Speakers

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Lauren Breen PhD FT is a psychologist, researcher, TEDx speaker, and a professor of psychology at Curtin University, Australia. She works to understand the psychology of grief and loss over the lifespan and the intersections with mental health and wellbeing. She has published 180 journal articles, 22 book chapters, and co-edited 1 book, The Routledge International Handbook of Child and Adolescent Grief in Contemporary Contexts. She was managing editor of Death Studies for 4 years, a board member for Grief Australia for 9 years, and currently is a board member for Lionheart Camp for Kids, an organisation supporting grieving children and families. In harnessing strong partnerships, Lauren’s research has informed policy and practice locally and around the world. In 2022, she received the Research Award from the Association for Death Education and Counseling (USA). In 2023 and 2024, she was recognised as Australia’s top researcher in the category Hospice and Palliative Care. She is member of the International Work Group on Death, Dying and Bereavement and is a Fellow of the Australian Psychological Society.

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Professor Kate Woodthorpe is a sociologist at the University of Bath where she co-directs the world leading research center, the Center for Death and Society (CDAS). Over two decades Kate has published and conducted funded research on funeral practices and costs, families at the end of life, and the deathcare sector. Her latest work is on family disputes, dying at home, and death administration.

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Dr Nina Vaswani is the Senior Research Fellow at the Children and Young People’s Centre for Justice at the University of Strathclyde.   Nina’s key research interests are the experience and impact of loss, bereavement and trauma in young people and how these experiences interface and influence contact with the justice system, and her PhD focused on the bereavement experiences of boys and young men in prison.  Nina is also interested in young masculinities and how marginalisation, disadvantage, loss and trauma might shape young men’s developing identities, mental health, behaviours and outcomes. Nina was the PI on the Men Minds Project (www.menminds.org), which was coproduced with young men aged 16-24 to better understand marginalised young men’s mental health, and she is currently PI on the Challenging Justice Inequalities project (www.challengejustice.org).

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Inês Rothes was born in Porto and has been a psychologist since 1999, having graduated from the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences of the University of Porto (FPCEUP). Throughout her professional and academic career, she has specialised in suicidology and suicide prevention, developing research, training, and clinical and community intervention in this field. She is currently the President of the Portuguese Society of Suicidology and a member of the suicide prevention working group of the National Coordination for Mental Health Policies (Ministry of Health).

She began her clinical practice in the field of drug addiction and is a specialist in Health and Community Psychology recognised by the Portuguese Psychologists’ Association. She has worked on various community and public mental health projects while maintaining clinical activity, mainly with young people and adults. She holds a Master’s degree in Psychological Intervention with Children and Adolescents and a PhD in Psychology from the University of Porto, with a European Doctorate title, having completed an international research internship at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Leuven in Belgium. She is currently an Assistant Professor at FPCEUP and a researcher at the Psychology Research Centre of the University of Porto (CPUP).

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Maja O’Connor is a professor in clinical psychology at Department of Psychology, Aarhus University, Denmark, where she since 2017 has managed Unit for Bereavement Research. She is employed part time at The Danish National Center for Grief as a senior researcher. She has worked with bereavement research for over 25 years with a special focus on complicated grief reactions and has published more than 80 peer reviewed research papers and book chapters. She is an authorized clinical psychologist and formally qualified specialist in geriatric psychology. Her main research interest is the transition from adaptive grief to complicated, treatment-demanding grief reactions and how to identify and treat Prolonged Grief Disorder in adults.

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Clare Killikelly is a clinical psychologist and assistant professor at the University of Zurich specialising in grief across cultural contexts, with a particular focus on prolonged grief disorder and global mental health. Her work examines how cultural meanings, social practices, and structural factors shape the experience, expression, and assessment of grief, and how these insights can be translated into effective, culturally responsive and scalable interventions.

A central strand of her research focuses on the development and evaluation of digital mental health interventions for grief, including internet- and app-based therapies designed to improve access to evidence-based care for underserved and hard-to-reach populations. She works at the intersection of clinical science, cultural psychology, and digital innovation, with a strong emphasis on ethical and scalable care.

Clare has authored over 60 peer-reviewed publications and collaborates widely in international and interdisciplinary research networks advancing culturally informed grief care.

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Alison is Director of the Childhood Bereavement Network, the hub for those working with bereaved children and young people across the UK. She is also Coordinator of the National Bereavement Alliance, a strategic collaboration of organisations and individuals working with bereaved people in England. She keeps the sector updated with relevant developments, and helps the field to develop consensus on key policy and practice topics, contributing to gains in national policy in bereaved people’s interests. She was awarded an MBE for her work in 2021. Alison has a particular interest in the social and policy influences on bereavement, and in supporting bereavement services to demonstrate the effectiveness of their work. She is a member of the International Work Group on Death, Dying and Bereavement.

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Rafael Jódar is the coordinator of the adult clinical area of the Comillas Clinical Psychology Unit, UNINPSI in Madrid, Spain. He is also the Director of the Master's Degree in Experiential Humanist Psychotherapy and Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT). Certified Supervisor (International Society for Emotion-Focused Therapy). He studies how emotions transform in psychotherapy, focusing on EFT and the processes that help people move from self-criticism and grief toward emotional integration and growth.