Associate Professor Adrienne Withall
Qualifications:
BSc (Hons) University of Sydney, 1997 (Majors: Psychology and Physiology)
PhDUniversity of Sydney, 2006 (Neuropsychology)
Research Interests:
Associate Professor Withall is a combined track specialist on ageing and neuropsychology in the School of Psychology, where she is the Co-Director of Research. She leadsthe Ageing at the Margins Lab and equity and digital innovation in cognitive assessment (serious games) and promoting brain health for priority populations are the focusof her research. Dr Withall is a woman of both Aboriginal and Angloceltic (convict and settler) heritage.
Adrienne is a mid career researcher and author of 68 journal publications, an edited book Alcohol and the Adult Brain,and 5 book chapters. Her research is highly cited and she hasah-index of 30,with 3394 citations. Her expertise is on young onset dementia, particularly priority populations at risk of accelerated cognitive decline (including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, people with chronic drug and alcohol use, and older justice-involved people).She uses mixed methods to aid the translation of her research into policy and clinical practice.
Associate Professor Withall is leading NHMRC-funded research on older justice-involved citizens, including an NHMRC Ideas Grant to design serious games to aid dementia assessment in justice settings and an NHMRC Cohort Grant to perform a longitudinal study of older people in and transitioning out of prison. She is a Chief Investigator of two Centres of Research Excellence, including the ON-Track CRE on Aboriginal Brain Health (led by the University of Melbourne) and the CRE for Violence Prediction, Profiling and Prevention (led by the University of New South Wales). This latter CRE involves an important study to establish routine cognitive assessment for older people in the court system.
She partners regularly with a range of stakeholders, including Aboriginal communities (e.g. Marcia Ella Duncan and the La Perouse Local Aboriginal Land Council to design the first on-country experience for UNSW medical students), people with Lived Experience (e.g. via the Black Dog Institute) community organisations (e.g. Dementia Australia), health services (e.g. Northern Sydney Local Health District Drug and Alcohol Services, NSW Justice Health and Forensic Mental Health Network) & industry partners (e.g. Flourish Australia, Corrective Services NSW).She has served asan Advocate for people with young onset dementia on various working parties and policy groups, as well as during theSenate Enquiry on Younger People in Residential Care.
Adrienne is currently Co-Chair of the Australian Young Onset Dementia Special Interest Group and a member of the International Indigenous Dementia Research Network.She is also a Member of the NSW Minister's Advisory Council on Ageing and led work for the Australian Association of Gerontology on older people leaving prison. Finally, she is a Member of her localNSW Aboriginal Education Consultative Group Inc.
Dr Withall regularly reviews grants for national (e.g. NHMRC, ARC, Dementia Australia Research Foundation,Bupa Health Foundation)as well asinternational grant bodies (such as UK Medical Research Council, Alzheimer's Research UK, Wellcome Trust, Health Research Board Ireland and Netherlands Organisation of Health, Research and Development). She also regularly serves on NHMRC grant panels.
Adrienne currently supervises PhD, Masters, and Honours students.
- Publications
- Media
- Grants
- Awards
- Research Activities
- Engagement
- Teaching and Supervision
Current Grants
Dr Withall is currently leading an NHMRC Ideas Grant (2022-2025, $845,000) to investigate "Audio app-delivered Screening for Cognition and Age-related health in Prisoners (ASCAPE)”, which is leveraging gamification to design innovative tools to measure health and cognition. She is a CI with the "ON Track: Promoting brain health with older Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples" Centre of Research Excellence (2021-2026, $3,000,000) and a second NHMRC CRE on Violence Prediction, Profiling and Prevention (2024-2028. $2,500,000). She is also a Chief Investigator on an MRFF COVID-19 grant examining a text mining and data linkage approach to investigate the mental health needs of the population during the COVID-19 period and is Lead Investigator on an investigator-initiated clinical trial funded by the Ageing Futures Institute and an Industry partner examininginflammaging, the microbiome and frailty.
My Research Supervision
Current UNSW Postgraduate Students
Primary/Joint supervisor
Sharon Reutens: (Scientia Scholarship) Management of older people in the justice system.
Mark Orr AM:Enhancing the mental health workforce: Acceptability and efficacy of on-line peer support for adults with a lived experience of a mental health issue (part-time).
Milena Katz (Aust RTP Scholarship): Inflammageing, frailty and the microbiome.
Rhys Mantell:A serious game approach to understand and detect cognitive impairment issues in marginalised populations.
Jody Kamminga:Decolonising Neuropsychology Practice with Indigenous Australians
Secondary supervisor
Ellen Finlay: Social and political power asymmetries in health outcomes between older Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians (part-time).
Vincent Poisson: How to facilitate help-seeking in male supporters of people with dementia.
Caitlyn Jowett:Investigating the Prevalence and Patterns of Eating Disorders in Adult NSW Custodial Settings
My Teaching
Dr Withall teaches into Phases 1 and 2 of the undergraduate Medical Program, lecturing on diverse areas such as mental health, ageing, dementia,cultural competenceand developing reflective practitioner and critical thinking skills. She is also Co-Convenor of the Phase 2 Society and Healthcourse.At a postgraduate level, she convenes thecourse Public Health Aspects of Mental Health (PHCM9761), which is run with the Black Dog Institute as a Partner. Previously she taught at the University of Sydney through the Faculty of Health Sciences, teaching a diverse mix of allied health professionals about health psychology, research methods and neuropsychology.