Peers Connect
ASBHM Peers Connect is a group that was developed through ASBHM, where the executive committee felt it was important to support, help and guide Early Career and Postgraduate contingent that are members of ASBHM.
Aims: The main aim of ASBHM Peers Connect is to promote research opportunities, mentoring and education for students and early career members, throughout Australasia, who have an interest in behavioural health and medicine, specifically by:
- Organising subsidised workshops on topics of interest at the ASBHM annual conference.
- Organising a free mentoring session with experienced researchers at the ASBHM annual conference.
- Organising a fun social activity at the ASBHM conference, which will give all ASBHM Peers Connect members an opportunity to meet others and identify common research interests (see our mini golf activity at ASBHM2024 in Adelaide!.
- Notifying members of other workshops and events (outside of the ASBHM conference) that could be of value for their career development.
- Notifying members of job opportunities for early career researchers.
If you are interested in becoming a member, please visit the membership join/renew page to join ASBHM, where you will automatically become a member of Peers Connect. Additionally, Peers Connect members are invited to join our Facebook page to connect with other members, and keep up to date on exciting news and opportunities.
Sources of information for students and early career members:
- CREATE (Collaborative Research and Training in the EHPS) is a subdivision of European Health Psychology Society: http://www.ehps.net/create
- American Psychological Association – Students: www.apa.org/students/
Peers Connect Representatives
Dr. Caitlin Fehily
Caitlin is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the School of Psychological Sciences at the University of Newcastle. Her research interests include addressing the inequitable chronic disease burden experienced by people with a mental health condition. In particular, Caitlin’s research has focused on building the capacity of mental health services to provide preventive care to address their clients’ health and lifestyle factors, including tobacco smoking, nutrition, alcohol, physical inactivity and overweight/obesity. She completed her PhD in the School of Psychological Sciences at the University of Newcastle in 2020, which examined the translation of preventive care guidelines into community mental health service delivery. Her PhD demonstrated the effectiveness of embedding a clinician in a service with the dedicated role of providing preventive care to clients in an additional consultation. This work has led to a $1.3M MRFF project grant to further develop and test this approach (CIA Jenny Bowman). Caitlin is currently managing this large cluster-RCT with 12 government community mental health services across 3 Local Health Districts.
Ms Sabryna Sas
Sabryna is in the final year of her PhD at Griffith University in Queensland and is a member of the Health and Psychology Innovations (HaPI) Research Lab. Her research focuses on the effect of self-control on health behaviours and explores self-control in forensic populations. Sabryna has also been a member of the ASBHM Peers Connect Sub-Committee since 2023, making her the perfect person to step into this position.
Email: sabryna.sas@griffith.edu.au