Research leaders

BSc, MSc, PhD

Professor Lianne Schmaal is Head of the Mood and Anxiety Disorders Research program at Orygen. She is an NHMRC Investigator and a Dame Kate Campbell fellow for Research Excellence.

Lianne’s work covers a broad spectrum of research ranging from identifying mechanisms underlying mood and anxiety disorders to trialling novel treatments.

A key focus of her research is on understanding the mechanisms underlying the onset and course trajectories of depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts and behaviours and their response to treatment. It also identifies who is at risk for poor long-term outcomes.

Her team integrates clinical, psychosocial, neurobiological and genetic data using machine learning methods to develop prediction models for illness onset and progression, treatment response and suicide attempts. This work also identifies subgroups of people within and across these disorders who have unique symptoms or biological profiles.

Lianne also leads the two largest neuroimaging consortia on depression and suicidal behaviours worldwide, the ENIGMA Major Depressive Disorder and the ENIGMA Suicidal Thoughts and Behaviours consortia. These international consortia pool neuroimaging and clinical data from more than 50,000 people from approximately 50 research institutes in 16 different countries worldwide.

Read more about Lianne's work in her Find an Expert profile on the University of Melbourne's website.

Research team members

Dr Laura Han
Dr Elena Pozzi
Dr Scott Tagliaferri
Connie Markulev