Left to right: Elizabeth Haris, Sidhant Chopra, Stephanie Miles and Isabelle Scott
Innovative youth mental health research spanning psychosis, eating disorders and AI have been recognised with a raft of new funding for Orygen's early career researchers, with grants from both the University of Melbourne and the Brain and Behavior Research Fund in the USA.
University of Melbourne Early Career Researcher Grants
The University of Melbourne’s Early Career Researcher (ECR) Grants scheme supports early career researchers to undertake high-quality research projects that strengthen their capacity and competitiveness for future funding. Three Orygen researchers have been awarded these highly competitive grants in 2025.
Dr Elizabeth Haris
Dr Haris' research will explore the influence of trauma on the source of memories in young people with first episode psychosis, to better understand if trauma-related memory fragmentation plays a key role in positive symptoms in psychosis.
Dr Stephanie Miles
The grant will enable Dr Miles to investigate how adolescents with anorexia nervosa process images of their own and other peoples’ bodies, to better understand the impact a hyperfocus on body image has on eating disorder symptoms.
Dr Miles is also the recipient of a generous travel fellowship from The Creswick Foundation, which will support her to visit A/Prof Alix Timko and her team at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, fostering an ongoing collaborative relationship and allowing Dr Miles to gain skills and knowledge in cognitive remediation therapy (CRT), a novel treatment for anorexia nervosa.
Dr Isabelle Scott
Dr Scott’s work will look at how AI-driven recommendations could tailor therapeutic content to create more personalisation of digital mental health interventions, encouraging better engagement in these supports. The project will develop a new, scalable model for an AI-powered recommendation system uniquely designed to support and adapt across all mental healthcare contexts.
Brain and Behavior Research Foundation Young Investigator Grant
The BBRF Young Investigator Grant provides support for the most promising young scientists conducting neurobiological research, supporting research relevant to serious brain and behavior disorders such as schizophrenia, mood disorders, anxiety disorders or child and adolescent mental illnesses.
Dr Sidhant Chopra
The Brain and Behaviour Research Foundation (BBRF) Young Investigator Grant, awarded to Orygen researcher Dr Sidhant Chopra, will support the development of new Positron Emission Tomography (PET) brain imaging to measure the loss of brain cell connections in those with early psychosis.
The research aims to better understand how the loss of brain cell connections – known as synapses – in people with illnesses like schizophrenia could have important implications for early intervention.