Dr Aqsa Shaikh (She/Her) is an out and proud transgender woman and one of India’s first transgender doctors. A Professor of Community Medicine at Hamdard Institute of Medical Sciences and Research, Jamia Hamdard, New Delhi. She is a member of the Supreme Court Appointed National Taskforce on Student Wellbeing and Student Suicide Prevention in Higher Education. She has been a frontline contributor to India’s COVID-19 response. Her research spans inclusive healthcare for transgender and disabled communities. Beyond academia, Aqsa is a passionate advocate for rights-based gender justice that includes gender minorities. She successfully petitioned the Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights to ban unnecessary sex-normalizing surgeries on intersex children and helped make Delhi Metro’s toilet signage inclusive. Aqsa is also a TEDx and Josh Talks speaker, poet, short story writer, and practitioner of the Theatre of the Oppressed. Her writings appear in Times of India, Indian Express, Hindustan Times. A recipient of Devi Awards by The New Indian Express Group, she is Jury Member of Pride Fund India, Advisory board member of CHELP and QAMRA. Whether through science, storytelling, or activism, Dr. Aqsa Shaikh embodies the spirit of resilience, inclusion, and equity.

Dr. Biju Viswanath is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at NIMHANS, Bengaluru, and a distinguished clinician-scientist with expertise in translational psychiatry. His research focuses on unraveling the molecular, genetic and cellular mechanisms underlying major neuropsychiatric disorders, particularly bipolar disorder, to improve diagnosis and treatment outcomes. He is the Principal Investigator of several funded research projects, including studies exploring the genetic and cellular correlates of lithium response in bipolar disorder. Dr. Viswanath is also a key investigator in the Accelerator Program for Discovery in Brain Disorders using Stem Cells (ADBS), a landmark initiative funded by the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India, aimed at advancing research on severe mental illnesses through stem cell technologies. This initiative is currently continued as the Rohini Nilekani Centre for Brain and Mind.

Dr Chittaranjan Behera is an MD in Forensic Medicine from AIIMS, New Delhi, where he currently serves as a Professor in the Department of Forensic Medicine & Toxicology. A recipient of the ICMR International Fellowship, he received specialized training in suicide biomarkers at the University of Alabama and psychological autopsy from the American Association of Suicidology. As a fellow of multiple medical academies, he leads high-profile research projects funded by the NIH, DBT, and ICMR. Dr. Behera pioneered India's first DNA database for unidentified bodies (UMID Project) and established the InDUS Biobank for suicide biology research. With over 250 publications, a co-authored textbook, and numerous accolades, he regularly provides crucial expert medico-legal opinions for the CBI, crime branches, and courts of law.

Dr. Darez Ahamed is an Indian Administrative Service officer from the 2005 Tamil Nadu cadre. He holds an M.B.B.S. degree from Manipal Academy of Higher Education. He has done his Master of Science in Health Policy Planning and Financing at London School of Economics & London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. Currently, he is Secretary, Department of Health, Tamil Nadu. He has also served as Secretary at the Special Programme Implementation Department in Chennai. Throughout his career, Dr. Ahamed has held various positions including Secretary to Government, Commissioner, Mission Director, District Collector, Joint Commissioner, Project Officer, Sub Collector, and Assistant Collector.

Dr David McDaid is Associate Professor of Health Economics and Health Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He has almost 30 years of research experience and 500+ publications mainly focused on the economic case for investing in mental health, well-being promotion, and suicide prevention. He was a Commissioner on the recent Lancet Commission on Self-Harm and has advised different national governments and international agencies—including the WHO, OECD, UNICEF, and the European Commission—on public health and mental health policy. He has also served as co-ordinator of the Mental Health Economics European Network, a member of the UK NICE Public Health Advisory Committee and is Co-Convenor of the Cochrane Campbell Economic Methods Group.

