Professor Dianne Vella-Brodrick

Bio-Dash Program Creator

Professor Dianne Vella-Brodrick (PhD) holds the Gerry Higgins Chair in Positive Psychology.  She is Director at the Centre for Wellbeing Science at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne. She is a registered psychologist and a Member of the Australian Psychological Society and College of Health Psychologists. She is also trained in sport and life coaching, biofeedback and sport psychology. 

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Dianne is the inaugural Director of the highly successful Master of Applied Positive Psychology program (2013 – 2015). She founded the Positive Psychology Network in Australia and has served as Treasurer and Secretary of the International Positive Psychology Association (IPPA) and is currently on the IPPA Council of Advisors. She has been an inaugural Editor in Chief of the Psychology of Well-Being: Theory, Research and Practice journal (2011-2016) and has Co-Directed the 2008, 2010 and 2014 Australian positive psychology and wellbeing conferences. 

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Dianne has published widely, and presents regularly at conferences. She serves on numerous research advisory boards, regularly reviews scientific papers for leading journals and has received around $3 million funding for her world class research. Dianne’s research interests include the development and evaluation of wellbeing programs, particularly in the areas of positive education and performance optimisation. She specialises in innovative designs which utilise the latest technology, real-world, real-time sampling and physiological indices of wellbeing. Most of her current research focuses on co-designing programs with young people for young people to improve their mental health and wellbeing. Dianne also has extensive experience with developing wellbeing measures including the Wuzzup and MoodPrism apps and the Wellbeing Profiler. She also promotes education on ethical and professional practice issues and served as the Ethics Chair at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education from 2014-2020.

Dr Anneliese Gill

Research & Training 

Anneliese Gill is a Lecturer at the Centre for Wellbeing Science at the University of Melbourne and Fulbright Scholar. She has a Masters of Music from the Manhattan School of Music, New York and graduate and post graduate diploma in psychology from Monash University, Melbourne. With over 25 years experience as a music teacher and performer she is passionate about helping artists remain composed under pressure and reach their potential. In 2016 she was awarded an Australian Government Research Training Program scholarship to complete a PhD in the psychology of music and performance science at the Conservatory of Music, Melbourne University. This involved formulating and developing educational initiatives for young artists that foster self-efficacy and psychological performance skills to optimise performance. She has also been a member of the music-psychology research team at Monash University and conducted numerous performance mastery workshops for musicians and professional development sessions for music educators.

Dr Kent Patrick

Research & Training

Dr Kent Patrick is a Research Fellow at The Centre for Wellbeing Science, The University of Melbourne. After an early career as a health professional, Kent completed a PhD in Psychology at Deakin University. Since joining the Centre for Wellbeing Science in 2016, he has worked on a range of projects led by Professor Dianne Vella-Brodrick such as an ARC Linkage Grant “Effects of Positive Education during the critical post-school transition” that explored supporting the wellbeing of young people post-secondary school. This project included a range of innovative methods including working with a group of ‘youth leaders’ to co-develop an innovative wellbeing program to help young people manage post-school challenges, and the development of an app to collect data and assist with the tracking of their wellbeing. Kent has also been closely involved with the development and delivery of Bio-Dash since 2019 including its transformation to an online format. He has published over 30 reports and peer-reviewed journal articles and is passionate about the promotion of health and well-being of young people, and the development of innovative, engaging wellbeing programs for the workplace.