SPEAKERS

Holly Kostrzewski says with a smile, “I did not choose my career, my career chose me!”

Holly’s path forever changed, when at the age of 18 she sustained a life-changing traumatic brain injury, as a result of a motor vehicle accident. Significant challenges followed, during her ongoing recovery.

Through faith, determination, tenacity, a positive attitude, and a great sense of humour, Kostrzewski graduated college with honours, went on to earn a Master’s degree in Public Health, and completed coursework and is ABD for a PhD in Public Health/Community Health. Holly works in preventing road crashes during her day job.

In 2014, Holly’s family faced a new challenge. Holly’s father sustained a paralyzing spinal cord injury in 2014 and is cared for at home by family.

Holly has been consistently named one of the top presenters at brain injury conferences in the United States and Canada, medical professional conferences, correctional institutions, colleges, and high schools. Holly is the founder of HUGS: Helmet Use and Grab your Seatbelt; a brain injury education and prevention program for children.

After taking a break of nearly a decade from public speaking to concentrate on her career and graduate school, Holly is back with a new perspective based on living with a brain injury over time. Through her frank and entertaining presentations, Holly will explain the challenges she has encountered in living with a brain injury including challenges related to working, dating, seizures, and how grief and trauma have affected her life. Holly will also review how she faced the issues and helped herself succeed. In addition, Holly will share the journey she and her family have travelled through her traumatic brain injury and resulting fractured self, and her father’s spinal cord injury, hospitalisation, rehab, and associated every day challenges for her father and her family.

To date, Holly has reached over 700,000 people with her message of hope, humour, and inspiration.

Currently serving as the Disability Rights Commissioner for Te Kāhui Tika Tangata | New Zealand Human Rights Commission, Prudence brings over 15 years of dedicated experience in human rights advocacy. With a career including her previous position as Chief Executive of the Disabled Persons Assembly of New Zealand, a Disabled Persons Organisation (DPO/OPD) and a number of rights, values and leadership based roles with a national disability service provider.

Prudence holds qualifications in management and Te Reo Māori and has 25 years of governance experience. Her background also includes extensive experience in customer service and in facilitation. With a strong foundation in social justice, Prudence is deeply committed to advancing equity for all people including Tāngata Whaikaha Māori, disabled people, and marginalized communities. As a disabled woman who also identifies as queer, Prudence draws from lived experience to support their work.  

In 1997 Prudence sustained a supposedly mild TBI. In 1999 she underwent surgery for a brain tumour, during which she experienced a brain stem haemorrhage. After rehabilitation and 15 years of dodgy walking Prudence realised things didn’t need to be as hard, she currently utilises a mobility scooter to enable her to participate more in society. Prudence continues to manage the cognitive, neurological, and physical impairments resulting from her injuries and will speak about disability rights perspective with sprinklings of personal anecdotes for emphasis”

Dr Christine Canty is a Consultant Clinical Neuropsychologist with a background in brain injury rehabilitation. Christine completed a combined PhD/Masters in Clinical Neuropsychology at the University of Melbourne, and has worked in a range of rehabilitation settings over 19 years, including inpatient, acute, subacute, community, psychiatric and forensic. She has lived and worked in Dunedin, New Zealand for the past four years. Christine has a passion for empowering multi-disciplinary team members to understand and apply neuropsychological knowledge to their work with clients with cognitive impairment and brain disorders.

Warren Cossou is a Speech and Language Therapist who has worked in specialist subacute brain injury rehabilitation centres and community settings (in the UK and NZ) for over 25 years before setting up his own private practice – Southern Speech – in 2022. Warren is a lifelong learner who enjoys working with multi-disciplinary teams to achieve the best possible outcomes for clients. Warren has always been fascinated by the interplay of neuroscience, linguistics, psychology , personality and culture in assessing and treating people with cognitive-communication disorders.

Katrina is the General Manager Wellbeing and Safety at Ngāi Tahu Holdings based in Ōtautahi.  Ngāi Tahu Holdings (NTH) is the operational arm of Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu. Ngāi Tahu Holdings is made up of four operational Business Units – Seafood, Farming and Forestry, Tourism and Property. Katrina has a team of 5 Advisors who support the Business Units.  The business units operate across Aotearoa and largely involve activities associated with the taonga of Aotearoa.

Katrina has 20 years’ experience in Health, Safety and Wellbeing in Aotearoa having also worked in the Agricultural, Construction, Aviation and Government sectors.  Katrina has New Zealand Institute of Safety Management (NZISM) Professional Accreditation and is a passionate advocate for Health, Safety and Wellbeing.  Katrina is involved in several industry safety bodies and is committed to continuous self-improvement through learning and growing professionally and personally.

Katrina is a proud Nana to two mokopuna Pippa and Beau.  Whānau is central to maintaining Katrina’s overall wellbeing in amongst the busy-ness of daily life.