Dr. Diana E. Clarke is a psychiatric epidemiologist, research statistician, and suicide prevention researcher. She serves as the Senior Director of Research at the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and is an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Mental Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She is the President of the International Academy of Suicide Research (IASR) and a nationally certified mental health counselor. Her research focuses on suicide prevention, mental health and substance use disorders, preinatal mental health, cultural and ethnic disparities in suicide risk, AI in mental health, and improving access to equitable, culturally informed mental healthcare. Through her leadership, research, and advocacy, Dr. Clarke has made significant contributions to advancing suicide prevention science and strengthening evidence-based mental health care worldwide.

Professor Gil Zalsman graduated from the Hebrew University and Hadassah Medical School and completed his residencies in psychiatry and child psychiatry in Israel and at Yale. He completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Columbia University, where he remains an Adjunct Research Scientist, and earned an MHA summa cum laude from Ben Gurion University. His research focuses on suicidal behavior, adolescent psychiatric disorders, and gene-environment interactions. Currently, he serves as CEO and Medical Director of Geha Mental Health Center, and is a Full Professor and Chair of the Psychiatry Department at Tel Aviv University's Sackler Faculty of Medicine.

Dr. Gergö Hadlaczky holds a PhD in Experimental Psychology from Stockholm University and serves as an Associate Professor of Psychology at Karolinska Institutet. He is the Head of the Centre for Health Economics, Informatics and Healthcare Research (CHIS) under Stockholm Healthcare Services (SLSO)—an R&D center encompassing NASP (Stockholm County's suicide prevention center), HTA Region Stockholm, and the Stockholm Center for Health Economics, which collaborate closely with Karolinska Institutet’s LIME department. Additionally, he is an adjunct lecturer at NASP.

His research focuses primarily on suicide prevention, aiming to identify risk factors, understand pathways to suicide, and evaluate scalable public health interventions. Dr. Hadlaczky combines academic scholarship with institutional leadership to drive evidence-based mental health policies and preventative strategies.

Professor Greg Armstrong leads the Global and Cultural Mental Health Unit in the Centre for Mental Health and Community Wellbeing within the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health. He holds a 5-year Investigator Grant (2023-2027) from the National Health and Medical Research Council in Australia, and a Dame Kate Campbell Fellowship for high performing researchers in the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences at the University of Melbourne.
He has undertaken research and consultancies in Australia and in South Asia over the past 15 years with an interest in population mental health, suicide prevention, and the social and cultural determinants of mental health. He has collaborated on suicide research in India since 2012, and research on the opioid epidemic in Northeast India preceding that. He is especially well known for his research into the epidemiology of suicidal behaviour in India as well as media reporting of suicide.

Dr. Jasmit S. Shah, PhD, is a Biostatistician, Data Scientist, and Assistant Professor at Aga Khan University (AKU), Nairobi, Kenya, with a cross-appointment in the Department of Medicine and serves as Data Core Lead at the Brain and Mind Institute. He holds a PhD and MSc in Bioinformatics and Biostatistics from the University of Louisville, USA. With over 15 years of experience, his research integrates biostatistics, epidemiology, machine learning, and artificial intelligence across brain health, mental health, ageing, neuroimaging, and clinical research. He has authored over 110 peer-reviewed publications and applies advanced statistical and computational methods to address complex health challenges in low- and middle-income countries.

Dr John Vijay Sagar Kommu is currently Professor and Head of the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the NIMHANS, Bengaluru. He has extensive academic, clinical, and research experience of over 20 years, having worked in reputed institutions like Christian Medical College, Vellore, and JIPMER, Pondicherry. He has been working as a consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist at NIMHANS for the past 16 years.
His current areas of interest include neurodevelopmental disorders especially ASD, pediatric psychopharmacology, adolescent mental health, child abuse, and neurobiology of child psychiatric disorders. He was awarded the prestigious NIH(USA) funded Indo-US Fogarty Fellowship in 2014 and trained at the McKnight Brain Institute, University of Florida. Dr John served as an affiliate faculty member at the School of Biological and Population Health Sciences, Oregon University, USA. He has authored 177 peer-reviewed publications.

