Keynote Speakers
Dr Chinwe Obinwa (UK)
President of the Association of Black Psychiatrists UK, and Forensic PSychiatrist at Derbyshire NHS
Keynote Address: Forensic Services and Community Reintegration: Barriers, Challenges & Successes
Topic: Medicolegal World: The Psychiatry Legal Expert
Panel Discussion: Symbiotic collaboration to re-imagine access to Mental Health Care
Dr Chinwe Obinwa is a Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist with a wealth of experience in mental health spanning over 25 years. She is a fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrist. Her training in psychiatry started in Lagos, Nigeria and throughout her career, Dr Obinwa has gained proficiency in various subspecialties of psychiatry. They include neuropsychiatry, forensic learning disability, specialist female forensic psychiatry, and offender health. Her expertise in forensic psychiatry is in assessing complex clinical cases, involving multiple agencies that pose a significant risk of harm to others. She is adept with the various risk assessment tools, such as RSVP, IPDE, HCR-20, SAPROF and Stalking Risk Profile. She is also a proficient medico-legal expert. Dr Obinwa is interested in workforce development, medical education and training. She is currently the Clinical Director for Forensic Services in her NHS Trust where she has been involved in developing forensic services. She is also a trainer for Forensic Specialist Registrars and supervisor for psychiatric trainees and medical students. Her non-clinical interests include empowering and supporting females in the workplace; she was the first Chair of the Women’s Network in her Trust. She is also the President of the Association of Black Psychiatrists (ABP) UK. ABP UK is one of the diaspora groups of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. It is an association that supports the professional development of black psychiatrists through education, training, mentoring and networking. Dr Obinwa loves fashion, travel, food and music especially Afrobeats.
Dr Shubulade Smith (UK)
President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. Consultant Psychiatrist at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and Visiting Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, Kings College London.
Keynote Address: Navigating leadership and challenges as a black female psychiatrist
Dr Shubulade Smith is a consultant psychiatrist with 27 years’ experience, including 20 years at consultant level, and is a Visiting Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IoPPN), King’s College London. She is Clinical Director of the Forensic Service at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (SLaM), where she previously led both the forensic and general intensive care units. Her ward was shortlisted for Psychiatric Team of the Year in 2011. Dr Smith was recognised as a BMA pioneering consultant and nominated as a Woman of the Year in 2002 for developing the “One Stop Shop”, a medication review and physical health monitoring clinic for people with mental health problems. She is widely recognised for her research into the hormonal and reproductive effects of antipsychotic medications and has a special interest in women’s mental health, having managed a ward for women with severe mental disorders and published in this area. Her clinical approach is holistic, considering the biological, psychological, and social dimensions of mental health. She has used both psychodynamic and cognitive therapies in her practice and ran a psychodynamic therapy group for people with personality disorders for two years. Dr Smith has worked extensively with a range of conditions, from common disorders such as anxiety and depression to complex cases involving psychosis, co-morbid substance use, and PTSD. An active academic, Dr Smith has published more than 60 journal articles, research letters, and book chapters. She continues to contribute to research at the IoPPN and is committed to education. She teaches on the Maudsley MRCPsych course for psychiatric trainees, the IoPPN Doctorate in Clinical Psychology, and at Guys, Kings and St Thomas’ (GKT) Medical School. She also supervises junior psychiatrists. In addition to her clinical and academic roles, Dr Smith is an experienced expert witness in medicolegal matters, including personal injury, clinical negligence, employment, family, and criminal law. In recognition of her outstanding contributions to psychiatry, she was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2019 and named Psychiatrist of the Year by the Royal College of Psychiatrists later that year.
Prof Lukoye Atwoli (Kenya)
Dean of the Aga Khan University Medical College in East Africa, the Deputy Director of the Brain and Mind Institute, AKU
Keynote Address: From Advocacy and Activism to Action: The remaking of the tertiary mental health care service in Kenya
Workshop: Evidence vs Novelty in the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder
Panel Discussion: Symbiotic collaboration to re-imagine access to Mental Health Care
Prof. Lukoye Atwoli is a leading Psychiatrist, currently serving as the Dean of the Aga Khan University Medical College in East Africa, the Deputy Director of the Brain and Mind Institute, AKU, and a practicing Psychiatrist at the university’s hospital in Nairobi. He has an extensive academic background, including a PhD from the University of Cape Town, focusing on trauma and PTSD in South Africa. As a member of the World Mental Health Surveys Consortium, Prof. Atwoli is widely published, with research interests in trauma, PTSD, genetics of mental disorders, children and youth mental health, as well as HIV-related mental health. Prof. Atwoli holds key leadership roles, including Vice-President of the World Psychiatric Association Section on Epidemiology and Public Health, Chairperson of the Board of the Mathari National Teaching and Referral Hospital in Kenya, and co-Chair of the Board on Global Health of the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. As a strong mental health advocate, he has influenced policies both in Kenya and internationally, earning him honors such as the International Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association (IFAPA), the Moran of the Order of the Burning Spear (M.B.S), and election to the US National Academy of Medicine (NAM). He is also a member of the Kenya National Academy of Sciences.
