Celebrating diversity

Staff and students from across the university share their insights and stories about being LGBTQIA+. They reflect on  their experiences of discrimination and acceptance, being queer at work, on the importance of LGBTQIA+ focused research, and how we can all contribute to creating a more inclusive community. Created for IDAHOBIT 2023 by Greta Robenstone.

Danny Hatters

Danny Hatters runs a laboratory in the School of Biomedical Sciences, where he conducts research into Huntington's Disease with Motor Neurone Disease. Danny sits on the Faculty's Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Group and is a strong advocate for improving LGBTQIA+ visibility and inclusion.

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Sav Zwick

Sav Zwickl

Sav is a gender and sexuality researcher in the Trans Health Research Group in the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences. Their interest is in the social and environmental drivers of health inequalities, with a strong focus on improving healthcare experiences for trans and gender diverse people in Australia.

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Dr Asiel Adan Sanchez

Dr Asiel Adan Sanchez (they/them) is a GP with an approach to diversity that is very much grounded in a human-rights framework. They have a quiet determination to change attitudes and breakdown barriers that prevent people from engaging in healthcare systems.

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Jess Herde

Dr Jess Heerde

Jess is a research leader in youth homelessness based in the Department of Paediatrics in the Melbourne Medical School. Homelessness remains, in many respects, a hidden issue. Rates of homelessness are rising among the young, with devastating effects on their health and wellbeing. Homelessness remains a wicked problem that straddles both the health and social sciences, meaning it has been a challenging area in which to build a research program.

Kate Filia

Dr Kate Filia

Kate is an exceptional researcher and emerging leader in the field of social inclusion and mental health, an area of critical significance for those living with mental ill-health. She has developed a novel measure of social inclusion, and a research program dedicated to understanding differences between, and improving, social inclusion across psychiatric diagnoses, developmental stages, in caregivers, and at-risk population groups.

Dr Ada Cheung is a clinician scientist and holds a NHMRC Fellowship and a Dame Kate Campbell Fellowship in the Department of Medicine (Austin Health), The University of Melbourne. She is also an endocrinologist in private practice and at Austin Health. She combines her physician expertise with her research skills to improve medical services for transgender Australians.

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Gwenda Freeman

Gwenda is a Lecturer in Aboriginal Health Education in the Aboriginal Health Team at the Department of Rural Health (UDRH), University of Melbourne. Her work includes teaching, providing student support, conducting research and leading community projects.

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Zoe Stephenson

Zoe is a Strategic Partnerships Specialist for the Centre for Cancer Research and is the Communications Lead on the University of Melbourne Pride in Action Network.

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Chris McKay

Chris is a Wiradjuri man and PhD candidate at the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health. He is based in the Indigenous Epidemiology and Health research group and his research focuses on the health and wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adolescents.

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