Dr Kavita Arora is a child and adolescent psychiatrist with over twenty-five years of practice experience and is a co-founder of Children First. She has grown up with a parent who had mental illness and multiple medical disorders for whom she eventually became a carer. She is also part of the founding cohort of the IMHA. Committed to early intervention and inclusive mental healthcare, she has helped shape a multidisciplinary, indigenous model for neurodivergent children and families with diverse developmental needs. She recently completed an advanced diploma in neuro dramatic-play and is passionate about integrating creative approaches into care. Identifying as queer, she has actively supported the movement for marriage equality in India. She values poetry, art, meaningful conversations, hugs and, above all, a discerning sense of humour.

Dr. Kelly Posner Gerstenhaber is a Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University renowned for developing the Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale (C-SSRS). Commissioned by the FDA to create a gold-standard approach for suicide risk detection and drug safety, her work has fundamentally transformed global suicide prevention and mental health regulations. Her framework is widely implemented across the U.S. government, military, global health systems, and school safety initiatives. Honored with the U.S. Secretary of Defense Medal for Exceptional Public Service and named to the 2024 Forbes 50 Over 50 list, Dr. Posner chairs New York's Governor’s Veterans’ Suicide Prevention Task Force. Recognized as one of Columbia's top scientists, she remains an influential global media spokesperson and leader in mental health advocacy.

Dr. Lakshmi Vijayakumar is a renowned psychiatrist with over 45 years of experience and the founder of SNEHA, a Chennai-based NGO dedicated to suicide prevention. She is the Head, Department of Psychiatry, Voluntary Health
Services, Adyar, Chennai. She has also served as the Head of the Department of Psychiatry at Voluntary Health Services (VHS), Chennai, since 1982 and is a member of the World Health Organization’s International Network for Suicide Research and Prevention. Her work focuses on suicide prevention, research, advocacy, and public mental health. She has received numerous national and international honors, including the Honorary Fellowship of the Royal College of Psychiatrists (UK), FRCP (Edinburgh), and the IASP Ringel Service Award. She has also authored and edited several books and published extensively in the field of suicide prevention, authored numerous book chapters, and edited two books, with her work available in both Tamil and English.

Dr. M. Thomas Kishore is Professor of Clinical Psychology at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS), Bengaluru. He is a consultant clinical psychologist in child and adolescent psychiatry and perinatal psychiatry. His areas of expertise include child and adolescent mental health with special interest in neurodevelopmental disorders, infant mental health in perinatal context, and developmental psychopathology. He has been actively involved in clinical services, training, research, and extension programmes. He is associated with various programmes focusing on capacity building, disability rehabilitation, and family-centred and school-based interventions. He brings developmental and systems perspectives to evidence-based psychological care, inclusion, and improving mental health services across communities.

Dr. Nandini Murali is an author, researcher, lived-experience advocate, and practitioner whose work sits at the intersections of suicide loss, postvention, mental health, gender, inclusion, culture, and human flourishing.
She leads Project Speak, a postvention initiative providing support and services to rural women impacted by suicide loss, a collaborative initiative of the M.S. Chellamuthu Trust and Research Foundation, Madurai, and the Mariwala Health Initiative, Mumbai. Through this work, she engages at the intersection of lived experience, gender, mental health, and community-based postvention, with particular attention to the distinctive social, emotional, relational, cultural, and structural realities shaping the experiences of rural women following suicide loss. She is the author and co-author of several books spanning fiction, nonfiction, poetry, translation, and lived-experience writing, including Left Behind: Surviving Suicide Loss (Westland, 2021), Amidst the Wild Flowers: Poems on Love, Loss and Longing (2021), and Homecoming: Mental Health Journeys of Healing, Hope, and Resilience (with Neha Kirpal; Westland, 2025). Her forthcoming book, (Un)Broken: Living and Thriving with Osteoporosis, is being published by Westland shortly.

