Professor Justin Kenardy

Justin Kenardy works in the broad area of behavioural medicine. He has particular interests in anxiety and post-traumatic stress in relation to physical illness or injury.

He obtained his PhD at the University of Queensland. He then undertook postdoctoral studies at the Behavioral Medicine Laboratory at Stanford University School of Medicine. There he worked with Stewart Agras in the area of eating and weight disorders, and also with Barr Taylor in the area of e-mental health. After returning to Australia he took up a post at University of Newcastle where he worked as a Senior Lecturer, established the Psychology Clinic and was Foundation Director, and obtained two NHMRC grants to develop e-mental health solutions for anxiety disorders. During this time he also undertook a large scale longitudinal study of the impact of the Newcastle Earthquake on the community, which led to breakthrough research on the prevention of post-traumatic stress. With the Newcastle Diabetes Service he set up the Commonwealth Department of Health funded Diabetes and Eating Behaviours Project. He also served as an adviser to the DSMIV. In 1993 he was appointed as a Visiting Fellow to the School of Psychology, Yale University where he continued to develop his work on eating and weight disorders.

In 1995 as Chief Investigator he helped to establish the Australian Longitudinal Study of Women's Health with a focus on eating and weight issues. In 1995 he was appointed to the School of Psychology, University of Queensland. He continued his work on e-mental health, in the process establishing the first international multi-site randomised control trial of cognitive behaviour therapy with St. Andrews University in Scotland, and with collaborators at Stanford University and Penn State University. In 1997 he was appointed Director of Clinical Psychology at the University of Queensland. He also continued his work in eating disorders and behavioural medicine broadly, publishing on diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and overweight and obesity. He was appointed as an advisor to the Queensland government to provide expert advice on diabetes and eating disorders. He has established a new diabetes and psychology initiative with the Princess Alexandra Hospital, to examine the impact of depression in diabetes. This project has so far attracted funding from ARC Linkage and the Diabetes Australia Research Trust.

He also established a new collaborative relationship with the School of Physiotherapy and started a line of research on psychological aspects of whiplash related disorders, this led to a number of high profile publications and several large grants through NHMRC and ARC. He also focussed his interest in trauma on children, and has obtained a two NHMRC grants to study this population. He continues his work on e-mental health and holds an ARC-Linkage Grant and an NHMRC Grant to develop and evaluate internet and virtual reality interventions. He is also a CI on a Beyond Blue funded initiative to develop and evaluate a public health oriented e-mental health website in collaboration with ANU. He holds an appointment as Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Mental Health Research at ANU. He was also awarded a Visiting Fellowship by the Scottish Executive to travel to Scotland to develop internet-based prevention programs for anxiety disorders.

He currently sits on the Editorial Board of four international journals, and is the Editor of Clinical Psychologist.

Justin Kenardy is currently Deputy Director of the Centre of National Research on Disability and Rehabilitation Medicine. He has published over 120 papers and has obtained over $6.4 million in competitive grants and over $15.5 million in research contracts.