Programme Committee

Professor Stephen Touyz is Professor of Clinical Psychology in the School of Psychology at the University of Sydney and Honorary Associate in the Discipline of Psychiatry at the University of Sydney. He is the Chair of the advisory council and a Lead Researcher for the InsideOut Institute – Australia’s first institute for research and clinical excellence in eating disorders that aims to provide every Australian living with an eating disorder, access to the best possible care, by re-thinking eating disorders from the “inside out”. Prof Touyz has served as a Mental Health Advisor to the Commonwealth Department of Veterans Affairs Health Program since 1994. He was also the inaugural treasurer of the Australian and New Zealand Academy of Eating Disorders and a past president of the Eating Disorders Research Society (USA). He is the founding Co-Editor in Chief of the Journal of Eating Disorders and a member of the Editorial Advisory Boards of the International Journal of Eating Disorders and European Eating Disorders Review. He is also a member of the Steering Committee of the National Collaboration on Eating Disorders (funded by the Commonwealth of Australia) and Co-Chair of the Professional Development Sub-Committee. Professor Touyz is also Chair of the Shire Australasian Binge Eating Disorder advisory committee. Professor Touyz has been the recipient of numerous research grants from Australia’s leading research funding bodies. He has written seven books, one of which has been translated into both Italian and Japanese, over 350 papers/book chapters and 430 conference abstracts. In 2012, he was given the prestigious Leadership in Research Award by the Academy of Eating Disorders (USA) in recognition of his pioneering research in the field of eating disorders. In 2014, he was awarded the first Lifetime Achievement Award by the Australian and New Zealand Academy of Eating Disorders and the Ian Campbell Memorial Prize by the Clinical College of the Australian Psychological Society for his outstanding contribution to the profession.

Born in 1963 in Seville, Fernando Fernandez-Aranda, Specialist in Clinical Psychologist, has been the Director of the Eating Disorders (ED) Unit at the Department of Psychiatry, University Hospital Bellvitge since 2003. He has also been Head of Group CIBERobn (Excellent Spanish Research Network for Obesity and Nutrition) since 2007 and Full Professor since 2010 (School of Medicine, UB), at the same university. He obtained his PhD in Psychology in 1996 at the University of Hamburg (Germany) and his BP in 1990 (Clinical Psychology) at the University of Barcelona. His previous appointments were as a Clinical Psychologist at the Psychiatric University Hospital of Hamburg (1994-1995), long-term Predoctoral Research Fellow in Hannover, Germany (1992-1993) and Consultant Psychologist at the Department of Psychiatry, HUB in Barcelona (1996-03). He was Invited Professor at the University of North Carolina (2005) and at the McGill University in Montreal between 2009 and 2015. He has given more than 300 invited lectures at international and national psychology, psychiatry and nutrition/endocrinology conferences, and is actively involved as a supervisor in continuous teaching in eating disorders (ED), and is member of several international professional associations (AED, ED Research Society). He is Fellow of the Academy for Eating Disorders (AED), Editor in Chief of European Eating Disorders Review (since 2011) and has been awarded with the Meehan Hartley Award for Public Service and/or Advocacy-2004, Leadership Research Award-2015, and Hilde Bruch Lecture Award-2017 (University of Tübingen, Germany). He has received several additional awards on development and innovation (Best European Video Game for Health-2011; Best Spanish Research Ideas-Diario Medico 2011). He has been IP in several international/ EU grants (12) and in national grants (20). Fernando has published more than 330 English peer-reviewed manuscripts in international journals. He is currently President of the Eating Disorders Research Society (EDRS) and Co-Chair of the ED Section of the WPA (2018-2023). He is the current Chair of the Research Committee of the University Hospital of Bellvitge (2019-22) and Member of the Advisory Board of Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. Links of relevance: https://scholar.google.es/citations?user=4IiGuywAAAAJ&hl=en Pubmed: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=fernandez-aranda ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2968-9898

Howard Steiger directs Quebec’s only large-scale, specialised eating disorders programme - the Douglas Institute Eating Disorders Continuum (EDC). The EDC offers a full range of inpatient, day treatment and outpatient services for adolescents and adults touched by EDs and their families. He is Professor in Psychiatry and Associate Member in Psychology at McGill University. An active clinician, researcher, and teacher, Steiger has published numerous articles and chapters on the eating disorders. He is Associate Editor of the Journal of Eating Disorders, Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, Fellow of the Academy for Eating Disorders, and has been Associate Editor of the International Journal of Eating Disorders, President of the ED Research Society, Co-President of the Quebec Charter for a Healthy and Diversified Body Image, and Member of the Academy for EDs executive. Through the research arm of the Douglas EDC, Steiger and his colleagues study: a) Genetic and epigenetic processes acting in ED development and maintenance. b) Factors that influence response to specialized treatments. c) Effects of system-wide knowledge transfer and prevention efforts, and d) Other processes relevant to the causes and treatment of EDs.

Annemarie van Elburg is child & adolescent psychiatrist at Rintveld, Center for Eating Disorders, Altrecht Mental Health Institute. She holds a chair at the Department of Clinical Psychology, Faculty for Social Sciences at Utrecht University. She founded (together with Roger Adan) and heads the Utrecht Research Group Eating Disorders (URGE). She combines clinical practice with research and teaching and has served on national and international boards of eating disorder associations. Her interests are varied, clinically she is involved in the treatment of young people with EDs, her research interests are neurobiologically based, but also relate to chronicity, mental competence and recovery. She teaches medical and psychological students, psychology and (child) psychiatry trainees, psychotherapists and nurses on EDs, edited the Dutch Handbook for Eating Disorders, and was involved in the development of the Dutch Guidelines for Eating Disorders. Recently, she participated in a government committee, concerned with improving treatment of young people with EDs.

Emma Woolf is a writer, journalist and broadcaster. She studied English at Oxford University, then worked in psychology publishing for ten years before going freelance and writing a weekly column for The Times. Emma is a presenter and arts critic on Radio 4’s Saturday Review, newspaper reviewer on Radio 5 Live, regular on many radio shows across the BBC and co-presenter on Channel 4’s Supersize vs Superskinny. She speaks internationally at Literary Festivals from Cheltenham to Mumbai. Emma is a spokesperson and campaigner for many issues around women’s health and wellbeing, particularly in the area of eating disorders, body image and mental health. Emma’s non-fiction books have been translated around the world, including the bestselling An Apple a Day (2012), The Ministry of Thin (2013), Letting Go (2015), Positively Primal (2016) The A-Z of Eating Disorders (2017) and Wellbeing (2019). Her novel England’s Lane was published in the UK and US, and was widely praised as a heartbreaking tale of love, loss and redemption. Emma is the great-niece of Virginia Woolf.

Eric van Furth, PhD, FAED is Director at Rivierduinen Eating Disorders Ursula, a centre of excellence for eating disorders in Leiden, the Netherlands. He is also Professor of Eating Disorders at the department of psychiatry, Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) and former chair of the Dutch Academy for Eating Disorders.

Nadia Micali, MD, MRCPsych, PhD, FAED, is Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the University of Geneva and head of the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Division, Geneva University Hospital, where she has set up from scratch a service for Child and Adolescent feeding and eating disorders, focusing on evidence-based treatment. She leads a research lab focusing on risk factors, neurobiology and treatment of feeding and eating disorders. She is also Associate Professor at the Great Ormond Street Institute of Child health, UCL, London.