Plenary Co-chair – The Role of Behavioural Science in Addressing Major Public Health Challenges

Marilyn N. Ahun, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine at McGill University and Junior Scientist at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre. Dr. Ahun is a mixed-methods researcher with training in developmental psychology (BA Honors, McGill University), public health and health promotion (PhD, Université de Montréal), and global health (Postdoctoral Fellowship, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health). Her research examines the pathways through which parental mental health impacts child development across different sociocultural contexts (e.g., Ghana, Canada). She also works to implement and evaluate interventions to promote mental health across the lifespan.

Plenary Chair – The Role Of Behaviour Change in the Era of Weight Loss Drugs (GLP-1s): Risks and Opportunities

Dr. Aubertin-Leheudre is a full professor and researcher at UQAM/CRIUGM, and holds a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair (CIHR). She is also Associate Director of Clinical Research at the Centre de Recherche de l’Institut Universitaire de Gériatrie (CRIUGM) and Scientific Advisor to the FRQS. As a nominated Principal Investigator (PI), she has received over $6 million in grant funding and has published over 160 articles.
Since 2009, her research program has examined the effects of adapted physical activity training and sedentary behaviour on the physical health of middle-aged and older adults (e.g. menopause, obesity, sarcopenia, and frailty). Her empirical work focuses on: 1) Changes in muscle function throughout the lifespan; 2) Identifying determinants (e.g. lifestyle habits, physical fitness, chronic diseases, nutritional supplementation and adipose tissue); and 3) Evaluating the specific effects of non-pharmacological interventions and implementing them in real-life settings throughout healthcare trajectories.

IBTN Co-Lead, Conference Co-Chair

Dr. Simon Bacon is a Full Professor in the Department of Health, Kinesiology, and Applied Physiology at Concordia University, the co-Director of the Montreal Behavioural Medicine Centre, and a researcher in the Health promotion, prevention and management of chronic diseases research axis at CIUSSS du Nord-de-l’île-de-Montréal, Hôpital du Sacré-Coeur de Montréal. He previously was the CIHR SPOR Chair in Innovative, Patient-Oriented, Behavioural Clinical Trials, and FRQS Co-Chair in Artificial Intelligence and Digital Health for Health Behaviour Change. Dr. Bacon has had extensive training in the delivery of behavioural randomised controlled trials and has been a PI and co-I on 14 different studies involving behavioural interventions, including exercise, weight management, stress management, and motivational interviewing. Finally, Dr. Bacon has organised several knowledge translation events, including Café Scientifiques, where he has brought a number of different stakeholders together to discuss key topics and issues, for example, trying to create a common dialogue between researchers and the media to improve health innovation reporting. Dr. Bacon is a founding member of the IBTN.

Plenary Speaker

Plenary Co-Chair – Leveraging Behavioural Science to Design More Effective AI-Driven Lifestyle Interventions

Jen Brown is a Senior Lecturer specialising in the intersection of severe mental illness, physical health co-morbidities (including cancer), and health inequalities. She has a strong methodological interest in co-design and mixed-methods research, ensuring that patient voice drives clinical and service-level innovation.

Plenary Speaker

Amy Bucher, PhD, is Chief Behavioral Officer at Lirio, where she designs AI-powered behavior change journeys to drive better personal and population health. Amy is a recognized expert on applying the psychology of motivation to design and was named one of Forbes’ Behavioral Scientists You Should Know. She is the author of Engaged: Designing for Behavior Change published by Rosenfeld Media and named a Kirkus favorite indie book of 2020. Prior to joining Lirio, Amy was Vice President of Behavior Change Design at Mad*Pow, a strategic design consultancy, and has also worked at CVS Health in their Digital Innovation Lab and as a member of the Behavioral Science team at Johnson & Johnson. Amy earned her PhD and MA in Organizational Psychology from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and her AB magna cum laude in Psychology from Harvard University.

