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Headline KEYNOTE SPEAKERs
Milo Wilkinson
Milo Wilkinson is more than a Behavioural Scientist and Behavioural Futurist. She is a decipherer of human patterns, a master of leadership under pressure, and a trailblazer in the world of behavioural prediction.
As an esteemed behavioural Scientist, a sought-after criminal profiler, and a high-performance coach in both the sporting and corporate worlds, Milo boasts an unparalleled perspective on predictive human behaviour. Her wealth of experience spans a diverse cross-section of society, from the boardrooms of multinational corporations and locker rooms of elite sports teams to the inner workings of the criminal mind, narcissists, psychopaths and everyone in between.
Milo's academic foundation is equally impressive. She holds seven degrees in cognitive and clinical neurosciences, criminal sciences, psychology, and psychotherapy. Her extensive and diverse academic background offers a powerful testament to her commitment to her craft. In a ground-breaking collaboration with Harvard University's Neuroscience Department, Milo recently completed a world-first co-design project, delving into the uncharted territories of the unconscious brain.
Prof Toby Walsh
Toby Walsh is an ARC Laureate Fellow and Scientia Professor of AI at UNSW Sydney. He is Chief Scientist of UNSW.AI, UNSW's campus wide AI Institute. He is a strong advocate for limits to ensure AI is used to improve our lives, having spoken at the UN, and to heads of state, parliamentary bodies, company boards and many others on this topic.
One focus of this advocacy has been on the military uses of AI, and this has led to him being "banned indefinitely" from Russia. He is a Fellow of the Australia Academy of Science, and was named on the international "Who's Who in AI" list of influencers. He has written five books on AI for a general audience, the most recent is "The Shortest History of AI: six ideas are all you need to know".
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Belinda Heggen
Belinda is one of Australia’s most experienced and well-respected media trainers, drawing her expert insights from more than 25 years as a journalist and presenter across TV, radio and print, and as a media strategist and advisor to senior politicians.
A trusted and effective coach, her clients include national industry leaders in education, cyber security, finance, health, law, property and construction, real estate, travel, tourism and government.
Dr Ivano Bongiovanni
Ivano is the General Manager of AUSCERT, a not-for-profit organisation affiliated with UQ that delivers cybersecurity services to public and private sector organisations across Australia, New Zealand and the rest of the world.
Ivano is a researcher, consultant, author, and speaker whose work focuses on the managerial and business implications of Cybersecurity. He is also a Senior Lecturer in Cybersecurity Management with the UQ Business School and a member of UQ Cyber.
Ivano helps business leaders and executives make evidence-based decisions in cybersecurity. With a professional background in risk and security management, Ivano’s work bridges the gap between technical cybersecurity and its repercussions across organisations. He has advised ministers, policy-makers, board members, and senior executives on strategies, governance structures, policies, and training programs for effective cybersecurity management.
Ivano is also an experienced facilitator in the fields of Design Thinking and Design-Led innovation, having run since 2015 more than 50 design-led workshops and longer projects for public and private sector organisations.
Felicity Abell
Felicity is an experienced project and change management professional with over 20 years’ experience delivering complex organisational change in large, fast-paced environments. Over the past five years, her work has focused specifically on change management, with a strong emphasis on helping people and businesses successfully navigate technical and cyber security transformations.
During a 13-year tenure with an ASX200 organisation, Felicity led the rollout of numerous large-scale technical initiatives, including two major cybersecurity uplift programs and organisation-wide cybersecurity awareness campaigns. These changes were delivered across 770 retail stores, six distribution centres, and four corporate support offices spanning Australia, New Zealand and China, and impacting up to 15,000 people.
Felicity is known for her ability to keep people at the centre of change. Her approach balances organisational objectives with empathy and practical support for those affected by change. She is particularly passionate about educating leaders and teams on what effective change management looks like in practice—what genuinely works, what doesn’t, and why. A key strength Felicity brings is her ability to bridge the gap between technical, cybersecurity and business teams. She excels at creating shared understanding and aligning stakeholders to enable all to “speak the same language” so that change can be delivered effectively and sustainably.
Darren Hopkins
Darren is a Brisbane based cyber security professional with more than 30 years of experience across law enforcement and the private sector. His career began in law enforcement, providing a strong investigative foundation that continues to shape his approach to cyber incident response and digital forensics.
Darren currently leads a national Digital Forensics and Incident Response (DFIR) team, supporting organisations of all sizes, from small and medium businesses through to critical infrastructure operators and government agencies. His work spans complex cyber incidents involving third parties, regulatory pressure, and high impact operational disruption, where information is often incomplete and time critical decisions must be made.
With experience across technology, governance, and executive decision making, Darren brings a practical, experience driven perspective to cyber security, focused on how organisations respond under pressure when control is limited and the stakes are high.