Neha Kirpal is a creative and social entrepreneur who founded India Art Fair (2008–2018) before turning her focus fully to mental healthcare, inspired by her lived experiences as a child and carer to a parent with schizophrenia and as a survivor of sibling suicide loss. Neha is Co-Founder of the India Mental Health Alliance (IMHA), a national cross-sectoral alliance of 370+ organisations, setup to build collective capacities for the indian mental health ecosystem. As Amaha’s Co-Founder since 2019, Neha helped build India’s largest private-sector mental health service, with 300+ therapists and psychiatrists providing care across 600 Indian cities, globally online, and through clinics & hospitals in Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru. In 2021, Amaha acquired Children First, a specialist child and youth mental health organisation in Delhi. Her debut book, Homecoming: Mental Health Journeys of Resilience, Healing & Wholeness, brings together first-person narratives of 11 Indian women navigating severe mental illness. An Aspen and Eisenhower Fellow, she has received the Nari Shakti Award, NDTV’s Indian of the Year Award and Business Today’s India’s Most Powerful Women in Business Award.

Dr. Poornima Viswanathan is an Assistant Professor of Psychology, who is an autistic adult with lived experience of Bipolar Disorder and complex PTSD, which deeply shapes her practice, teaching, and advocacy. She blends lived experience with clinical expertise to promote compassionate, evidence-based care. Her work spans education, research, psychotherapy, and advocacy, aiming to strengthen mental health systems through empathy, inclusion, and professional integrity.

An engineering graduate turned civil servant, Priyanka Mary Francis is an Indian Administrative Service Officer of Karnataka cadre. She considers enabling governance at grassroots level and first mile service delivery to the most eligible population as her primary responsibility. She has held various offices in the public administration field over last 15 years, including the posts of Deputy Commissioner of Udupi and Hassan. She keenly collaborates with non-governmental organisations to derive synergies from public- private partnerships.

She took over as Director NGMA Bengaluru in June 2024. She has initiated steps for making contemporary art accessible through art education in village libraries of Karnataka. She has led a team for an inclusive curation as part of Air India collection exhibition, “Sanhita” by introducing a tactile section which contains a reproduction of artworks that can be experienced by persons with disabilities.

TBA

Professor P. S. Anil Kumar is a senior academic leader and administrator serving as Professor of Physics and Dean (Administration and Finance) at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc). With over a decade of key leadership experience, including Dean of the Undergraduate Program and head of the IISc Wellness Centre, he oversees core institutional functions, financial management, and strategic growth. He is also the President of the International Union of Materials Research Societies (IUMRS) for the 2025–2026 term and has chaired numerous global conferences.

Prof. Kumar has over two decades of faculty service and extensive mentorship experience. A distinguished researcher in experimental condensed-matter physics and materials science, specializing in spintronics, magnetic nanostructures, quantum and topological materials, and superconductivity—he has authored over 230 peer-reviewed publications. His profile combines academic excellence, administrative expertise, and global leadership in scientific research and institutional governance.

Dr. Rakhi Dandona is the Director of Injury Prevention Research Centre at the Public Health Foundation of India (New Delhi) and Professor of Health Metrics Sciences at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (Seattle, USA). She is also an Honorary Professorial Fellow at the University of Melbourne, Australia and Honorary Professor at the University of Bristol, UK. She has nearly three decades of experience in epidemiology, injury prevention, and mortality research in India. Her suicide research brings together population-level evidence and lived experience to understand who is most affected, the social and gendered circumstances surrounding suicide, and opportunities for prevention. Her work spans suicide mortality, the police interface, bereavement, and community engagement, with particular attention to women. She has published over 300 peer-reviewed publications and serves on Editorial Boards of The Lancet Public Health, The Lancet Psychiatry, and Injury Prevention.

Dr. Rishav Koirala is a leading consultant psychiatrist in Nepal with expertise in clinical psychiatry, trauma-related mental health, neuroscience research, and psycho-oncology. He holds an MBBS from B.P. Koirala Institute of Health Sciences, an MD in Psychiatry from the Institute of Medicine, Nepal, and a PhD from the University of Oslo, Norway, where his research focused on trauma-related mental health, genetics, and biomarkers as part of the internationally recognized SHOT Study. As Executive Director of the Brain and Neuroscience Center (BANC) Nepal, he leads initiatives in mental health care, research, and innovation. He established Nepal's first Psycho-Oncology Clinic and has played key leadership roles in national mental health, including serving as the WHO Mental Health Focal Person during the 2015 Nepal earthquake. His clinical practice focuses on evidence-based care for adult ADHD, trauma-related disorders, personality disorders, addiction, and a broad range of psychiatric conditions. Dr. Koirala has contributed to several international journals and scholarly publications, including the Cross-Cutting Cultural Review Group for the DSM-5-TR.