Workshop Lead

Molly Byrne is a Health Psychologist and Established Professor in the School of Psychology, at the University of Galway, Ireland. She directs the Health Behaviour Change Research Group (HBCRG), which she established in 2014, when she received a Research Leadership Award from the Health Research Board (HRB). The HBCRG is a national hub and internationally-recognised centre of excellence in the development and application of behavioural science to health behavioural intervention development, evaluation and implementation. Molly’s research aims to improve population health by developing, applying and promoting an evidence-based behavioural science approach to health behaviour change interventions. She has published widely in the areas of chronic disease prevention, health behaviour change interventions and implementation science. She seeks close collaboration in her research with practice and policy key stakeholders, and patient and public involvement representatives, to promote implementation and research translation. Molly received a Distinguished Investigator Award from the International Behavioural Trials Network in 2024, recognising her enduring scientific contributions and strategic leadership to the field of behavioural medicine. Website

Plenary Speaker

Workshop Lead, and Discussant – The Role Of Behaviour Change in the Era of Weight Loss Drugs (GLP-1s): Risks and Opportunities

Susan M. Czajkowski, Ph.D. is an expert on psychosocial and behavioral risk factors for disease, with special emphasis on the development and testing of interventions for behavioral risk factors such as obesity, physical inactivity, adverse diets, and non-adherence to medical regimens. In 2024, Dr. Czajkowski retired from her position as Chief of the Health Behaviors Research Branch of the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Prior to joining the NCI in 2015, Dr. Czajkowski was a Program Director at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, where she managed research initiatives testing interventions to improve adherence to lifestyle and medical therapies in patient populations, and was Project Officer for the Enhancing Recovery in Coronary Heart Disease (ENRICHD) Patients Study, a multicenter randomized clinical trial to evaluate the effects of treating depression and low social support on survival and recurrent events in myocardial infarction patients. Dr. Czajkowski was also the lead Project Officer for the Obesity Related Behavioral Intervention Trials (ORBIT) Consortium, which supported research at seven sites across the U.S. to translate basic behavioral research findings into obesity-related interventions. As part of the ORBIT consortium, Dr. Czajkowski led the development of the ORBIT model for designing and testing behavioral treatments for chronic diseases. Dr. Czajkowski is a Fellow (Emerita) in the Society of Behavioral Medicine and the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research (ABMR). She served as ABMR President from 2014 – 2015 and is a Founding Member of the International Behavioral Trials Network.

Plenary Speaker

Dr. Alysha Deslippe is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Concordia in the Health for EveryBODY Lab led by Dr. Angela Alberga (Montreal, Canada). Alysha’s research focuses on improving the dietary habits of adolescents and sport-involved individuals, irrespective of their sex and gender. Alysha leverages her expertise in gender theory, mixed-methods research, co-creation and nutrition to develop and test tailored behavioural interventions to this end. In her PhD, Alysha led the development of a high school athlete specific dietary app called PLAYTE where she received numerous awards for her work, including a SSHRC Doctor Fellowship, joint CBITN and Michael Smith Health Research BC Doctoral Fellowship, a Health and Behaviours International Collaborative Award and a University of British Columbia Public Scholars Initiative Award. Alysha is an active retired athlete, community coach and co-officer on the Professionals in Nutrition for Exercise and Sports (PINES) board.]

Workshop Lead and Discussant – From Efficacy to Impact: Addressing Gaps in Implementation and Scaling of Behavioural Interventions for Chronic Disease Prevention

Plenary Chair – Leveraging Behavioural Science to Design More Effective AI-Driven Lifestyle Interventions

Konstadina Griva is an Associate Professor of Health Psychology and Behavioural Medicine at the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Her research focuses on behavioural and implementation science, with a strong emphasis on patient and public involvement (PPI), co-design, and sustainable behaviour change in healthcare. She is a Principal Investigator in mobile health within the ETH Future Health Technologies programme and the Principal Investigator of NTU’s Climate Health Transformation Programme. She also leads the PPI workstream for CREPSing, applying the Collective Reflective Equilibrium in Practice (CREP) methodology to support ethical and inclusive genome medicine implementation. Konstadina has led multiple point-of-care intervention trials that have received international recognition. She is the first MINT-certified Motivational Interviewing trainer in Singapore and serves as an Editor of the International Journal of Behavioral Medicine. She is committed to mentoring early-career researchers and strengthening international behavioural health collaborations.

