Society for Mental Health Research

Early Career Researcher Seed Grant Winners 2026-2027

The Society for Mental Health Research and the Anika Foundation are pleased to announce the recipients of 2026-27 Early Career Researcher Seed Grants: Dr Niamh Hunnisett, Dr Sinead Day, and Dr Sasha Bailey.

A total of three grants worth $10,000 each were awarded to Early Career Researchers conducting projects addressing adolescent depression and/or suicide prevention and mental health more broadly.

Two $10,000 grants were funded by the Anika Foundation, and these were awarded to Dr Niamh Hunnisett (Black Dog Institute) and Dr Sasha Bailey (Centre for Youth Mental Health, The University of Melbourne).

Dr Hunnisett’s research will explore approaches for assisting staff to support students in specialist education settings at risk of self-harm. Dr Bailey’s research will evaluate a peer work intervention for reducing suicidal ideation among transgender and gender diverse adolescents attending integrated youth mental health services.

One grant of $10,000 was funded by the Society for Mental Health Research, and this was awarded to Dr Sinead Day (University of Technology Sydney).

Dr Day’s research will use consensus-based approaches to identify the core components and features of effective residential eating disorder treatment .

Niamh Hunnisett
Daniel is a Research Fellow at Orygen/Centre for Youth Mental Health, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry of Health Sciences. He is currently involved in two NHMRC-funded data linkage studies aimed at identifying better alternative pathways to mental health support services by young people in Australia.Daniel's broad research focus in youth mental health builds upon his doctoral research program, which was undertaken at the Black Dog Institute / University of New South Wales. For his PhD (awarded 22 February 2024), Daniel co-designed and evaluated a novel strategy for improving user engagement with a smartphone app for young people with suicidal ideation. His candidature was funded by an Australian Government RTP scholarship and a NHMRC Centre for Research Excellence in Suicide Prevention top-up scholarship.Daniel's early career research achievements include being Highly Commended by The Mental Health Services Awards of Australia and New Zealand (Aug 2024), and a Best Oral Presentation award at the Society for Mental Health Research conference (Nov 2024).Prior to his transition to academia, Daniel was a researcher in the Singapore Public Service.

Sasha Bailey
Deanna is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Matilda Centre for Research in Mental Health and Substance Use. Her research interests span social, developmental, and clinical psychology, with a focus on understanding how early life experiences contribute to psychological distress and other mental health outcomes. Her previous research has examined variations in responses to distress across attachment patterns and evaluated brief interventions for improving mental health outcomes. Currently, Deanna’s research aims to examine age, period, and cohort trends in psychological distress by harmonising population-based datasets to enhance our understanding of determinants of psychological distress to inform prevention, intervention, and policy.

Sinead Day
Dr Sinead Day is a clinical psychologist and postdoctoral researcher in the fields of eating disorders and complex trauma. Her PhD provided the first evidence for residential treatment of eating disorders in Australia and she is now conducting a national evaluation of residential care through the TrEAT Clinical Quality Registry of Australian and New Zealand eating disorder services. Sinead’s research also includes establishing world-first prevalence rates for complex PTSD comorbidity in eating disorders and exploring new ways to address trauma in eating disorder care.