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Terry Dowling is one of Australia’s most awarded, acclaimed and best-known writers of science fiction, fantasy and horror. Along with the computer adventures Schizm: Mysterious Journey, Schizm II: Chameleon and Sentinel: Descendants in Time, he is author of Rynosseros, Blue Tyson, Twilight Beach and Rynemonn, Wormwood, An Intimate Knowledge of the Night, Antique Futures: The Best of Terry Dowling, Blackwater Days, Basic Black: Tales of Appropriate Fear (which received a starred review in Publishers' Weekly), Make Believe: A Terry Dowling Reader, Amberjack: Tales of Fear and Wonder (another starred review) and Clowns at Midnight.

Dowling has outstanding publishing credentials. He is editor of such highly regarded titles as Mortal Fire: Best Australian SF, The Essential Ellison and The Jack Vance Treasury, and his stories have appeared in The Year’s Best Science Fiction, The Year’s Best SF, The Year’s Best Fantasy, The Best New Horror and The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, as well as anthologies as diverse as Dreaming Down Under, The Dark, Inferno, Songs of the Dying Earth and Darkness: Two Decades of Modern Horror. He is a musician, songwriter and communications instructor with a doctorate in creative writing.

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Dr Brendan Doyle holds a First Class Honours degree in French (Sydney), an MA (ANU) and a PhD from the University of Paris III. While living and working in France for five years, he co-founded a youth theatre company and was actively involved with contemporary theatre. He has taught French in secondary, tertiary and adult education contexts and currently teaches at Macquarie University. Brendan subtitled French movies for SBS for many years and has been involved in productions of French theatre.

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Deb Doyle is the proprietor of her own editorial company. She has been designing and delivering editorial training courses since 1995; providing editing, copywriting, and proofreading services since 1987, and illustrating since 1977. She is the author of Grey Areas and Gremlins: A Grammar and Punctuation Refresher. Deb trains groups and individuals in writing for specific readerships, grammar and punctuation, plain English, editing, and proofreading. Some of her clients include SBS, AMP, the Roads and Traffic Authority, and the NSW Police Training College.

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Cindy is a qualified teacher, holding a B.Education, Diploma of Teaching and a Certificate IV in Financial Services (Bookkeeping). She has been a MYOB Certified Consultant and MYOB Accredited Trainer since 2000, has been Xero Certified since 2010 and is a software developer for both MYOB and Xero. Cindy has run her own MYOB consulting business since 1992 and has 13 years practical experience of bookkeeping using MYOB.

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Dr Juliette Drobny is a clinical lecturer and a senior clinical psychologist who completed her undergraduate and postgraduate training in psychology and clinical psychology at the University of New South Wales before completing her PhD at the University of Sydney. She is currently the Head of the Anxiety Treatment and Research Unit in the Department of Medical Psychology at Westmead Hospital.

She has specialised in the treatment of anxiety disorders for over 10 years and has been involved in conducting research into anxiety disorders for the past 15 years. She was co-author of The Shyness Program, a highly effective Internet-based treatment program for overcoming social phobia. She has also been involved in developing CBT treatment programs for Panic Disorder with Agoraphobia, Compulsive Hoarding and a transdiagnostic approach for managing anxiety.

She has numerous publications in peer-reviewed journals and her research has been presented at national and international conferences. Her PhD thesis investigated the role of patients' knowledge and beliefs about CBT on treatment outcome in Panic Disorder and Agoraphobia. She is currently researching the long-term effectiveness of CBT for anxiety disorders in a naturalistic community outpatient setting. She is passionate about teaching and is actively involved in the training and supervision of intern clinical psychologists and psychiatry registrars.

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Dr Julian Droogan is a scholar of comparative religions, archaeology and material culture who graduated from the University of Sydney. He is now a lecturer at Macquarie University’s Centre for Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism. Julian has been researching the world’s religions for the past fifteen years and has a special interest in issues concerning religion in the modern world such as radicalisation, fundamentalism and terrorism. Julian is also a popular lecturer in Australia who regularly presents seminars and workshops at various universities and government institutions on cross-cultural understanding, religions and communication. In 2011 Julian presented the ten week 'For God’s Sake' series of lectures at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, and also led the Society’s art and religion tour through India. Julian has been lecturing with CCE for the past five years and led CCE tours to India and Sri Lanka.

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Claire Duffy is a strategic communications advisor with 25 years experience getting messages to audiences in ways they’ll understand. Her career includes leadership roles in arts and cultural organisations, schools, professional services, non-profits and government.

Claire works with individuals and organisations who want to develop the skills of thinking, planning, communicating, speaking and presenting well. Her client list includes universities, engineers, project managers, financial services, arts companies, museums, schools, and individuals who are transitioning to new roles, facing important speaking occasions, or seeking scholarships, prizes and awards.

Claire has a special interest in working with students and young people. She’s on the staff of The Scots College, runs the Archdale Debating Competition for girls, and has coached secondary students to success at local national and international speaking competitions.

She’s on the Board of the Australian Theatre for Young People, was formerly a Director of Gondwana Choirs (the national children’s choir), Beyond Online Ltd, and Sydney Philharmonia. She has a Master’s degree in Public Policy and a BA DipEd from Sydney University.

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Melinda Duker B.Ec (Uni Sydney), AMAMI CPM

Melinda Duker is currently a Managing Partner of High Definition Insights a qualitative research and strategy business focused on bringing their business partners insight driven, commercially astute and actionable business advice. Prior to this Melinda has spent 15 years in FMCG marketing with both local and multi-national companies in Australia and the UK including Wrigley’s, Unilever and Campbells – Arnott’s. Her roles in these organisations have included brand marketing, sales, trade marketing and business process optimisation.

Melinda has a strong philosophy in understanding how the consumer and shopper interact with brands and then making marketing activities accountable to top line and bottom line business results. Melinda brings experience in developing strategies, new products and the ATL communication from a marketing perspective. She then understands what it means to transcends this into the implementation sphere of the in-store environment, manufacturing efficiencies and the business P&L. Melinda is passionate about challenging Marketers to consider the full picture to deliver the best business results.

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Judith has a background in performance and has written for and performed at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Her short film, A little Experiment, toured Australia in the Over the Fence Comedy Film Festival. In 2005 she completed an Honours Degree in Media Arts at UTS and in 2008 completed the UCLA Professional Screenwriting Program. Her screenplay from that program, “The Fifth Book” was a quarterfinalist in the Blue Cat Screenwriting Competition in Los Angeles. Currently, Judith teaches screenwriting and is continuing her study at UCLA online with Chris Ruppenthal, the creative executive of The X-Files.

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Adam Dunn is Director of Biomedical Informatics and Digital Health in the Faculty of Medicine and Health at The University of Sydney, where he leads a diverse team of scholars working broadly across research and education in biomedical informatics and digital health.

Adam’s research is in applications of data science and machine learning in clinical epidemiology, aiming to improve the use of clinical trial evidence in systematic reviews and clinical practice; and in public health, aiming to improve health behaviours by monitoring how evidence and misinformation are taken up by the public. He has been a lead investigator on projects funded by the NHMRC in Australia and co-investigator on projects funded by the AHRQ and NIH in the US. His editorial roles have included Associate Editor for Medical Informatics and Decision Making, Systematic Reviews, and Research Integrity and Peer Review, and he is an Editorial Board member for JAMIA Open.