Plenary Co-Chair – Excellence in Canadian Behavioural Health Research: The Power of Networks

Vincent Gosselin Boucher is a Professor in the Department of Physical Activity Sciences at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) and Director of the PHARE Lab. His research program focuses on supporting healthcare professionals in the prevention and management of chronic diseases, with the overarching goal of reducing morbidity and premature mortality. Specifically, his work targets three complementary areas: (1) strengthening the psychological and organizational support of healthcare professionals as a key condition for engagement in care relationships, (2) enhancing their capacity to navigate health literacy challenges, misinformation, and disinformation, and (3) developing and evaluating digital tools to assess and strengthen motivational communication competencies in complex and information-rich care environments. His research integrates behavioural science, health promotion, and digital health to design and evaluate scalable interventions that improve both professional well-being and quality of care.

Plenary Chair – Excellence in Canadian Behavioural Health Research: The Power of Networks

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Plenary Speaker

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Plenary Speaker

Dr. Kronish is a general internist with a primary care practice at a hospital-based clinic in Washington Heights neighborhood of New York City. He is the Associate Director of the Center for Behavioral Cardiovascular Health (CBCH), a multidisciplinary research center dedicated to advancing interventions for health behaviors and cardiovascular disease-related psychological distress from theory to practice. He is also the co-director of the Columbia Hypertension Center and the medical director of the Columbia-NYP Remote Hypertension Monitoring Program. His program of research is focused on increasing the uptake of hypertension guidelines into primary care and improving patient adherence to cardiovascular medications.

IBTN Co-Lead and Conference Co-Chair

Dr. Kim Lavoie is co-Director of the MBMC, holds the Canada Research Chair in Behavioural Medicine, and is a researcher in the Health promotion, prevention and management of chronic diseases research axis at CIUSSS du Nord-de-l’île-de-Montréal, Hôpital du Sacré-Coeur de Montréal. She is a Full Professor in the Department of Psychology at UQAM and an Adjunct Professor of Medicine at University of Montreal. She is internationally recognized for her research on the impact of psychological and behavioural factors on the development and progression of chronic diseases, and the impact of behavioural interventions, e.g., motivational communication, exercise, and behavioural weight loss, on key health behaviours and outcomes in chronic diseases. She is also the Chair of the Canadian Network for Health Behaviour Change and Promotion (CAN-Change) Finally, she is an internationally recognized expert in motivational communication; over 20,000 health professionals across Canada, the US, Europe (France, Spain, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Portugal, Italy, Estonia, the UK), India and Australia/New Zealand have attended her professional training workshops. She currently holds multiple grants in the area of motivational communication training and efficacy for behaviour change in chronic disease. Dr. Lavoie is a founding member of the IBTN.

Workshop Lead

Sam Liu is an Associate Professor in the School of Exercise Science, Physical and Health Education, and the Director of the Digital Health Lab at the University of Victoria, Canada. His research focuses on two main areas: 1) developing and evaluating the effectiveness of digital communication technology (e.g., mobile phones, social media) to promote physical activity and well-being, and 2) finding innovative ways to monitor and predict behaviours and health outcomes using big data in order to better target and personalize digital health interventions. Dr. Liu is a Michael Smith Health Research Scholar focused on using innovative digital technology to promote healthy lifestyle and prevent obesity and chronic diseases. He is also a research fellow at the Institute of Aging and Lifelong Health, University of Victoria.

Plenary Speaker and Plenary Co-Chair – The Role Of Behaviour Change in the Era of Weight Loss Drugs (GLP-1s): Risks and Opportunities

Dr. Locke, Brock University’s 2025 Innovator of the year, is an Associate Professor and Entrapaneur who translates behavioral innovations into practice. His research focuses on developing interventions to help individuals develop healthy habits and training those who deliver them. One focus is translating strategies typically used in cognitive behavioural therapy to non-psychologically trained health care practitioners.

Workshop Lead, and Plenary Chair – From Efficacy to Impact: Addressing Gaps in Implementation and Scaling of Behavioural Interventions for Chronic Disease Prevention

Dr. Marta Marques is an Assistant Professor at NOVA National School of Public Health, Lisbon, Portugal, Director of the NOVA BE-Change Knowledge Centre, and an associate of the Centre for Behaviour Change, University College London. Her research focuses on advancing the methods for enhancing behaviour change research through the creation, validation, and integration of classification systems like ontologies, and on the development, implementation, and evaluation of theory – and evidence-based behaviour change interventions across a spectrum of health behaviours, populations, and contexts.

