Dr. George Foussias, MD PhD FRCPC

Dr. George Foussias is the Chief of the Schizophrenia Division at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto, Canada, and Scientific Director of the Slaight Family Centre for Youth in Transition that serves as CAMH’s early psychosis research and clinical services.  He is a Senior Scientist in the Campbell Family Mental Health Research Institute at CAMH, and Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto.  Dr. Foussias is also the Provincial Clinical Lead, Schizophrenia and Psychosis at the Mental Health and Addictions Centre of Excellence (MHA COE) at Ontario Health. Dr. Foussias' research focuses on advancing our understanding and treatment of schizophrenia and psychotic disorders with the goal of improving outcomes and recovery for affected individuals.

Prof. Christos Pantelis

Christos Pantelis is Foundation Professor of Neuropsychiatry, University of Melbourne, Adjunct Professor at the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (MIPS), and Honorary Professor at the Florey Institute. He was a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Senior Principal Research Fellow, 2010-2025. He has been visiting Professor at Harvard (US), Cambridge (UK), and Copenhagen (DE). He is a Consultant Psychiatrist at the Adult Mental Health Rehabilitation Unit, Sunshine Hospital, which he established in 2000, managing patients with treatment-resistant schizophrenia. He established the Melbourne Neuropsychiatry Centre, a joint centre of the University of Melbourne and Melbourne Health, which he co-led as Scientific Director (2004-2022).
Prof Pantelis has won several awards, including the 2011 NARSAD Distinguished Investigator Grant (Brain & Behavior Research Foundation, US), the 2013 Robert Sommer Award (Justus Liebig University), and 2015 Danks Oration Medal at University of Melbourne. In 2018 he was the 18th Paul Janssen lecturer, Institute of Psychiatry, London (UK), and was the ‘Biological Psychiatry Australia’ 2018 Isaac Schweitzer Award Lecturer. He was conferred a Doctor Honoris Causa from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens in 2015 and elected to Fellowship of the Royal College of Psychiatrists (UK) in 2018. He received the 2023 Senior Research Award of the Royal Australian & NZ College of Psychiatrists, 2023 Founders Medal of the Society for Mental health Research (SMHR), and President’s Award at Schizophrenia International Research Society (SIRS) Congress in Chicago. He has been on various editorial boards, including Associate Editor for Psychological Medicine (2016-2020).
Prof Pantelis is internationally recognised for his schizophrenia/psychosis research. His work has received ongoing funding from NHMRC, including three Program Grants. A Clarivate (WOS) highly cited scientist (2014-2023), he has published >800 papers/3 books. In a seminal study in Lancet, he described brain changes at psychosis onset in those at clinical high-risk and subsequently mapped trajectories of brain change (MRI) and cognition over the illness course. Recent work explores the neurobiological basis of brain changes in the psychoses, including early risk factors, genetics, neuroinflammation, and the role of metals and oxidative stress. His work on brain development led to studies of children with schizotypal disorder, including developing a clinical assessment to differentiate these children from autism spectrum disorders. Recent NHMRC-funded studies of a neurodevelopmental and maternal immune activation (influenza) mouse model aim to identify novel treatments.

Prof. Dr. Thomas G. Schulze
WPA President-Elect & Secretary General 

A multi-award-winning specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy, Prof. Dr. Thomas G. Schulze (born 1969) has held the Chair of Psychiatric Phenomics and Genomics at the Institute of the same name (IPPG) at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich since 2014. Previously, he headed the corresponding research area at the University Medical Center of Georg August University of Göttingen. His work focuses on the interactions between genes and the environment in mental illnesses such as bipolar (manic-depressive) illness, schizophrenia, and depression. The search for new individualized treatment strategies is a declared priority in modern psychiatry.
Thomas G. Schulze studied human medicine at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, in Barcelona, Catalonia, and in the USA; he received his doctorate in Erlangen in 1997.
Since 1997, he has focused his research on psychiatric genetic issues. In his previous positions in Germany (University of Bonn, Central Institute of Mental Health in Mannheim) and in the USA (University of Chicago, National Institute of Mental Health, Johns Hopkins University), he has played a key role in establishing large cohorts of patients and control subjects. Such cohorts provide the basis for realistic studies and research. A particular focus of his work is the investigation of possible genetic similarities and overlaps between different groups of diseases.
Professor Schulze is extensively networked as a researcher, both nationally and internationally. He is a member of the National Genome Research Network (NGFN) of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and several NGFN follow-up projects, the Bipolar Disorder Genome Study (BiGS) Consortium in the USA, and the international Psychiatric Genomics Consortium. Professor Schulze is Past President of the American Psychopathological Association (APPA), President of the International Society of Psychiatric Genetics (ISPG), and Chair of the Genetics Section of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA), which recently awarded him honorary membership.

Dr. Aristotle Voineskos

Dr. Aristotle Voineskos is the Senior Vice President, Research and Science & Chair of the Campbell Family Mental Health Research Institute at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). At both CAMH and the University Health Network (UHN), he serves as the joint Vice President for the CAMH-UHN Partnership. Dr. Voineskos earned his MD and PhD at the University of Toronto, and completed a research fellowship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School. Dr. Voineskos is a Professor of Psychiatry at the Temerty Faculty of Medicine. He is an internationally recognized researcher, physician, and leader, who has been dedicated to helping people suffering from severe mental illness and brain disorders.
Dr. Voineskos has served in progressive clinical and research leadership roles across his career. In these roles, he has significantly improved access to care, reduced wait times, and implemented and scaled evidence-based care models across the health system. Most recently as Vice President Research at CAMH, he helped grow the research enterprise substantially, via key pillars of equity, training and evaluation, clinical-research integration, open science, digital transformation, and sustainability. He is known for driving innovation and enhancing team performance. As joint Vice President of the CAMH-UHN Partnership, he helps lead the work across executive teams to deliver comprehensive physical and mental health care for patients, and accelerate advancements in brain health sciences.
Dr. Voineskos has published over 300 papers many of which are in the leading journals of psychiatry, neurology, medicine, and neuroscience. He has won numerous awards for his research and mentorship including the A.E. Bennett Award for Clinical/Translational Research from the Society of Biological Psychiatry (SOBP) in 2022 and the Joel Elkes Research Award from the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP) in 2024.