work on Social Media issues
University of Queensland

Samuel Cornell is a Research Fellow in the School of Public Health at the University of Queensland. His research examines men’s health, enhancement-drug use, social media and risk. His PhD investigated social media risk taking behaviours with a particular focus on natural outdoor environments.

Gerard Dutton

Forensic firearms and toolmarks expert (Tasmania Police - retired)
Formerly Tasmania Police

Gerard Dutton

Forensic firearms and toolmarks expert (Tasmania Police - retired)
Formerly Tasmania Police

Gerard Dutton retired in 2025 after working 40 years in law enforcement, initially with NSW Police then 30 years with Tasmania Police. 37+ years of his career was spent in the technical field of forensic firearms investigation. In addition to his main role as OIC of the Tasmania Police Ballistics Section, he was very active locally, nationally and internationally, regularly publishing papers, presenting at forensic science and other symposiums, and teaching. He was responsible for examining and presenting the ballistics evidence in some of Australia's high-profile cases of that era including the murder of heart surgeon Dr Victor Chang, the Ivan Milat "Backpacker" murders and the Port Arthur Massacre. He has given evidence many hundreds of times in courts of all jurisdictions around Australia and overseas. He remains engaged in his profession and continues to conduct reviews in cases where firearms have been used.

Dr Jeremy Dwyer

Manager Research And Policy,
Coroners Prevention Unit
Coroners Court of Victoria

Dr Jeremy Dwyer

Manager Research And Policy, Coroners Prevention Unit
Coroners Court of Victoria

Jeremy joined the Coroners Prevention Unit at the Coroners Court of Victoria in 2009. He supports Victorian coroners through conducting research to inform their investigations and recommendations. He was a key member of the team that developed the Court's death surveillance program including the Victorian Suicide Register and the Victorian Overdose Deaths Register.

Sam Halliday

Chief Pharmacist, Pharmaceutical Services
Tasmanian Department Of Health

Sam Halliday

Chief Pharmacist, Pharmaceutical Services Branch, Public Health Services, Community, Mental Health and Wellbeing
Tasmanian Department Of Health

Sam is a registered pharmacist working in medicines and poisons regulation since 2013 and is currently the Chief Pharmacist for the Tasmanian Government's Department of Health.

Sam and his team administer the Tasmanian poisons legislation to promote the quality use of medicines and minimise the known and emerging harms from medicines and poisons in our community.

Relevantly, this has included:

Regulating the prescribing of high-risk Schedule 8 medicines in Tasmania.
Implementation and stewardship of DORA – Australia's first Real Time Prescription Monitoring (RTPM) system for Schedule 8 medicines.
Leading the implementation of TasScript, the national RTPM system, in Tasmania and associated change activities.
Regulatory policy, legislative and operational leadership to support significant medicines scheduling changes in Australia including codeine up-scheduling, medicinal cannabis, psilocybin and MDMA.

Sam has been awarded a Master of Public Health from the University of Tasmania in 2018. His research thesis examined the utilisation of opioid analgesics in Tasmania for persistent non-cancer pain.

He was also awarded a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Fellowship in 2019 to investigate international approaches to the regulation of medical cannabis.

Sam graduated from the Tasmanian Leaders Program in 2019, holds a Certificate IV in Government (Statutory Compliance), is a Graduate of the Company Directors Course through the Australian Institute of Company Directors and is a Certified Health Informatician in Australasia.

He is currently undertaking ANZSOG's Executive Master of Public Administration through the Australian National University.

Sam is a proud husband and father of two children. When time permits, he continues to try and get his golf handicap down.

Paul Helleman

Author/Experienced Bush Walker
Volunteer Searcher

Paul Helleman

Author/Experienced Bush Walker
Volunteer Searcher

Paul retired in 2018, after a 40 year career as a Parks and Wildlife Service Ranger-in-Charge in Tasmania. During his career, Paul worked any locations around Tasmania including sub-Antarctic Macquarie Island Nature Reserve. Paul also worked three summers as an aviation ground support officer at Casey Station Antarctica. Paul was regularly involved in Tasmanian wildfire control operations 1990 to 2017, mainly as Incident Controller but also Planning Officer, Operations Officer, Division Commander and fire fighter. His fire duties included two deployments to the USA.

