Keynote Speakers

Emma Livingstone

Thursday, 3rd April

Emma qualified as a Speech and Language Therapist at Birmingham University in 1998 and has worked predominantly with children, running services for both pre-school and school-age children across London. More recently she has worked at City University supporting student speech and language therapists and also practices as a life coach. Emma is married and mum to 3 young and active children.

Emma was born with Cerebral Palsy and has seen a significant decline in her mobility in recent years leading to several surgeries and having to give up work. It was her frustration at the lack of knowledge and understanding of Cerebral Palsy as a disability affecting adults that spurred her on to begin campaigning. In 2018 she founded the charity Adult Cerebral Palsy Hub, now renamed Up – The Adult Cerebral Palsy Movement, to campaign for better support and services and give voice to the adult Cerebral Palsy community.

Professor Christine Imms

Friday, 4th April

Professor Christine Imms is the Apex Australia Foundation Chair in Neurodevelopment and Disability at the University of Melbourne and The Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne. She is also founding Director of Healthy Trajectories – a child and youth disability research hub on the campus, and a chief investigator at CP-Achieve. 

Christine’s research focuses on those with childhood-onset disability and their families, with the goals of learning how to optimise their participation outcomes; development and evaluation of interventions; and development and validation of measures. Her goals at CP-Achieve are to progress the participation research agenda and to build a program of research and teams of researchers that can be sustained beyond the life of CP-Achieve.

Professor Bruce Bonyhady

Friday, 4th April

Professor Bonyhady is the Director at the Melbourne Disability Institute at The University of Melbourne.  He is a disability reformer, economist and one of the key architects of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). He was Co-Chair of the NDIS Review in 2022-23 and was the inaugural Chair of the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) from 2013-16.

Professor Bonyhady is the father of three adult sons, two of whom have disabilities and in the 2010 Queen's Birthday Honours, he was appointed as a Member of the Order of Australia for services to people with disabilities, their families and carers, and to the community as a contributor to a range of charitable organisations.

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