Program Committee

Angela Dawson

Angela is the convenor of the Public Health Association of Australia’s Women’s Health Special Interest Group and an Associate Professor in Public Health at the The Australian Centre for Public and Population Health Research at the University of Technology Sydney. Angela is a public health social scientist with expertise in maternal and reproductive health service delivery to priority populations. She has undertaken research into to the delivery of sexual and reproductive health services in humanitarian contexts as well as access to abortion and emergency contraceptive pills in Australian and internationally. She is also interested in the management and referral of women who have experienced domestic violence and care of women with FGM.

Deborah Bateson

Deborah Bateson is the Medical Director at Family Planning NSW with honorary university positions including a Clinical Associate Professorship in the Discipline of Obstetrics, Gynaecology and Neonatology at The University of Sydney and Adjunct Professorships at the Centre for Social Research in Health at UNSW, Sydney and in the Faculty of Health, UTS, Sydney. Deborah has worked as a clinician, researcher and educator in the field of reproductive and sexual health for over 20 years. She has published widely and frequently provides expert commentary to the media. She is a member of several committees and boards with a focus on reproductive and sexual health including the International Federation of Professional Abortion and Contraception Associates (FIAPAC) and the National Cervical Screening Program Quality and Safety Monitoring Committee. Deborah is also a past Chair of the Australasian Sexual Health Alliance (ASHA).

Dr Catriona Melville

Dr Catriona Melville, is a specialist in Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) and the Deputy Medical Director of Marie Stopes Australia. Catriona trained in Obstetrics & Gynaecology in the West of Scotland and is a Fellow of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (FRCOG). She subspecialised in SRH and holds Fellowship of the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Health (FFSRH). Provision of client-centred SRH care including abortion has been a passion of Catriona’s for over 20 years. Catriona is actively involved in medical education and clinical research. She is the author of Sexual & Reproductive Health at a Glance (Wiley-Blackwell) and an Associate Editor for The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (ANZJOG). Catriona has spent much of her life working in NHS Scotland, pioneering integrated SRH care before relocating to Queensland in 2016. She was awarded Fellowship of The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (FRANZCOG) in 2020.

Judith Dean

Dr Judith Dean is a Senior Research Fellow at The University of Queensland with over 25 years national and international experience as Nurse/Midwife and researcher in sexual and reproductive health and HIV. Her research focuses on equity of access to SRH and HIV prevention and care for priority populations using mixed methods community-based participatory approaches. She is currently leading projects involving the implementation and evaluation of innovative peer-led HIV and Molecular Point of Care STI testing models, along with access to abortion, contraception, and cervical screening.

Kirsten Black

Professor Kirsten Black is an academic gynaecologist at the University of Sydney. She became a Fellow of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians (RANZCOG) in 2002. She has a Masters of Medicine in Women’s Health from the University of Melbourne and a PhD from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, University of London. She was awarded a Guy’s and St Thomas Charitable Foundation Research Training Fellowship for her PhD work, which examined access to emergency contraception in South London (PhD awarded mid 2008). She undertook sub-speciality training in sexual and reproductive health and is one of few Australians who hold a Membership of the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare, of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (UK). She also hold a diploma of diagnostic ultrasound. She combines clinical work, research and teaching and was awarded national teaching awards both in 2014 and 2015. In 2018 she was awarded the Professor J.A.Young medal for exemplary service to the Sydney Medical School, the University and the Community and excellence in research.

Dr Beth Messenger

Beth trained in London, graduating from Guy’s and St Thomas’s in 2000. After house jobs in the west of England, she moved to Scotland intending to pursue a career in Interventional Radiology. However, in 2004 she moved to Lower Hutt with her New Zealand born husband and baby son. While doing A+E, she was drawn to Women’s Health, soon realizing that O+G was not her calling but that sexual and reproductive health in primary care was where she was meant to be.

Beth started at Family Planning in 2006, became Locality Medical Advisor for the Central region in 2009, also covering the Midland region for several years, before becoming National Medical Advisor in July 2018. She completed her Diploma in Sexual and Reproductive Health in 2017. She joined the Trust Board of the New Zealand College of Sexual and Reproductive Health in August 2018, and was elected to the position of chair in November 2018. Beth is also a member of the New Zealand Sexual Health Society executive committee, joining in 2017, and was a member of the RANZCOG sexual and reproductive health special interest group.

Sarah Maunsell

ASHM Sexual Health Program Manager

Tyler Davis

ASHM Sexual Health Project Officer

Sophia Kloosterman

ASHM Sexual Health Project Officer