Dr Rory O’Connor is Professor of Health Psychology and leads the Suicidal Behaviour Research Laboratory at the University of Glasgow. A global expert in suicide and self-harm, his research focuses on the psychological processes driving suicidal behaviour. He is a prolific author and editor, having written the award-winning When It Is Darkest: Why People Die by Suicide and co-edited the International Handbook of Suicide Prevention. Active internationally, he has previously served as the president of the International Academy of Suicide Research and the International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP). He is editor of the Archives of Suicide Research, associate editor of Suicide and Life-threatening Behavior, and serves on the Scientific Review Board of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Passionate about mentoring, he co-organises early career researcher forums and advises national governments and global organisations on suicide prevention strategies.

Dr. Sadhvi Krishnamoorthy is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Global and Cultural Mental Health Unit, Centre for Mental Health and Community Wellbeing, University of Melbourne. She is an experienced mental health researcher and practitioner specialising in suicide prevention, mental health advocacy, and community-based interventions. Her work lies at the intersection of global mental health, suicide prevention, and implementation science, with a focus on understanding and improving translation of interventions in diverse real-world contexts. Her research explores implementation challenges in suicide prevention and advocates for more nuanced, theory-informed approaches to intervention design, delivery, and evaluation. She has extensive experience working with large-scale, multilevel community-based implementation programs in low-resource settings and is particularly interested in understanding the mechanisms involved in translating research.

Dr. Sakina Rizvi is the Chair of the Arthur Sommer Rotenberg (ASR) Suicide and Depression Studies Program at the University of Toronto at St. Michael’s Hospital and an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto. She is also the Research Director of Mental Health & Addictions at St. Michael’s Hospital. Her research focuses on understanding the neurobiology underlying suicide risk and treatment-resistant depression through advanced neuroimaging techniques like fMRI and PET. In addition to her neuroimaging work, Dr. Rizvi develops and evaluates novel psychotherapies for suicide prevention, depression, and trauma resilience with the aim of translating these therapies for use in hospital and community settings. She is also deeply engaged in participant-centered research, collaborating with persons with lived experience of suicide risk and national partners to develop effective suicide prevention strategies involving caregivers. Her advocacy extends to mental health education, often using the creative arts to raise awareness. She led the Storybook Project, a lived experience short story collection on the impact of suicide published in September 2021 as “What it Takes to Make it Through: Stories of Suicide Loss and Resilience”.

Dr Sameer Jauhar is a distinguished Consultant Psychiatrist and Clinical Associate Professor in Affective Disorders and Psychosis at Imperial College London, having previously worked at the Institute of Psychiatry and the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. A Glasgow University medicine graduate with a degree in Public Health and Epidemiology, his pioneering research focuses on PET imaging of the dopamine system to understand the neurobiological roots of psychotic and affective disorders. Highly decorated for his contributions, Dr Sameer has received numerous prestigious international accolades, including the JMS Sim Fellowship, the BAP Senior Clinical Award, and the Rafaelson Young Investigator Award.

Dr. Sandersan Onie is a psychologist specializing in suicide prevention. He is a Research Fellow at Harvard Medical College and an Adjunct Professor of Psychology at Universitas Airlangga, Surabaya. He founded and now leads Indonesia’s national suicide prevention strategy as President of the Indonesian Association for Suicide Prevention, INASP, and serves as Vice President of the International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP) for 2025–26. He co-led the development of the world’s first unified religious statement on mental health and suicide at the 2022 G20 Summit (an effort that earned a Guinness World Record), and he is collaborating with Indonesia’s health ministry and WHO to embed suicide prevention in national health law.

