Program

Olivia Nassaris, CEO, but prefers the title of National Advocate & Changemaker. She has a wealth of Parkinson’s experience, both with engaging with people affected by Parkinson’s, government relations and advocacy skills.

She started her career in communications roles in the tertiary education, health sector in Australia and the not-for-profit community sector in Brazil in the favelas (urban slums). In her twenties she was her Yiayia’s (grandmother’s) carer who lived with Parkinson’s, and her end-of-life carer.

Her previous role as Executive Director of The Hospital Research Foundation Group – Parkinson’s & Stroke (aka Parkinson’s South Australia, Northern Territory and Australian Capital Territory and Stroke South Australia) for almost ten years has given her strong expertise in multi-disciplinary allied health and support programs, business development, strategic planning, risk, and governance.

Olivia is an influential figure in the field of Parkinson’s disease advocacy, support programs and research and some of her notable contributions include successfully lobbying the SA State Government for a pre-election commitment for $2.5m in grant funding for 4FTE Parkinson’s Nurse Specialists Community-based Parkinson’s Nurse Specialists in South Australia. She founded and raised philanthropic funding for the social enterprise, Brain x Body Fitness Studio. The Brain x Body Fitness Studio focuses on body and brain health through evidence-based exercise protocols prescribed and supervised by Exercise Physiologists that encourages neuroplasticity. The mission is to provide members with disabilities and chronic health conditions with access to world-leading equipment and technology that enables them to reach their goals and maintain their optimum brain health, flexibility, balance while actively aging.

She wrote the successful grant to the Information, Linkages and Capacity Building body of the National Disability Insurance Agency for over $2 million for an app called the Young Onset Parkinson’s Exchange (YOPX). The YOPX app provides information and education designed by people under the age of 65 living with Parkinson’s and related conditions for their community – called a ‘living lab’ model. YOPX also provides info to support NDIS applications and plan updates.

Gaia Forlani is a neuroscientist specialised in sensorimotor, clinical, and movement neuroscience. She holds an MSc in Neuroscience from the Radboud University – Donders Graduate School (NL), where she trained at the Radboud University Medical Center and the Centre of Excellence for Parkinson’s. She also holds an MA in Philosophical Sciences from the University of Milan, specialising in Applied Neuroscience and the Phenomenology of Movement, and a BA in Neuroaesthetics focused on agency, perception, and embodied cognition.

As a former professional ballerina, she earned a Higher Artistic Ballet Degree (AFAM–MIUR) in affiliation with the National Academy of Dance in Rome.

Gaia is an NSCA-CPT and NACC NeuroAthletics Coach with over 10 years of coaching experience across clinical populations, athletes, and executives. She is the co-founder of the Parkinson Performance Centre and creator of the Parkinson Power Protocol.

Fiorella is Professor of Neurology by special appointment at the Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC), The Netherlands, with focus on therapeutic innovations for Parkinson’s disease. She also works as Clinical Neurologist at the Haga Teaching Hospital in The Hague, where she coordinates the Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) team and the research activities of the Neurology department.

Her research focuses on improving the personalised treatment of patients with movement disorders, in particular advancing the field of DBS with the development of cutting-edge technologies.

Fiorella authored more than 100 publications and serves in the Editorial board of scientific journals. 

She is currently Secretary of the International Parkinson and Movement Disorders Society – European Session and Past Chair of the Neurosurgery Study Interest Group (SIG) of the International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society.

Professor Cedric Bardy is an ARC Future Fellow at Flinders University, Group Lead of the Laboratory for Human Neurobiology at SAHMRI (bardylab.com), and Founding Director of Brain Organoid Therapeutics (brainorganoidtherapeutics.com). Originally from Montpellier in the South of France, Cedric first moved to Australia as a graduate student to obtain a PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Sydney (2008). He then conducted his postdoctoral training at prominent institutions such as the Pasteur Institute (Paris, 2008-2011) and the Salk Institute in the laboratory of Prof Fred Gage (California, 2011-2016). He moved back to Australia in 2016 to establish his independent research group at the iconic South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute.

Cedric’s research team is internationally recognised for modelling the human brain in petri dishes, which they used for therapeutic discovery in adult and paediatric neurodegenerative disorders and brain cancer. Supported by the Michael J. Fox Foundation and Shake It Up Australia, the team leverages these brain avatars to explore why some people may have a genetic predisposition to Parkinson’s disease (npj Parkinson’s 2020) and may be vulnerable to exposure to chemicals, herbicides and pesticides.

Prof Bardy’s Publications: bardylab.com/publications

Prof Bardy’s research has gained global recognition for pioneering human brain models in vitro in all their physiological complexity; for example, by inventing BrainPhys, a patented neural culture medium that supports synaptic function and activity in human neurons in vitro (PNAS 2015; Nature Communications 2020); establishing frameworks for cell reprogramming and differentiation technologies in neurobiology (e.g., Nature Reviews Neuroscience 2016, Cell Stem Cell 2018); developing next-generation human assembloids (e.g., Nature Methods 2023); establishing analytical methods combining electrophysiology with single-cell RNA-seq (e.g., Molecular Psychiatry 2016); and most importantly applying these methods to establish some of the first iPSC models of complex paediatric and adult cognitive disorders (e.g., Nature 2012; Nature 2016; Nature Communications 2026). In parallel, Cedric’s team has applied their expertise in human neural models to study brain cancer from a neuroscience perspective and, for example, showed how the human brain microenvironment and cerebrospinal fluid can alter chemo-radiotherapy sensitivity and induce tumour cell plasticity using patient-derived glioma models (e.g., Science Advances 2023; Trends in Cancer 2023). His team is pursuing clinical trials with repurposed drugs that they identified as having potential to treat glioblastoma (Trends in Pharmacological Sciences 2025).

Declan is a researcher, author, global positive psychology expert, and the founder of BU Happiness College.

He has dedicated his career to sharing the science and the skillsets that create happier workplaces, happier communities, and happier living.

His philosophies and approaches to happiness have made him a sought-after speaker for organisations like the United Nations General Assembly, TEDx, and CPA Australia. He also guest lectures on happiness and wellbeing science for CQU, Bond University, and the Culture Institute of Australia.

Ultimately, Declan is driven by the hope that his work creates a ripple effect, making the world as a whole just a little bit happier.

Andrew Denton is one of Australian media’s genuinely creative forces with a career covering radio, television, and film. He’s also a well-known advocate for better end-of-life choices, including voluntary assisted dying.

In 2015, he launched the podcast series Better Off Dead, which explores the issues of death and dying and the moral arguments on both sides of the voluntary assisted dying debate.

With a goal to further prosecute a public debate based on compassion, evidence and tested fact, Andrew established Go Gentle Australia in 2016, a health promotion charity that aims to relieve the suffering of people with terminal illnesses and their families. With Andrew sitting on the board as Founding Director, Go Gentle has been instrumental in passing voluntary assisted dying laws in all six states and the ACT, beginning with Victoria in 2017 and ending with the ACT in 2022. The charity has now turned its attention to ensuring a VAD law is passed in the Northern Territory (in late 2026), removing barriers to access for eligible terminally ill people and raising community awareness of the choices available at the end of life.

Linda has over 30 years’ experience working in senior executive and leadership roles in healthcare and utilises her extensive health system knowledge, experience and networks to lead Go Gentle Australia as its CEO. As a former GP, Clinical Research Director, Managing Director, board member, government advisor and Group Chief Medical Officer at Medibank, she is well placed to ensure Go Gentle achieves its vision of an Australia where we all have choice at the end of life.