Research team

The Growing Up in Australia consortium

Growing Up in Australia: The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children is conducted in partnership between the Department of Social Services (DSS), the Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS) and Roy Morgan.

DSS provides overall management of Growing Up in Australia on behalf of the Australian Government.

AIFS is responsible for the design and content of the study, data management and research and dissemination.

Roy Morgan is responsible for data collection and delivery, instrument development and management of the Growing Up in Australia sample.

A consortium of leading researchers at research institutions and universities throughout Australia provides advice to the study. The consortium brings together significant research and management expertise. It includes researchers from a wide range of disciplines, including child and adolescent development, sociology, epidemiology, public health, family studies, psychology, paediatrics, mental health, education and employment, services and social policy research, and economics. This breadth of expertise ensures comprehensive coverage of influences on child, adolescent and early adulthood development.

AIFS’ Growing Up in Australia team

Project Management team
Position	Name
Program Lead	Kathryn Apeness
Project Coordinator	Sarah Maher
Project Manager	Jacqueline Crowle
Project Officer	Melissa Munce

Survey Methodology team
Position	Name
Cohort Manager	Deborah Louwen
Survey Manager	Dr Jessica Walton
Data Collection Manager	Agatha Faulkner
Senior Research Officer	Amanda Vittiglia
Research Officer	Mara Davison

Data Management and Linkage team
Position	Name
Data Manager	Paul Hockey
Data Manager	Caitlyn Stevenson
Senior Data Officer	Dr Karen Lim

Research and Analysis team
Position	Name
Senior Research Fellow	Dr Monsurul Hoq
Research Fellow	Dr Neha Swami
Research Fellow	Dr Svjetlana Vukusic
Senior Research Officer	Dr Kristen Power

Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) members

The Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) provides expert advice on the methodology and content of Growing Up in Australia, membership is as follows:

	Associate Professor Amanda Cooklin is a social scientist and ARC Future Fellow at the Judith Lumley Centre at La Trobe University, leading the Work and Family Research Program. She has established expertise in the epidemiology of parents' mental health, the social determinants of parenting, and the work-family interface. Her research comprises epidemiological cohort studies and intervention trials, with a focus on establishing the longitudinal relationships between parents' mental health parenting and children's outcomes and the role of parents' employment, job quality and work-family balance on parent mental health and parenting. Dr Cooklin has attracted >$7 million in research funding, resulting in 59 scientific publications on parents work and wellbeing. She has also presented widely on this topic.
	Professor Ben Edwards is a Senior Fellow at the ANU Centre for Social Research and Methods where he is focused on policy relevant research on child and youth development and advising and supporting longitudinal studies. He has been involved with LSAC in some capacity for almost a decade. His research interests include understanding the impact of social, familial and institutional environments on human development; longitudinal study methodology and data linkage; evaluation of government programs for disadvantaged children; the intergenerational impacts of traumatic experiences on offspring; and the impact of natural disasters on human development.
	Donna Berthelsen Donna Berthelsen holds qualifications in psychology and education and is an Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Creative Industries, Education, and Social Justice at Queensland University of Technology. Donna has had long-term engagement with LSAC. Roles have included membership of the Scientific Advisory Group, since the initiation of LSAC in 2002, as well as the role of Design Team Leader for Education from 2002 to 2020. Her research addresses applied issues about children’s learning in families, early childhood programs, and school systems, and post-school education, through large scale and linked studies. She has extensive experience in research commissioned by government and community agencies involving multi-disciplinary teams, and conducted in partnership with end-users.
	A/Prof Julie Moschion joined the University of Queensland as an Associate Professor in May 2023. Julie participated in designing the Journeys Home Survey, a longitudinal study of Australians who are homeless or at-risk of homelessness. Her current research revolves around a number of issues related to disadvantage in education, housing, health and labour economics. Specifically, she works on homelessness & precarious housing, substance use, incarceration, gender gaps in education, peer effects and female's labour market participation. Julie is developing a research agenda aiming to support the development of better opportunities for Indigenous Australians. This includes a project to evaluate the impact of Indigenous preferential procurement programs and a project on "Historical frontier violence: drivers, legacy and the role of truth-telling", both supported by ARC funding.
	Professor Lisa Smithers is an epidemiologist and Head of the Discipline of Public Health, School of Health & Society, University of Wollongong. Lisa’s research is focused on understanding how early life events (during pregnancy, infancy and early childhood) impact on health and human capital. As part of her program of research, Lisa is interested in how to overcome the effects of social disadvantage in early life. Her methodological expertise includes large population-based datasets, randomised controlled trials, and systematic reviews. Lisa is also interested in contemporary methods for making better causal inference from observational data.
	Professor Lyndall Strazdins is a Clinical Psychologist and Professor at the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, and the Director of the Research School of Population Health at ANU. She is an ARC-awarded Future Fellow investigating time as a resource for health and how time structure power relations, gender inequality and peoples’ capacity to be healthy, especially in families. Lyndall leads the work and family component of LSAC, and serves as a scientific consultant to government. Her research focuses on contemporary predicaments of work and care and their health and equity consequences, viewing health as inter-linked within families.
	Dr Meredith O'Connor leads the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute’s LifeCourse infrastructure, involving a collaboration of over 20 longitudinal cohort studies that track health pathways over time. With a background in Educational and Developmental Psychology, her research focuses on how mental health unfolds over the life span and the potential to join forces across cohort studies for greater research impact.
	Professor Tim Slade’s research interests centre around the diagnosis and epidemiology of alcohol and drug use disorders, mental disorders and their comorbidity. He focuses on adolescent and young adult health and study the influence of individual, peer and family factors on the emergence and development of alcohol use and mental disorders. Other interests include the development of school-based programs for the prevention of alcohol-related harms among adolescents.