Turning Point Travelling Scholarship 2019 Recipients Announced

Each year two Travelling Scholarships are awarded, named after donors who contributed to the establishment of the funds: the Margaret Hamilton Travelling Scholarship and the Frank Murphy Travelling Scholarship. 

“These scholarships are an important part of Turning Point’s commitment to innovation, information sharing and drawing on international best practice to improve the way we help people affected by alcohol, drugs and gambling,” says Professor Dan Lubman — Director, Turning Point

Anthony Denham, Program Director, Statewide Services said “many wonderful recipients have received the scholarships in the past, making important contributions to the work we are doing at Turning Point. We had many amazing applicants this year and we are looking forward to seeing what this year’s worthy recipients will bring back to Turning Point to help us move, innovate and evolve.” 

Frank Murphy Travelling Scholarship

The family of Frank Murphy donated a bequest to Turning Point on his death to support the development of the alcohol and drug workforce.

This year’s recipient is:

Sally Brown - GPCAS Coordinator / Clinical Psychologist Specialist Clinical Services

Sally will be using the scholarship to increase Turning Point’s understanding of eHealth and how we can pioneer in the eHealth space.

Sally says, “With the aid of the Frank Murphy scholarship I will be attending the 11th International Society for Research on Internet Interventions (ISRII) conference 2020 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Attending the conference will allow me the opportunity to understand the latest approaches being used across the eHealth field, which will assist Turning Point in the pioneering eHealth work they are conducting across Australia.

For example, the ISRII 2020 conference hosts keynote speaker Dr Thomas Insel, a psychiatrist and neuroscientist. Dr Insel is the co-founder and president of Mindstrong Health, a start-up that uses smartphone data to detect trends in peoples’ cognition and mental health according to digital ‘biomarkers’. The technology tracks indicators of executive function, cognitive control, working memory, processing speed and emotional valence using smartphone data from swipes, taps, and other touchscreen activities. This helps clients to see real-time feedback about their mental health.

Learning from eHealth world leaders such as Dr Thomas Insel and others will assist Turning Point to improve our current eHealth services and generate ideas for new areas of development.” 

Margaret Hamilton Travelling Scholarship

Margaret Hamilton was the founding Director of Turning Point and remains an active advocate for improving clinical and policy responses to alcohol and drug issues.

This year’s recipient is:

Isabelle Volpe – Research Assistant - Clinical and Social Research

Isabelle will be using the scholarship to look at how we develop distance-based interventions and influence policy through information dissemination.

Isabelle explains, “The Margaret Hamilton Travelling Scholarship is an opportunity to learn about how leading addiction researchers around the world are creating impact, and to better understand how we can use research to innovate new solutions to addiction treatment and policy challenges.

The scholarship will allow me to attend the European Drugs Summer School, held by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA). This is a two-week intensive program held annually in Lisbon, Portugal, with a multi-disciplinary approach to the study of drug problems. Students learn from EMCDDA experts, university professors and policy-makers.

Attending the summer school is an opportunity to train in one of the world’s most highly respected addiction agencies, and learn about new and best practice approaches to treatment, policy and knowledge translation.

I also plan to visit and learn from research groups I have met through opportunities at Turning Point, and present on our current work to facilitate collaborations and develop research ideas for my PhD. Overall, I aim to learn about research methodologies, novel approaches to challenges in treatment research, and tools/methods used by leading researchers/research institutions to increase the impact of their work, to inform our work here at Turning Point.”

Want to join the Turning Point team?

We look forward to sharing Sally and Isabelle’s experiences and learnings next year when they return from their amazing trips. If you would like to be part of the Turning Point team, and have access to opportunities like these, subscribe to our newsletter, or follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn (Launching 2020) to find out about the latest career opportunities in our organisation.