Elizabeth Clancy, M.Psych

Deakin University

Ms Elizabeth Clancy is psychologist and cyberpsychology researcher, with an interest in the wellbeing and positive development of young adults. Her PhD studies are focused on sext dissemination, including exploring motivations, associated traits and issues of consent in digital relationships, in which she has published two studies to date. She also has strong interests in cyberbullying, having developed the evaluation framework and completed the evaluation of the Cyber Cats program, along with creating an online education program for parents. 

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Ms. Clancy also administrates the Deakin University CyberPsychology Research Group. 

Evita March, PhD

Federation University Australia

Dr Evita March is a nationally recognised researcher of antisocial online behaviour. Dr March has explored a variety of online behaviour including cyberbullying, trolling, cyberstalking, and online dating, and is particularly interested in predictors of these behaviours. In 2019, Dr March presented a TEDx talk on empathy and cyber abuse, and in 2020 was one of the TOP 5 ABC early career researchers in science.

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Evita March is the founder of ACORN, est. 2020.

Dylan Poulus, PhD

Southern Cross University

Dr Dylan Poulus is a Lecturer in the School of Human Sciences at Southern Cross University. His research explores the psychological determinants of success and mental health in esports (competitive computer game) players. In particular, he focuses on how traditional sports psychology principles (i.e., stress, coping, mental toughness) can influence performance and wellbeing outcomes for both competitive and elite esports players. He also founded Australia's first university-supported esports club at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), QUT Esports. 

Riley Scott, PhD 

Griffith University

Dr Riley Scott is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Griffith University. Her research investigates how young adults develop and maintain their friendships across online and offline contexts, and how context-specific affordances and experiences unique to the digital environment affect how people think, feel and act online. Riley is particularly interested in determining whether there are benefits of social internet use for the well-being of socially anxious and lonely young adults, and has also conducted research into cyberbullying, online social connection during COVID-19, and online exposure to peer drinking and adolescent alcohol use.

Stephanie Tobin, PhD

Queensland University of Technology

Dr Stephanie Tobin is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Psychology and Counselling at QUT. Her degree is in Social Psychology and her current program of research focuses on how people use and are influenced by social networking sites. In particular, she focuses on social comparison processes and how they affect well-being, how goals to promote oneself and support others affect behaviour, and how feedback affects belonging and relates to problematic use.

Daniel Zarate, PhD Candidate

Victoria University

Daniel Zarate is a highly driven and motivated Ph.D. candidate in clinical psychology with an emphasis on online behavioural addictions. He have over two years of experience in research-related and teaching roles, mostly teaching in psychology, counselling, and research methodologies in undergraduate and postgraduate programs. His main research interests are in the areas of clinical psychology, behavioural addictions (e.g., gaming addiction, social media addiction, etc.), and complex statistical models (e.g., network analysis, item response theory, latent profile analysis, ARIMA). Daniels' Ph.D. focuses on decoding ‘digital phenotypes’ in mental health contexts to detect and predict psychological issues such as anxiety and depression. These projects have enabled Daniel to develop and implement programming skills in R Studio and state-of-the-art methodologies. 

Lee Kannis-Dymand, PhD

University of Sunshine Coast

Dr Kannis-Dymand is a clinical psychologist and researcher at USC with substantial clinical experience and training including from the University of Oxford (Cognitive Behaviour Therapy). He is passionate about research in cyberpsychology, human wildlife interactions (including virtual reality), tourism-psychology, and environmental psychology. He takes a balanced approach to cyberpsychology research that explores well-being related to engaging in the online realm, including gaming and social media. His published research includes systematic reviews on massively multiplayer online games and well-being, metacognition, and the proteus effect.

Jessica Z. Marrington, PhD

University of Southern Queensland

Dr Jessica Marrington is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Psychology and Counselling at the University of Southern Queensland. Dr Marrington’s research interests include fundamental cognitive processes, self-regulation, personality, and online behaviour.  At present, her program of research is exploring Australian adolescent behaviours online, with a particular interest in the common occurrences of internet trolling, and also the impact of COVID-19 on social media use. 

Bruno Schivinski, PhD

RMIT, Australia

Dr Schivinski is a sociologist and Senior Lecturer in Advertising at RMIT University, Australia. Dr Schivinski consults for scientific institutions such as the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education (MNiSW) and the National Science Centre (NCN) in Poland, the video game industry, online service providers, and websites. As a researcher, Dr Schivinski uses advanced statistical modelling skills to operationalize relevant research questions into the field of problematic online behaviours and disorders, such as video game addiction and uncontrolled use of digital media, and has led successful academic-industry partnerships to investigate online consumer behaviour. This has included problematic video game practices, such as the SMART GAMING Initiative – an academic-industry project in gaming-related behaviour.

Vasileios Stavropoulos, PhD

Victoria University

Dr Vasileios Stavropoulos is a clinician and researcher in the broader field of developmental psychopathology with an emphasis on the use-abuse of digital media and online games. In 2021, Dr Stavropoulos was the recipient of a Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. His specific research interests move in the field of digital phenotyping for mental health, translating one’s digital media and gaming usage patterns into information about their mental health conditions. He has been invited by the American Psychiatric Association to be a member of the specialized task force for the revision of Internet Gaming Disorder as a formal diagnosis in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5).

Danielle Wagstaff, PhD

Federation University Australia

Dr Danielle Wagstaff is an early-career psychology researcher with expertise in women’s psychology. Dr Wagstaff approaches this in a number of ways, including examining how women compete, understanding the links between social media and women’s mental health, exploring how cosmetics and clothing change perceptions of women, and investigating how motherhood impacts women’s perceptions and interactions.

Danielle has published research in these areas and the broader field of evolutionary psychology, and regularly contributes to media interviews, blog posts and psychology interest pieces.