Dr. Cindy-Lee Dennis is a Professor in the Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing and the Faculty of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto. She holds a Canada Research Chair in Perinatal Community Health and was recently appointed the Women’s Health Research Chair at Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, St. Michael’s Hospital. She is currently the principal investigator of seven large, multi-site studies and is a co-investigator on twenty-four other research projects concerning maternal, paternal, and infant health outcomes. She holds over $23 million in funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and has over 170 peer-review publications. She is the lead author on eight Cochrane systematic reviews and has provided over 150 invited presentations.

Jayashri KULKARNI commenced her appointment as Professor of Psychiatry, The Alfred and Monash University in 2002. She directs a large psychiatric research group, the Monash Alfred Psychiatry Research Centre (MAPrc), with approximately 150 staff and students. The Centre is dedicated to discovering new treatments, new understanding and new services for people with a range of mental illnesses.

Jayashri Kulkarni completed her MBBS degree in 1981 at Monash University and worked mainly in Emergency Medicine before deciding to specialise in Psychiatry. She became a Fellow of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists in 1989 and was awarded a PhD from Monash University in 1997 for her thesis “Women and Psychosis”. Jayashri has pioneered the novel use of estrogen as a treatment for schizophrenia and is internationally acknowledged as a leader in the field of reproductive hormones and their impact on mental health. An expert in Women’s Mental Health, Jayashri was elected the President of the International Association of Women’s Mental Health, a role she commenced in 2017.

Dr. Melanie Badali is a Registered Psychologist in British Columbia, Canada with over 20 years of experience working as a clinician, researcher, and instructor in the field of clinical psychology.

Dr. Badali currently provides psychological assessment and treatment services at the North Shore Stress and Anxiety Clinic, where she is on the Perinatal Services Team. She is certified in the practice of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) by the Canadian Association of Cognitive and Behavioural Therapies and works with the organization to advance training, knowledge and accreditation in CBT. She has experience working in a variety of clinical settings including inpatient and outpatient, public and private.

She is also an Associate Faculty member at Yorkville University, where she teaches in the Master's of Counselling Psychology Program.

As a Board Director for Anxiety Canada, a non-profit organization that increases awareness, promotes education and provides resources for people dealing with anxiety, her role includes advocacy, research, knowledge translation and speaking to the media.

Dr. Badali is actively involved in research, training and writing. She enjoys creating psychoeducational resources such as the Canadian Psychological Association’s new factsheet on Perinatal Anxiety and is currently working on the third edition of the book, “Match Made on Earth”.