Professor Julia Rucklidge, a clinical psychologist, is the Director of Te Puna Toiora, the Mental Health and Nutrition Research Lab at the University of Canterbury. Originally from Canada, she’s a renowned clinical psychologist focusing on nutritional interventions for mental illnesses. With over 250 publications and global talks, she advocates for healthy eating to enhance mental health. Notable achievements include co-authoring “The Better Brain,” a TEDx talk with over 5 million views, a free online course through EdX on Mental Health and Nutrition that has been taken by over 75,000 students, and receiving awards like the Ballin Award from the NZ Psychological Society, and being named three times as one of New Zealand’s top 100 influential women.

Duncan is a Tinnitus and Paediatric Specialist Audiologist with over 20 years of experience in NZ and Australia in most areas of Audiological practice. Duncan is an Audiologist because he used to suffer from tinnitus while playing professionally in bands, which has led to a Master’s thesis in Tinnitus management, and he has published research on the use of music as sound therapy for Tinnitus.  He is the facilitator of the NZ Tinnitus Community of Practice, a group of Audiologists with an interest in the clinical aspects of tinnitus management.  Previously the Charge Audiologist at Christchurch Hospital, he was part of the team behind the nationwide set-up of Newborn Hearing Screening in NZ, and has been an examiner for the NZ Audiological Society. Duncan has moderate hearing loss and uses hearing aids.

Duncan has an affinity for tinnitus and hyperacusis sufferers and a passion for helping them understand these conditions and the strategies they can use to reduce or eliminate them. He is actively involved in improving the health pathways for tinnitus sufferers to access appropriate tinnitus management advice.

Siobhan trained as a clinical neuropsychologist in the UK (Surrey and Glasgow).  She enjoyed over three years working with Prof Barbara Wilson and her team at the Oliver Zangwill Centre where she was introduced to IDT working using holistic biopsychosocial/ neuropsychological formulation in a group programme.  She then introduced this model of team formulation into residential programmes where she was based both in the UK and later in New Zealand.  Based in New Zealand for over 5 years, she currently works with the LFBIT community rehabilitation team providing assessment and intervention for individuals and their families after mild to severe brain injury.

Nic also trained in the UK as a clinical psychologist, and was fortunate to undertake a placement at the Rivermead Rehabilitation Centre, which fuelled her interest in Neuropsychology. She then moved to New Zealand in 2002, where she has specialised in neuropsychology for most of the last 20 years. Nic has been involved in the further development of neuropsychology as a specialist field in Aotearoa New Zealand. She set up the New Zealand Special Interest Group in Neuropsychology in 2011, and later worked with the Psychologists Board to help establish Neuropsychology as a scope of practice. She currently works as the Clinical Lead for Psychology for Laura Fergusson Brain Injury Trust.

Sam Johnson is a renowned civic entrepreneur. He founded and built the Student Volunteer Army that today through seven universities and 240 schools is ready to show up and shovel anywhere in New Zealand. Sam is now Project’s Director at STILL, best known as the owners of the World of WearableArt, where he is leads ‘Paererewā – Markers for Reflection for 1000 Years’ – a social enterprise designed to create places to sit or rest around our country helping us think longer-term.

Sam sustained a serious and debilitating head injury in 2019. A simple Saturday morning gardening changed his life forever; leaving the former Communicator of the Year with a stutter, chronic headaches and the wonder if this will ever improve. Sam is excited to share his journey of recovery and some of the moments along the way. 

Dr Helen Murray is a research fellow at the University of Auckland Centre for Brain Research where she leads the brain injury and dementia research group. Her research explores the biological mechanisms that link repetitive head injuries and neurodegeneration using postmortem brain tissue donated to the Neurological Foundation Human Brain Bank. Dr Murray has also represented New Zealand in Ice Hockey since 2013 and captained the New Zealand Ice Fernz from 2016-2020.

Stephen is a former Fellowship trained GP  who has a long involvement in Sports Medicine, with 10+ years experience in rugby medicine having been Team Doctor for The Blues Super Rugby side, Auckland NPC, age grade national teams and Maori All Blacks Teams between 2004-2018. His interest in concussion stemmed from his involvement in rugby. He recently re-trained completing specialist training as a Sport and Exercise Physician through the Australasian College in November 2022, and now works at Axis Sports Medicine in Auckland. His clinical load is split between musculoskeletal/sports medicine injuries and concussion based work. He has several publications in the literature pertaining to sports-related concussion from a clinical perspective. He works as an Independent Concussion Consultant for World Rugby, NRL and ACC. He has been involved in the development of the 2024 released ACC Concussion Guidelines, High Performance Sport Concussion Collective for Sports-Related Concussion Management in Elite Sport and concussion initiatives within primary care around BIST screening tool, education and management pathways. 

Stephen is currently Medical Director for Canoe Racing NZ and was part of the core medical team for the Paris Olympics 2024.

Kimberley Wade 

ATCL (Voice, BA, MMTH, NZRMTh is a neurologic music therapist, Clinical Director and Founder of Southern Music Therapy & Co-Founder of Cantabrainers Choir. In 2007 Kimberley completed her Masters in Music Therapy and has since worked in a variety of disability and health settings here in Canterbury.  Kimberley felt drawn to working clinically with people with neurological conditions. As a singer she has a real drive to inspire people to use music the assist in ‘finding their voice’; encouraging them to communicate, express themselves and connect with themselves.  Kimberley is involved in several new projects expanding Music Therapy in the Canterbury community, including research with Burwood Academy, key projects at BrainTree related to Music and the Brain, as well as new community initiatives with the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra.

