Dr Darryl Sellwood completed his PhD in 2019 at Flinders University and was awarded the Vice Chancellor’s Award for Doctoral Thesis Excellence. His PhD research project investigated the lived experiences of people with complex communication needs in developing romantic and sexual relationships. In 2022, a paper based on this research was published in the Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) journal. Dr Sellwood has complex communication needs and uses a variety of AAC strategies. As a computer science graduate with experience in the telecommunications field, he has a broad perspective on both user and technical issues. He graduated with first class Honours in a Bachelor of Arts degree researching telecommunications access for people who rely on AAC. He is currently working part time as a Scholarly Fellow at Flinders University, as part of a panel reviewing curriculum in the Disability Studies discipline. He also runs DrDazz Coffee, a boutique premium coffee business providing ethically-sourced coffee products throughout Australia. An incisive and provocative thinker and an engaging speaker, Dr Sellwood has presented numerous conference papers and keynote addresses at both Australian and international conferences.

Giulia Barbareschi is a JSPS Research Fellow in Disability and Assistive Technology Innovation at the Keio School of Media Design in Yokohama and an honorary lecturer at the Global Disability Innovation Hub and the UCL Interaction Centre in London. She received her PhD in 2018 from University College London, a Specialist Diploma in Medical Device Science from the National University of Galway in 2014 and a BSc in Physiotherapy from the University of Genoa in 2008. Throughout her career, Giulia has collaborated with several academic institutions across the world, start-ups and private ventures, NGOs, DPOs and UN agencies. Her research interest center on the design, development and evaluation of new and existing technologies to empower people with disabilities living in different parts of the world. This has included work on exploring the use of mobile phones by people with disabilities, developing and evaluating assistive technologies for mobility such as wheelchairs and lower limbs prosthetics, understanding how orientation and mobility skills support navigation for individuals with visual impairments, and evaluating the use of accessible technologies for improving access to inclusive education. A recent focus has been on how assistive technology influence self and external perceptions of disability across different cultures. Giulia has authored numerous scholarly publications in premier human-computer-interaction, disability, assistive technology, and rehabilitation venues. Recently, Giulia has published the book Disability Interactions: Creating Inclusive Innovations in collaboration with Prof Cathy Holloway.

Ross Pinder is an experienced skill acquisition specialist with Paralympics Australia, aiming to support the development of coaches and athletes through World-leading and creative learning environments. Ross is primarily interested in the co-creation of learning environments and finding creative ways to optimise the development of athletes with a wide range of physical, vision and intellectual impairments. He has led the evolution of a Paralympic Innovation team that has supported sports to achieve success at major international events, including the Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games, notably in Para Archery, Para Athletics, Boccia, Goalball, Para Cycling, Para Table Tennis, wheelchair tennis and wheelchair rugby. The vision of Paralympic Innovation is to become a world-renowned team of specialists, unrivalled in Paralympic Sport, that has a significant and measured impact on the performance of the Australian Paralympic team through applied research, collaboration, and education. They aim to instigate a paradigm shift that sees research and practice in sport embrace concepts such as Universal Design to design better and more robust sport pathways, technologies, and coaching methodologies for all contexts. Ross has held research, teaching, and applied roles, including consultancy across both Paralympic and professional sports, and currently supervisors and mentors several sport scientists and higher degree research scholars through both national and international collaborations. Ross is part of a wider high-performance network of practitioners in Paralympic sport that take an evidence-informed approach to enhancing coach development, athlete performance and equipment design, and leads key innovation projects such as the development of a bespoke remote coaching platform, ‘Paralympic Connect’.