Andrew Longhorn
Andrew is a Senior Solutions Architect at Trend Micro, focused on enterprise AI security governance and organizational risk management. His team recently achieved 1st place at a global AI Hackathon in Fukuoka, Japan (among thousands of participants), showcasing the innovative approaches Trend Micro brings to AI security challenges.
With 8+ years as CTO for premium cloud and mobility development companies, Andrew architected end-to-end solutions for Fortune 500 enterprises and government agencies, specializing in bespoke iPhone/Android apps and cloud infrastructure. He successfully managed joint ventures, large in-house product suites, and multidisciplinary teams across development, DevOps, and product management.
Jack Cross
Jack is a seasoned business leader with a strong background in digital technologies and risk management. Dedicated to aligning people, processes, and technology, he actively leads efforts to counter cyber threats and reduce organisational risks. Over the past 15 years, Jack has held a range of leadership positions across the Defence and Education sectors, developing expertise in guiding multidisciplinary teams through complex and sensitive technical challenges.
He holds a Master of Systems Engineering (Electronic Warfare), along with internationally recognised CISSP and CISM certifications. Jack is pleased to share his insights with the AISA community and looks forward to engaging with fellow professionals and students during the conference.
Dr Meagan T. Copelin
Meagan is a behavioral health psychologist and forensic cyberpsychology scholar whose work examines how psychological harm, vulnerability, resilience, and decision-making are produced within institutional systems and digitally mediated environments. Her scholarship sits at the intersection of behavioral health, organizational governance, and emerging technologies, analyzing how design choices, leadership practices, and intelligent systems shape cognition, autonomy, psychological safety, and accountability.
With a foundation in behavioral health leadership, Dr. Copelin has spent years studying trauma exposure, stress physiology, workforce strain, moral injury, burnout, and ethical erosion within high-demand care environments. Her work examines how policy decisions, performance pressures, governance models, and system design influence both workforce wellbeing and population-level outcomes. She approaches psychological harm not as an isolated individual experience, but as a systems-level phenomenon that can be patterned, anticipated, and prevented.
She speaks internationally on behavioral risk, AI governance, digital harm, and institutional accountability, helping leaders understand that technological speed without psychological insight can accelerate exposure rather than contain it
Wayne Pennington
Wayne is a distinguished Cyber and Information Security Leader with over a decade of experience defending Australia’s critical aviation infrastructure. Holding First Class Honours in Aerospace Avionics, a Master of Engineering, and an MBA, Wayne uniquely bridges the gap between complex aerospace engineering and strategic business resilience.
Professor Craig Costello
Professor Costello is a cryptographer in the School of Computer Science at QUT, specialising in quantum-resistant encryption. For over a decade, his research has helped shape the global development of post-quantum cryptographic standards - the tools needed to secure systems against the coming wave of quantum-enabled threats.
Before returning to QUT in 2025, he was a Principal Research Scientist at Microsoft Research in the USA, where he led work on deploying post-quantum cryptography into real-world protocols and systems. His mission now is to help Australian companies and government agencies navigate the cryptographic upgrade mandated by national policy and coming into force by 2030.
Adam McHugh
Adam is a Cyber security Specialist and Engineer with over 15 years of experience bridging the gap between complex technical systems and operational resilience. He currently focuses on securing mission-critical cyber-physical systems, ensuring that high-stakes infrastructure is not only fit for purpose but hardened to withstand the evolving tactics of modern adversaries.
With a professional foundation built on ADF operations and refined through years of Governance, Risk, and Compliance and security engineering, Adam brings a unique "mission-first" perspective to the cyber landscape. He is a vocal advocate for moving beyond the "patching treadmill," focusing instead on tactical hardening and compensating controls to protect teams from burnout and systems from exploitation.
Prof Robin Doss
Prof Doss is Professor of Cyber Security, Director of the Deakin Cyber Research and Innovation Centre (Deakin Cyber) and a member of the Deakin University academic board. At Deakin Cyber, he leads a multidisciplinary team of 150+ researchers working with industry, business and government to advance cyber security technology, strategy, policy and governance. He is a multi-award winning innovator and recipient of the 2019 Cyber Security Researcher of the Year award from the Australian Information Security Association (AISA) in recognition of the high-impact outcomes of his discoveries. He was a founding researcher of the $140M Cyber Security Cooperative Research Centre (CSCRC), leading Deakin University's participation in the consoritum and providing scientific leadership to the CSCRC's research theme on the Development of Next Generation Authentication Technologies.
He is a globally recognised expert in security architectures, identity and access management (IAM), and cyber harm prevention with an extensive publication portfolio of more than 250 publications in some of the top journal/conference venues. He is a trusted advisor to government and industry, and previously held appointments with Ericsson Australia, ANZ Banking Group, IBM Research (Zürich) and RMIT University. He is a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE). Prof Doss also serves as a Director on the Board of the Transport Accident Commissions (TAC).
Matt Smit
Matt is an accomplished leader with over a decade's experience leading teams in both the military and private sectors.