As Ranger-in-Charge, Paul dealt regularly with issues relating to public infrastructure, safety and recreational use of reserves. He has had a long interest in recreational user disappearances and fatal incidents in Tasmanian National Parks and Reserves. In 2025, after 8 years of research, Paul published the first book on the subject of recreational deaths and disappearances in Tasmanian Reserves and wild places. The book is very popular and has had three printings since November 2025. In 2025 Paul offered his incident management skills and experience to the formal volunteer search for Celine Cremer organised by Ken Gamble (IFW Global). Paul’s offer was to ensure the volunteer search was well-organised, thorough, efficient, effective and most importantly, safe.

To that end, Paul prepared most of the planning and operation documentation for the Celine Cremer search and managed the daily search program with the help and input of the volunteer team. This included a simple grid search method utilising a mobile phone mapping app. to track and record all areas searched."

Georgie O'Donnell

Forensic & Clinical Psychologist
G & D O'Donnell Family Trust

Georgie O'Donnell

Forensic & Clinical Psychologist
G & D O'Donnell Family Trust

Dr O’Donnell is a Forensic and Clinical Psychologist in independent private practice in Tasmania. Since 1995, she has worked across settings including the Tasmanian Prison system, the Wilfred Lopes Centre, community-based forensic mental health, inpatient psychiatric care, and private practice. Dr O’Donnell completed her doctoral studies at UTAS, and has completed further postgraduate study at Deakin University, Monash University, and The Handa Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence (University of St Andrews, Scotland). She specialises in providing forensic psychological assessments for legal proceedings including criminal law, child safety, community protection, and coronial investigations.

Dr Amy Peden

Injury Prevention Lecturer & Researcher
School Of Population Health, Unsw Sydney

Dr Amy Peden

Injury Prevention lecturer and researcher @ UNSW Sydney Medicine and Health | Senior Research Fellow, Royal LIfe Saving Society
Senior Research Fellow
UNSW
School Of Population Health, Unsw Sydney

Dr Amy Peden is a Senior Research Fellow in the School of Population Health at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Sydney Australia, where she is also the co-founder of the UNSW Beach Safety Research Group. She maintains an honorary Senior Research Fellow position with Royal Life Saving Society – Australia and an adjunct Senior Lecturer role with James Cook University in Queensland. As a drowning prevention researcher and advocate, Dr Peden provides technical expertise to the World Health Organization, collaborates on research with government, industry and the community and regularly appears in the media.

Dr Jodie Ward

Chief Forensic HID Scientist
Forensic Human Identification co

Dr Jodie Ward

Chief Forensic HID Scientist
Forensic Human Identification co

Dr Jodie Ward PSM CF is a forensic human identification specialist and founding director of Forensic Human Identification Co. The world-first social enterprise exists to restore names, reunite families and resolve cases through equitable access to forensic human identification services and is Australia's only provider of an end-to-end forensic investigative genetic genealogy (FIGG) service specialising in human remains identification. Dr Ward established and led Australia's National DNA Program for Unidentified and Missing Persons (2020–2024) and the NSW Specialist DNA Laboratory (2011–2019). Throughout her career, she has pioneered the application of innovative DNA technologies, including FIGG, to resolve hundreds of unidentified and missing persons cases across historical and contemporary contexts in Australia. As a forensic genetics consultant to the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Office of the Director of Authorised Intervention, Tuam, Dr Ward advises on large-scale, DNA-led identification programs for humanitarian investigations, including conflict-affected settings in the Middle East and the former Mother and Baby Institution in Tuam, Ireland. Through Forensic Human Identification Co., Dr Ward is defining national best practice, building dedicated forensic capability and advocating for coordinated responses to investigations involving institutional unmarked and undocumented graves and unidentified and disappeared First Nations people.

More speakers to be announced

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