Renata Kuswanto 

MT-BC, NZRMTh is a neurologic music therapist for Southern Music Therapy. After completing her undergraduate degree in Music Therapy in the USA, Renata landed her dream job right here at Southern Music Therapy, in Christchurch. Renata earned her board certification and received Neurologic Music Therapy training in 2022. She has worked with children and adults with Neuro-disability, intellectual disability, and developmental delay. Renata is now practicing full time in long-term neurorehabilitation facility, community, and specialist school in Christchurch.

Jarrod has been working as a transport occupational therapist for three years. Prior to taking on this role he worked with clients suffering from a range of physical and brain injuries which involved analysing task specific movement. These skills have translated well to completing driving assessments and vehicle modifications for people whose ability to drive has been impacted following an accident or injury. Jarrod enjoys presenting people with a means of returning to driving when they had thought they could never drive again due to physical impairment.

Margaret has worked as a transport occupational therapist for four years with over 40 years’ clinical practice working as an occupational therapist in hospital and community settings in New Zealand, UK and USA. Margaret has worked extensively in neurological rehabilitation, in particular traumatic brain injury and stroke rehabilitation, which she is able to apply to this new area of practice. Margaret enjoys the complex challenges of assisting people to participate in driving again, albeit in an adaptive way, after recovering from an injury that has impacted their ability to drive.

Lisa is CEO of the New Zealand Rugby Foundation.

The New Zealand Rugby Foundation champions the safety of all players in the game we love.

For nearly 40 years, the NZ Rugby Foundation has partnered with players who suffer a life changing injury. And we do a whole lot more.​​​​​​​

Our work centres on four key pillars:

• Support
• Prevention and research
• Advocacy
• Relationships

These pillars hold up the 147,000 registered rugby players in New Zealand who play one of our most loved sport. We are there from the moment a player steps out onto the pitch through to if the unimaginable happens and they suffer a life changing injury.

Lisa has held management positions in two of rugby’s powerhouses – South Africa and New Zealand. This has been across various aspects of the game spanning five Rugby World Cups. Diverse experience including international and national, managing individual players, PR, events, diplomacy, and logistics.

Moved to NZ in 2001 and blessed to call two counties home. Prior to joining the New Zealand Rugby Foundation team, I was privileged to be a part of the RWC 2011 management team and wondered if I’d ever love a role as much. Well, the New Zealand Rugby Foundation surpasses and then some.

“I respect sport as a powerful social catalyst. In our current world it is even more vital that sport remains relevant. It is a powerful tool in our fast-moving world and a healthy leveler.” 

Josh completed his PhD in neuropsychology and clinical psychology training at Victoria University. He is registered under the NZ Psychologist Board Clinical Neuropsychology scope of practice. Josh has worked as a clinical psychologist/neuropsychologist in a range of clinical settings including adult and child mental health, TBI rehabilitation, paediatric and adult physical rehabilitation services. Josh completed a Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship in the TBI Network at Auckland University of Technology. Josh joined Victoria University of Wellington in 2022 and he co-leads the Neuropsychology Lab. He conducts research into neuropsychological assessment methods, neuroimaging, neurocognitive rehabilitation, and psychotherapy in neurological conditions. Josh has a particular interest in understanding the neuropsychological mechanisms that influence outcomes in mild traumatic brain injury and the application of Acceptance and Commitment therapy in acquired brain injury.

For over 25 years, Chandra has been instrumental in helping businesses worldwide implement accessible and user-friendly digital solutions. Drawing from her personal journey with chronic health issues and neurodivergence, combined with a PhD in Human-Computer Interaction and extensive industry experience, Chandra provides practical strategies that create meaningful impact for diverse users.

As the owner and Managing Director of Access Advisors, Chandra leads a dedicated team of seven professionals focused on helping organizations understand the significant effects of poor design on user experience and business outcomes. Access Advisors specializes in delivering tailored training, comprehensive reviews, strategic guidance, and research services aimed at enhancing digital accessibility.

Chandra’s passion for and commitment to accessibility focuses on supporting clients on their own accessibility journeys. Her research interests centre on working with people with disabilities, ensuring that their perspectives are integral to innovative design solutions. She has presented her findings at international conferences, contributed chapters to academic books, and lectured at various respected universities in the UK. Chandra is also the New Zealand Country Advisor for the International Association of Accessibility Professionals. 

Additionally, Access Advisors operates the Access Panel—an initiative composed of disabled individuals from across the country. This panel not only raises awareness about the consequences of inadequate digital design but also provides valuable insights that help organizations improve their interface designs.

Outside of her professional commitments, Chandra juggles her family life as a daughter, wife, sister, and mother to two teenagers, alongside caring for an aging Springer Spaniel and a lonely Zebra Finch. When she can escape, she is most likely to be found looking for rocks on Canterbury beaches or taking photographs of mountains or clouds.