
Key Speakers at our 2022 Conference




Dr Mike Rungie
Global Centre for Modern Ageing
A founding director of the Global Centre for Modern Ageing, a member of Aged Care Financing Authority, Every Age Counts Coalition Steering Group, SA COTA Policy Council, GAP Committee on Productive Ageing, Aging2.0 Adelaide Chapter, and a number of start-up Advisory Boards. Dr Rungie works to develop scalable strategies that emphasise citizenship and productivity for older people.
Professor Cassandra Szoeke
Author of Secrets of Women's Healthy Ageing
Prof Cassandra Szoeke takes a research-based approach to ageing well. Her book, Secrets of Women's Healthy Ageing (2021), draws on the findings of an on-going thirty-year longitudinal study on the health of more than four hundred women in their mid-to-late lives. Prof. Szoeke debunks ageing myths and explores the key ingredients for living a long and healthy life. A Consultant Neurologist, she is the Director of the Healthy Ageing Program in the Centre for Medical Research, University of Melbourne.
Carmel Bird
Author
Carmel Bird has published thirty-five books including manuals on writing and anthologies such as The Century of Australian Stories and The Stolen Children – Their Stories. Her most recent novel is Field of Poppies, set in the Victorian Goldfields today. In 2022 she published a memoir, Telltale, in which she documents her time in lockdown and meditates on her life of reading and writing. She welcomes the opportunity to expose and explore prejudice and discrimination embedded in Australian society against old people.
Commissioner Gerard Mansour
Commissioner for Senior Victorians
Commissioner Gerard Mansour, appointed in 2013, is the first Commissioner for Senior Victorians. He is the Ambassador for Elder Abuse prevention. Gerard Mansour provides independent advice to the Victorian government and its departments. He promotes an age-friendly society and enhanced community participation for senior Victorians. In 2020 he released the influential report Ageing Well in a Changing World.
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Clunes, VIC, 3370
We acknowledge the Dja Dja Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation to be the traditional owners of the lands where Talking with Attitude will take place, and we pay our respects to their elders past, present, and emerging.