Plenary Chair – The Role of Behavioural Science in Addressing Major Public Health Challenges

Dr Iveta Nagyova (PhD, FABMR) is the Head of the Department of Social and Behavioural Medicine at Pavol Jozef Safarik University (UPJS) in Kosice, Slovakia. She is also the Immediate Past President of the European Public Health Association (EUPHA; 2020–2024), Chair of the EUPHA/EPH Conference, a member of the Technical Advisory Group on Building an Innovation Ecosystem for Public Health at the WHO Regional Office for Europe, and a designated WHO/Europe National Focal Point for Behavioural and Cultural Insights. Previously, she served as a member of the WHO advisory group on Behavioural Insights and Sciences for Health, the WHO/Europe Regional Director’s Advisory Council on Innovation for NCDs, and the European Advisory Committee on Health Research (EACHR). Her research interests include biobehavioural and psychosocial innovations in the prevention and management of chronic conditions, non-pharmacological interventions, behaviour change, and improving functional status and quality of life for individuals living with chronic disease.

Plenary Speaker

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Workshop Lead 

Dr. Powell is the Charles J. and Margaret Roberts Professor of Preventive Medicine, Medicine, Behavioral Sciences, and Pharmacology in the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago and past Chair of the Department (2007-2022). She is internationally recognized as an expert in the design and conduct of behavioral randomized clinical trials. She has been a past Principal Investigator of 5 major randomized behavioral trials, the Principal Investigator of an NHLBI-sponsored P50 center aimed at developing and testing multi-level behavioral treatments to reduce cardiopulmonary disparities, and the Principal Investigator of the Chicago site of the NHLBI-sponsored Obesity-Related Behavioral Intervention Trials (ORBIT) network. The Chicago ORBIT site was aimed at developing a multi-component, multi-level lifestyle treatment to prevent the menopause-related progression of visceral fat in mid-life women. She is currently the Principal Investigator of a $10.7 million multi-site behavioral clinical trial aimed at determining whether a lifestyle intervention can promote a sustained 2-year remission of the metabolic syndrome. She was the Director of the OBSSR-sponsored Workshop “Translating Ideas into Interventions: The Process of Developing Health-Related Behavioral Interventions,” Director of the OBSSR-sponsored Workshop on “Controversies in Behavioral Randomized Clinical Trials,” and participant in the NIH-NCAAM “Workshop on Control Groups.” She is a founding faculty member of the NIH/OBSSR-sponsored Summer Institute for Randomized Clinical Trials Involving Behavioral Interventions (since 1/01), and served as a Co-Director of the Institute (1/08-7/13). In that capacity, she has trained approximately 800 Fellows. She is Co-Director of the ORBIT Institute aimed at training in the early development of behavioral interventions to improve chronic diseases, funded by NCI/OBSSR and currently in its first year. She has or currently mentors approximately 65 junior faculty in or outside of her Department in behavioral intervention development and behavioral clinical trial methodology. She has been invited to present on behavioral trial methodology at the annual meetings of the American Heart Association, the American College of Cardiology, American Psychosomatic Society, the Society for Behavioral Medicine, the Society for Clinical Trials, and the International Society for Behavioral Medicine. She was an invited member of the NIH National Advisory Council for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) (2011-2015). She was a Fellow, at the Stanford Center for Advanced Studies in Behavioral Sciences (2015-2016). She is co-developer of the ORBIT model for behavioral intervention development. Along with her co-authors, Ken Freedland and Peter Kaufmann, she published a book on the unique methodological challenges posed by clinical trials involving behavioral interventions entitled “Behavioral Clinical Trials for Chronic Diseases. Scientific Foundations” (Springer, 2021).

