BA (Hons), MA, PhD, is Associate Professor at the Department of Paediatrics, University of Melbourne

Dr John Winston Toumbourou BA (Hons), MA, PhD, is Professor and Chair in Health Psychology at Deakin University and a Senior Research Fellow within the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute at the Centre for Adolescent Health (Royal Children’s Hospital). John is a founding member and the current Chair of the College of Health Psychologists within the Australian Psychological Society. John's interests include evaluation, drug abuse prevention and treatment, and the role of community, family and peer groups in adolescent health promotion. He has published over 180 articles and 50 referred journal papers. In 2005 he was awarded a 5-year VicHealth Senior Research Fellowship for his research program focusing on healthy youth development. In 2006 he received the award for International Collaborative Research from the Society for Prevention Research.

He is a Principal Investigator on a number of studies investigating healthy youth development including the Australian Temperament Project (investigating the role of childhood temperament and behaviour in the prediction of adolescent substance use, delinquency and depression), and the International Youth Development study (a collaborative longitudinal study with the University of Washington).

John has been involved in the development of a number of youth health promotion programs including - the Chronic Illness Peer Support Program (Victorian Public Health Award 1999), the Behaviour Exchange Systems Training program (targeting families experiencing youth substance abuse), Program for Parents (a national youth suicide prevention program demonstrating success in reducing early youth delinquency and substance use) and Communities That Care (a community mobilisation program targeting crime prevention and substance abuse prevention).