ISBNPA 2024 Keynote Speakers

Meet the Distinguished Keynote Speakers Presenting at ISBNPA 2025. 

Ihi Heke

Dr Heke is of Māori descent and was raised in the mountain environments of New Zealand’s South Island. Over the past 40 years Dr Heke has been a guide in Milford Sound’s World Heritage Park, a mountain bike and ski guide in numerous alpine locations globally and more recently leading groups to experience traditional Māori environmental science. Dr Heke has post graduate degrees in Environmental Management, educational psychology and a PhD in population health. Dr Heke’s current research focus has been using Systems Dynamics to help Māori and other indigenous groups abroad, build their own health and wellness activities through traditional environmental knowledge. In this capacity, Dr Heke was awarded a research grant by Johns Hopkins University combining Systems Science and Maori Environmental Connections. Dr Heke also retains teaching positions with Case Western Reserve University and Montana State University. Dr Heke’s current role is with Google X’s (San Francisco) generative AI initiative. Dr Heke has also been developing VR180 Māori environmental experiences with a particular interest in high performance sport. More specifically his work has been looking at converting elite athletes into environmental champions by teaching them how to be environmentally centred rather than athlete centred in the ways that they train and evaluate elite performance.

Title: Climate Change, Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Well-Being: Contributions of Generative AI

Key Note Topics of discussion

  • Maori Ancestral concepts of health from the environment

  • Climate change, traditional ecological knowledge and well being

  • AI, data sovereignty and contributions to native well-being

Jim Sallis

James F. Sallis, Ph.D is Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health at University of California San Diego and Professorial Fellow at Australian Catholic University, Melbourne.  His primary research interests are promoting physical activity and understanding policy and environmental influences on physical activity, nutrition, and obesity.  His transdisciplinary research has documented promising environmental and policy strategies for promoting individual, planetary, and economic health, while enhancing equity. He is an author of over 800 scientific publications and one of the world’s most cited scientific authors in any field. Hs current priority is getting research used to create healthy and sustainable cities.

Title: Environmental Research on Physical Activity and Nutrition Can Contribute to Solving Multiple Global Challenges

Environmental research on physical activity and nutrition has grown and matured substantially since the dawn of the 21st century. High-quality science has impacted practice and policy in many sectors of society worldwide. While we continue working on improving the science and translating the results in the service of better global health, there are opportunities for applying our methods and findings to expand the impact of our work to confront some of the world’s greatest challenges. In this talk, Dr. Sallis will invite ISBNPA attendees to broaden their outcomes of interest to co-benefits of healthy community and food system design, including health inequities and community prosperity. He will also encourage attendees to develop new partnerships and research goals to contribute to recommendations that can improve health while mitigating and adapting to climate change.

Melody Ding

Ding Ding (Melody), Ph.D., MPH
Professor of Public Health/NHMRC Emerging Leader Fellow
Prevention Research Collaboration | Sydney School of Public Health | Faculty of Medicine and Health
THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY

Terryann Clark

Dr Terryann Clark PhD, MPH, RN (Ngāpuhi, Ngati Wai, Ngati Whatua ki Kaipara)

TC is a Professor in the School of Nursing, University of Auckland and the Cure Kids Professorial Chair in Child and Adolescent Mental Health. She has worked as a nurse for over 30 years in youth health in various roles and as an academic. TC was a founding member of the Youth2000 survey series over the past 25 years and has led the last 2 waves of the national youth health surveys. She has also led a study exploring the influence of whanaungatanga on Indigenous youth wellbeing. She has authored over 120 academic publications and 40 reports and recently was awarded a research impact award for influencing national policy. https://profiles.auckland.ac.nz/t-clark

Title: Exploring wellbeing for Indigenous Māori youth: Toward culturally responsive and respectful interventions.

This presentation will share findings from research exploring the perspectives of well-being and the concept of whanaungatanga from Māori youth In New Zealand. Our findings provide some unique insights into how interventions might be shaped differently for an Indigenous population that are developmentally relevant and culturally safe. This has wider implications for how programmes and services are developed - moving away from universal one-size-fits-all approaches to recognising the complexity and intersections of youth development, ethnicity, culture and socio-political contexts to address health inequity.