Associate Professor Adrienne Withall

Research Interests:

Associate Professor Withall is a combined track specialist on ageing and neuropsychology in the School of Psychology, where she is the Co-Director of Research. She leads the Ageing at the Margins Lab and equity and digital innovation in cognitive assessment (serious games) and promoting brain health for priority populations are the focus of her research. Dr Withall is a woman of both Aboriginal and Angloceltic (convict and settler) heritage. 

Adrienne is a mid career researcher and author of 68 journal publications, an edited book Alcohol and the Adult Brain, and 5 book chapters. Her research is highly cited and she has a h-index of 29, with 2984 citations. Her expertise is on young onset dementia, particularly priority populations at risk of accelerated cognitive decline (including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, people with chronic drug and alcohol use, and older justice-involved people). She uses mixed methods to aid the translation of her research into policy and clinical practice.

Associate Professor Withall is leading NHMRC-funded research on older incarcerated citizens, including an NHMRC Ideas Grant to design serious games to aid dementia assessment in justice settings and an NHMRC Cohort Grant to perform a longitudinal study of older people in and transitioning out of prison. She is a Chief Investigator of two Centres of Research Excellence, including the ON-Track CRE on Aboriginal Brain Health (led by the University of Melbourne) and the CRE for Violence Prediction, Profiling and Prevention (led by the University of New South Wales). This latter CRE involves an important study to establish routine cognitive assessment for older people in the court system.     

She partners regularly with a range of stakeholders, including Aboriginal communities (e.g. Marcia Ella Duncan and the La Perouse Local Aboriginal Land Council to design the first on-country experience for UNSW medical students), people with Lived Experience (e.g. via the Black Dog Institute) community organisations (e.g. Dementia Australia), health services (e.g. Northern Sydney Local Health District Drug and Alcohol Services, NSW Justice Health and Forensic Mental Health Network) & industry partners (e.g. Flourish Australia, Corrective Services NSW). She has served as an Advocate for people with young onset dementia on various working parties and policy groups, as well as during the Senate Enquiry on Younger People in Residential Care.

Adrienne is currently Co-Chair of the Australian Young Onset Dementia Special Interest Group and a member of the International Indigenous Dementia Research Network. She is also a Member of the NSW Minister's Advisory Council on Ageing and led work for the Australian Association of Gerontology on older people leaving prison. 

Dr Withall regularly reviews grants for national (e.g. NHMRC, ARC, Dementia Australia Research Foundation, Bupa Health Foundation) as well as international grant bodies (such as UK Medical Research Council, Alzheimer's Research UK, Wellcome Trust, Health Research Board Ireland and Netherlands Organisation of Health, Research and Development). She also regularly serves on NHMRC grant panels.

Adrienne currently supervises PhD, Masters, and Honours students.