2025 Fay Gale Lecture: Head Health and Healing - Listening to the voices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women about traumatic brain injury from violence

2025 Fay Gale Lecture: Presented by Dr Michelle Fitts

‘Head Health and Healing - Listening to the voices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women about traumatic brain injury from violence’

Michelle is a Senior Research Fellow at Menzies School of Health Research, who lives and works in Mparntwe Alice Springs. She has been working for over 15 years on research projects with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities across the Northern Territory and Queensland. Since 2015, Michelle has committed her research energy to the area of traumatic brain injury, with a focus on rehabilitation and recovery for women after traumatic brain injury from violence. Michelle’s work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women living with traumatic brain injury from family violence, their families and the services who support them has drawn attention to the invisibility of traumatic brain injury across many systems including health, legal and correctional, family violence, crisis accommodation and child protection. Michelle and her colleagues are currently collaborating with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and frontline services to co-design, pilot and implement violence-related traumatic brain injury training modules and education. Michelle has previously held an ARC DECRA Fellowship (2021-24) focused on understanding the needs and priorities of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women living with traumatic brain injury from family violence and her work has attracted national and international attention, with her publications informing clinical guideline changes, training for frontline services and government reviews into domestic, family and sexual violence.

The Fay Gale Lecture is named in honour of the late Professor Gwendoline Fay Gale AO (1932–2008), the first female President of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia (1997–2000) and an eminent human geographer, well-known for her contributions to academia, the advancement of women within academia, Indigenous studies and juvenile justice. The lecture, inaugurated in 2010, is presented annually by a distinguished female social scientist and is open to the public.

Please register for either in-person and online live streaming (if you register for live streaming but cannot attend, you will still be sent the recording). The lecture will commence at 5.30pm and conclude at 6.30pm, followed by refreshments.