His experiences leading teams in an unique array of contexts has afforded him the opportunity to gain invaluable insights into leadership, team building, resilience and human psychology. He currently commands a specialist unit within the Australian Army.
Atticus D'mello
Atticus is a Higher Degree Research student and emerging cyber security specialist with a strong all-rounder skill set, bringing experience across Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC), blue team security, offensive security, vulnerability research, and applied cyber defence. His work combines rigorous theoretical research with practical, real-world technical solutions. Through his role with Safety Net Cyber, Atticus has undertaken multiple research and penetration testing engagements, identifying, validating, and responsibly documenting vulnerabilities across major platforms and services, including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Gmail, Outlook, and other widely used systems.
Beyond vulnerability research, Atticus has developed innovative techniques for recovering disabled, compromised, and lost Instagram and Facebook accounts, assisting individuals and organizations in regaining secure access while reinforcing account protection measures. Alongside his professional work, Atticus’ research endeavours include evaluating security-focused large language models, exploring SQL injection vulnerabilities at the kernel level and investigating sovereign AI solutions for Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC).Despite his young age, Atticus has already demonstrated exceptional technical capability, professionalism, and commitment to cyber security, positioning himself as a highly promising contributor to both applied security operations and advanced cyber research.
Charlotte Davidson
Charlotte has over 20 years experience across the Australian and NSW governments, including 12 years in cyber security and cybercrime intelligence. Charlotte was a founding member and senior executive with the central NSW government cyber function, Cyber Security NSW, providing services across NSW government and local councils, and leading the state’s cyber security strategy and policy. Acting in an Executive Director role, she established ID Support NSW which helps people in NSW restore their stolen or misused identity documents.
Charlotte was Manager of Cybercrime Intelligence at the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission, leading both domestic and international intelligence collaborations and contributing to national cyber security strategies.
Charlotte was awarded a Churchill Fellowship in 2020 to undertake international research on cyber security awareness. She completed an Executive Master of Public Administration through the Australian New Zealand School of Government in 2022. This included producing a report for the NSW Public Service Commission on the approaches, skills and resources leaders need to meet the challenges and opportunities of hybrid organisational models.
Charlotte is a Certified Information Security Manager (CISM), is certified in Governance, Risk and Compliance (CGRC), and has additional academic qualifications in accounting, leadership and community development.
Nicole Stephensen
Nicole is a strategic risk management professional and is widely recognised for her extensive local and international expertise in privacy program management and acculturation. She regularly speaks about the interface between organisational risk management, privacy, cyber security, ethics and trust, and is an expert witness on ‘reasonable steps’ to secure personal information through its lifecycle. Her frank, candid and practical approach has established her as a trusted advisor to Boards and executive officers globally.
Nicole is a Fellow of the Australian Information Security Association (FAISA) and is a leading member of the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP) where she has served as KnowledgeNet Chair and on its ANZ Advisory Board.
She began her career in Canada and has been based in Brisbane, Queensland, since 2003.
Alexander White
Alexander White was appointed by the Governor in Council as Queensland’s Privacy Commissioner as of October 2025 for a five-year term. Currently, he also serves as a member of the Dubai International Financial Centre Advisory Committee for AI Regulation.
Alexander previously served as Bermuda’s first Privacy Commissioner, from January 2020 to September 2025, and on the European Commission Working Group to draft the first General-Purpose AI Code of Practice under the EU AI Act. He recently completed a term as Executive Committee Member for the Global Privacy Assembly, which sets the strategic direction for privacy regulators worldwide, and hosted the annual event in 2023.
Prior to these roles, Alexander served as State Deputy Chief Privacy Officer for the U.S. State of South Carolina and served on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee (DPIAC) for a three-year term.
Alex is a US lawyer licensed in the District of Columbia and a two-time graduate of the University of Georgia, where he earned a bachelor's degree in history and a Juris Doctor (cum laude).
Dr Praveen Gauravaram
Dr Praveen Gauravaram is Principal Scientist at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). A dynamic and visionary leader at the intersection of business, technology, research and consulting. He is driven by a passion for shaping strategic agendas and delivering impactful outcomes in the evolving landscape of cyber security, industrial systems, and emerging technologies. With a proven record across public and private sectors, both locally and internationally, he excels at bridging the gap between innovation and practical application.
As a forward-thinking cyber security professional, Dr Gauravaram has built a distinguished track record of pioneering Research and Innovation (R&I) initiatives and providing strategic consultancy that strengthens organisational resilience and technology direction. I shape narratives, cultivate client trust and foster enduring partnerships that deliver measurable, long-term outcomes.
He has successfully led cyber security research and innovation programs and leveraged emerging technologies—including AI, Generative AI, and Post-Quantum cryptography —to develop enterprise-grade and operationally deployed security solutions across IT and industrial environments. His work spans technology strategy, cyber uplift, identity management, secure-by-design practices and capability development across critical infrastructure ecosystems spanning government, industry and academia.