Dr. Sujit Sarkhel is a prominent Kolkata-based psychiatrist with over 20 years of experience. He is currently a Professor of Psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, Kolkata, and serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the Indian Journal of Psychiatry. Dr. Sarkhel's core clinical and research interests include suicidology, child psychiatry, and neuromodulation. A nationally recognized researcher, he has authored around 100 publications in peer-reviewed journals and numerous textbook chapters, including serving as co-editor of the IPS publication, Suicide - Indian Perspectives. Deeply committed to medical education and postgraduate training, Dr. Sarkhel actively promotes mental health awareness through public media and invited lectures at academic conferences across India, alongside offering private clinical consultations throughout the region.

Professor Thomas Niederkrotenthaler is Professor of Public Mental Health and Head of Department of Public Mental Health at the Center for Public Health, Medical University of Vienna, Austria. He is also founding chairman of the Wiener Werkstaette for Suicide Research. His work focuses on suicide prevention, particularly the protective role of media (Papageno effect), familial risk factors, and the evaluation of suicide prevention interventions. He has led international media campaigns, contributed to the WHO/IASP media guidelines on suicide reporting, and has held several leadership positions within the International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP), including Treasurer and Vice-President.

Dr. Vikas Arya is a Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne’s Centre for Mental Health and Community Wellbeing, specializing in the epidemiology of suicidal behavior, socioeconomic determinants, and prevention strategies across Australia and India. In Australia, Dr. Arya has significantly shaped national policy and research. He provided the first updated national estimates of suicidal thoughts and behaviors in over 15 years using the 2020-22 National Study of Mental Health and Wellbeing, a contribution that led to an ongoing commission by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. His expertise also extends to evaluating the New South Wales Suicide Monitoring System and the Better Access Initiative. His research in India directly informed the country's first National Suicide Prevention Strategy regarding suicide inequalities, surveillance, and media reporting. As an IASP Research Consultant, he designed surveys on COVID-19 and suicidal behavior. He also partnered with Google and the IASP to launch crisis support modules in Hindi and English. Currently, he serves as Co-Chair of the IASP Early Career Group for the Western Pacific Region and is an Academic Editor for PLOS Global Public Health.

Dr Vikas Menon is the Professor and Head of the Department of Psychiatry at JIPMER, Puducherry. He completed his MBBS and MD Psychiatry from JIPMER and DNB Psychiatry from the National Board of Examinations, New Delhi. His clinical and research interests include mood disorders, suicide prevention, digital psychiatry, medical education, and systematic reviews. He is a recipient of the 2023 De Leo Fund Award of the International Association of Suicide Prevention, recognizing his contribution to research on suicidal behaviors in low and middle-income countries. He currently serves as Deputy Editor of the Indian Journal of Psychiatry, is an Editorial Board Member of the Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine, and is the Co-coordinator for the International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP) Partnerships for Life initiative in the South-East Asia region. He actively contributes to psychiatric research, education, and suicide prevention initiatives.

Associate Professor Vinay Lakra is an experienced psychiatrist, medical administrator, and former President of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (2021–2023). Originally graduating with an MD in psychiatry from India, he relocated to Australia in 2004 and has since held high-profile leadership roles, including Divisional Director of Mental Health Services at Northern Health, Deputy Chief Psychiatrist of Victoria, and Clinical Director at North Western Mental Health. He has interests in public mental health, health policy and medical regulation and previously served on Victorian Board of Medical Board of Australia. Alongside his clinical practice in general psychiatry, Dr Lakra specialises in clinical governance, patient safety, models of care, and medical training standards. He holds additional qualifications in medical administration, besides honorary fellowships from several international organisations.

Dr Vladimir Carli is Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Director of the National Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention of Mental Ill-Health (NASP) at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden. He also serves as Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Research, Training and Methods Development in Suicide Prevention and serves as the President-Elect of the International Academy of Suicide Research (IASR). His primary research focuses on mental health promotion and the prevention of suicide and mental disorders. Specifically, Dr. Carli investigates the underlying determinants of suicide and mental health problems to develop, test, and evaluate innovative preventive strategies, with a particular emphasis on digital mental health interventions.