Young people can often find themselves in the crosshairs of intersecting crises - crises that can be exacerbated by the vulnerabilities of youth and the disregard that can be present for young people’s wellbeing and needs. Not only are young people grappling with physical and mental health conditions, but these conditions are colliding with - and intensified by - broader concerns including economic precarity, environmental crisis, social unrest and technological change. Together, these crises shape and constrain what it means to be ‘healthy’ as a young person in 2025. This panel will examine the state of young people’s health and also speak to what it looks like to truly support, value and engage with young people.

Presenters:

Associate Professor Benjamin Hanckel, Institute For Culture and Society, Western Sydney University

Associate Professor Benjamin Hanckel (he/him) is at the Institute for Culture and Society and Young and Resilient Research Centre at Western Sydney University. His work examines youth health and wellbeing, social inequalities in health, and social change. Hanckel's work has examined the design and use of digital technologies for health, as well as examined health interventions more broadly, asking about how they are experienced in the lives of young people. His work has also explored innovative methods for public health evaluative research. Hanckel is a DECRA fellow and is a co-editor-in-chief of the Journal of Applied Youth Studies, and an associate editor of Health Sociology Review.

Dr Indigo Willing, Sydney Social Sciences and Humanities Advanced Research Centre, University of Sydney

Dr Indigo Willing is a war orphan, skateboarder and has a PhD in sociology from The University of QLD. She is the co-chair of Skateistan International Advisory Board, the world’s largest skate non-profit who are also featured in a documentary which won an Academy Award in 2021. Indigo was recently awarded funding from the Advanced Olympic Research Grant Programme (2025-2027 round) from the Olympic Studies Centre. She is also a NSW Winston Churchill Fellow (2024 – 2025) and John Oxley Library Hon. Fellow (2025) for her skate research. Indigo is also the creator of Skate, Create, Educate and Regenerate (SkateCER) as part of a Visiting Fellowship (2024 – 2025) at Sydney Social Sciences and Humanities Advanced Research Centre (SSSHARC), The University of Sydney. Indigo’s community engagement includes co-founding award-winning and internationally-recognized community initiatives such as Respect is Rad and its flagship campaign Consent is Rad, We Skate QLD and SSHRED. Indigo was also awarded a QLD Government Individual Achievement Award, Outdoor QLD’s flagship award in 2024. She is also the co-author of Skateboarding, Power and Change (Palgrave Macmillan 2023) with Anthony Pappalardo and art by Adam Abada.

Dr Imogen Harper, Post Doctoral Research Associate, Sydney Centre for Healthy Societies and Charles Perkins Centre, University of Sydney

Dr Imogen Harper is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Sydney Centre for Healthy Societies (SCHS) and Charles Perkins Centre (CPC), both at the University of Sydney. Imogen’s research explores experiences surrounding chronic illness and disability, health inequality, embodiment, and youth, and situates these experiences in social and political power structures. Her research on young people’s experiences of chronic illness draws on the sociology of health and illness, emancipatory sociology, and critical disability studies to examine how individuals’ experiences of chronic illness interact with social and institutional expectations of illness and disability – including expectations that hide issues of illness and silence those experiencing them. Imogen is currently working on an interdisciplinary project that examines how socio-cultural, political, economic, and environmental forces impact health and wellbeing, and how people and communities understand the multiscale and multivalent dimensions of health in this context.

Dr Monique McKenzie, Post Doctoral Research Associate, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Sydney

Dr Monique McKenzie is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the School of Social and Political Sciences. Her research takes place across the disciplines of economic sociology and political economy and is informed by a curiosity about the ways that money and finance determine the shape of everyday life. Additionally, she researches the new and emerging methods through which individuals build their incomes and wealth. Currently her focus is on the ways that young adult’s fashion a life for themselves within the asset economy and the role of familial wealth in shaping young people’s life trajectory. She had studied precarious work contracts including creative freelancing and platform work, and currently the role of assets in building wealth in the 21st century. She has published work on the platform economy, precarious labour and the asset economy.

Georgia Monaghan, Co-Founder Ecomind

Georgia Monaghan is Co-Founder and CEO of ECOMIND, Australia’s leading youth climate-mental-health charity. Drawing on her own experience of burnout working in climate law and strategy at Pollination, she works to empower young Australians to move from climate anxiety to sustainable action, and burnout to long-term resilience. A Kenneth Myer Innovation Fellow (2025), Georgia holds an MA in Climate & Society from Columbia University and serves on the Board of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition.

Chair - Dr Zoe Hogan

Dr Zoe Hogan is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Sydney Centre for Healthy Societies at The University of Sydney. Her research interests include arts-based research, applied theatre and teaching artistry. Zoe is currently working on an ARC Linkage Project about the long-term impacts of immigration detention in the lives of people who were detained as children. Zoe’s doctoral research explored the experiences of Community Languages teachers engaging in a drama and storytelling program. Zoe’s research approach is informed by her practice as a teaching artist and community arts facilitator, where she has worked extensively with children and young people, migrant and refugee communities, people with lived experience of homelessness, and young people who are incarcerated. Her work in this area has been recognised with a UNESCO case study and STARTTS NSW Humanitarian Award. She has held various leadership, artistic and consultative positions at organisations including Sydney Theatre Company, Milk Crate Theatre, Powerhouse Museum and Australian Plays Transform.

Image by Nattu Adnan on Unsplash

Contact the host of Promising Futures Amid Frustrated Presents: Thinking through the social, economic and biological dimensions of young people's health