Plenary Speaker

Dr. Arun Radhakrishnan is a family physician with a focused practice in chronic pain. He is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Ottawa, an Investigator at the Bruyère Health Research Institute, and holds the University of Ottawa Chair in Primary Care Artificial Intelligence, Innovation and Implementation. He also serves as Lead for Clinical Research in the Department of Family Practice at The Ottawa Hospital. He leads research focused on the design, implementation, and scale-up of complex interventions in primary care. His work uses implementation science and mixed-methods evaluation to examine clinician behavior change, leadership development, health system integration, and sustainability of mentoring networks across diverse provincial contexts. In parallel, he leads research on the responsible integration of artificial intelligence into primary care, applying human-centred design and implementation science to advance guideline development, digital knowledge translation, and AI-enabled clinical decision support.

Plenary Speaker and Workshop Lead

Plenary Speaker 

Dr. Jet Sanders is an Assistant Professor in Psychological and Behavioural Science at the London School of Economics and a Senior Behavioural Scientist at the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM). She is also the president of the Behavioural and Social Science (BeSoc) Section of the European Public Health Association (EUPHA), the WHO Europe Behavioural and Cultural Insights Focal Point for the Netherlands and lead of the WHO Collaborating Centre on Behavioural Science of Health Emergency preparedness and Resilience (WCC BeSHER). Her research bridges public policy and behavioural science, with a focus on how behavioural heterogeneity shape real-world health outcomes. She has led large-scale behavioural studies on NCD prevention, AMR, COVID-19 measures, societal resilience and preparedness, and has collaborated with organisations such as WHO, UNICEF, and government behavioural insights teams. Jet is committed to advancing behavioural science that is both methodologically rigorous and socially impactful.

Keynote Speaker and Plenary Discussant

Paschal Sheeran is a Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at UNC-Chapel Hill. Paschal’s research program aims to understand the intention-behavior ‘gap,’ test the efficacy of if-then plans (implementation intentions) in promoting health behavior change, appreciate the role of implicit influences on health actions, develop a self-regulation perspective on affect and behavior, and undertake crucial tests of health behavior theories. Despite modest progress with each of these aims, his research has attracted a number of grants, awards, and fellowships. Website

Plenary Speaker and Workshop Lead

Professor Falko F. Sniehotta, PhD, is Professor of Public Health and Director of the Centre for Preventive Medicine and Digital Health at Heidelberg University, and Director of the NIHR Policy Research Unit in Behavioural Science at Newcastle University. A health psychologist by training, his research focuses on developing, evaluating and implementing behavioural interventions to prevent and manage chronic diseases, including obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. He has led major national and international trials and policy evaluations, including large-scale diabetes prevention and remission programmes, and works at the interface of behavioural science, public health and policy. At IBTN 2026, he will discuss how to establish implementation laboratories for population health within decentralised health systems, creating learning systems for health promotion and crisis response, and closing the gap between evidence and sustainable chronic disease prevention.

Plenary Speaker

Dr. Vallis is a health psychologist based in Halifax, Canada. He is an Associate Professor in Family Medicine at Dalhousie University. He obtained his Ph.D. and M.A from the University of Western Ontario, London, and his B. Sc. From Dalhousie University. His main area of expertise is adult health psychology, with an emphasis on obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular risk and gastroenterology. He spends most of his time training healthcare providers in behaviour change for chronic disease management. He regularly supervises clinical and academic students and is active in research on motivation, behavioural change and adaptation to chronic disease.  He consults nationally as well as internationally and is heavily involved in academic publications, journal editing, and clinical practice guidelines. He was on the executive of the Canadian Clinical Practice Guidelines for the Management of Obesity (2020) and lead author of the Psychological and Behavioural Chapter for these new guidelines as well as the 2006 guidelines.  As well, he is an author of the Psychology and Mental Health chapter of Diabetes Canada’s Clinical Practice Guidelines (2023, 2018, 2013, 2004). He received the 2021 Charles H Best award from Diabetes Canada and holds a Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal by the Government of Canada on the recommendation of the Diabetes Canada.

Workshop Lead

Emily Vraga is the Don and Carole Larson Professor of Health Communication at the University of Minnesota’s Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Her research tests methods to identify and correct health misinformation on social media, to build trust and allies to promote high quality information, and to encourage attention to more diverse content online. Vraga has published over 100 journal articles and co-authored a book on correcting misinformation on social media. Her work has been supported by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health and has informed efforts to improve information integrity online.