Prof Oye Gureje (Nigeria)
Emeritus Professor and Director, WHO Collaborating Centre for Research and Training in Mental Health, Neuroscience, Drug and Alcohol Abuse Department of Psychiatry University of Ibadan, Nigeria
Keynote Address: Reimagining psychosis: lessons from the Global South
Dr. Oye Gureje is Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry and Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Research and Training in Mental Health, Neuroscience, and Substance Abuse, Department of Psychiatry, University of Ibadan and Extraordinary Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Stellenbosch University. Gureje is a graduate of the University of Benin, Nigeria, University of Manchester, UK, and the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. He holds the academic degrees of MBBS (in Medicine and Surgery), MSc, PhD, and DSc (in Psychiatry) and professional specialist certifications as Fellow in Psychiatry of the National Postgraduate Medical College of Nigeria; Fellow, West African Postgraduate Medical College; Fellow, Royal College of Psychiatrists (UK); and Fellow, Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists. Gureje is internationally recognized as a leading global mental health researcher with important contributions to psychiatric nosology, mental-physical comorbidity, cross-cultural epidemiology of mental disorders, ageing in sub-Saharan Africa, and the development of integrated service for people with mental health conditions. His has received grant support from the Welcome Trust, MRC (UK), EU, AusAid, Grand Challenges Canada, IDRC and the NIMH, among others and has published more than 650 peer-reviewed scientific papers, monographs, book chapters, and has co-edited 3 books. With over 130,000 citations to his works and an h-index of 132, he has, for several years, been listed by Thompson Reuters/Clarivate and among the “global Highly Cited Researchers”. His contributions to mental health service and policy development in Nigeria include leading the development of the current National Policy on Mental Health Service as Chair of the Mental Health Action Committee of the Federal Ministry of Health. As the Founder and Director of the Mental Health Leadership and Advocacy Programme (mhLAP) at the University of Ibadan, he has led in leadership capacity building and mental health service and policy developments in the five anglophone countries of Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone. As President of Association of African Psychiatrists and Allied Professions (AAPAP), he convened, in 2009, and in collaboration with the WHO and the World Psychiatric Association, a policy roundtable on scaling up mental health in sub-Saharan Africa, attended by the health ministers or their representatives of 8 sub-Sahara African countries. A recipient of many awards, he is a Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Science, Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Medicine, and a laureate of the Nigerian National Order of Merit.
Prof Mo Nagdee (New Zealand)
Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist, Southern Regional Forensic Service, Te Whatu Ora / Health NZ Associate Professor, Department of Psychological Medicine, Dunedin School of Medicine, University of Otago
Keynote Address: Gods, demons & the furies: the early history of insanity
Topic: Gender, trauma, mental illness & homicide: risk prediction in a South African forensic sample
Mo is a Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist in the Southern Regional Forensic Service at Te Whatu Ora / Health NZ and an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychological Medicine, Dunedin School of Medicine at the University of Otago in New Zealand. Mo has held various clinical and academic roles in his peripatetic career, commencing as an academic in Anatomy, Human Biology and Palaeoanthropology, before gravitating to Medicine, Psychiatry and ultimately Forensic Psychiatry. Following a registrarship at WITS and obtaining his FCPsych(SA), Mo spent a few years in the UK and backpacking around the world before settling in Grahamstown/ Makhanda in the Eastern Cape. Mo spent over a decade as Clinical Head at Fort England Hospital, Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Walter Sisulu University and Clinical Associate in the Department of Psychology at Rhodes University, prior to relocating to the South Island of New Zealand in 2020. Mo’s doctoral thesis and primary clinical research interest has been around gender, violence and mental health issues in women within the South African forensic system, although his academic curiosity and activity have extended across a diverse range of fields. Precipitated by the intriguing history of Fort England Hospital since his appointment there in the mid-2000’s, Mo developed a particular fascination with the historical intersections of social, clinical and philosophical dimensions of ‘insanity’ and the ‘insanity defence’, and how their conceptual evolution has shaped contemporary clinical understandings and practice, especially within the forensic field.