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Our People

Board Member – Dr Alex Wodak

dr alex wodak

Dr Alex Wodak AM was Director of the Alcohol and Drug Service, St. Vincent's Hospital, Sydney (1982-2012) but is now an Emeritus Consultant. Dr. Wodak is President of the Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation, and a Director of Australia21 and was President of the International Harm Reduction Association (1996-2004). He helped establish the first needle syringe programme and the first medically supervised injecting centre in Australia (when both were pre-legal) and often works in developing countries on HIV control among injecting drug users. He was made a Member of the  Order of Australia for “service to medicine and public health, particularly in the area of drug and alcohol dependency treatment, through legislative reform, and to medical education”.

Board Member – Sheena Watt

Sheena Watt

Sheena Watt is a public health advocate and company director. Sheena, a proud Yorta Yorta woman, is a Board Member of the Centre for Australian Progress, Queen Elizabeth Centre and VicHealth. She is a member of the Clinical Governance Committee at Merri Health and the Policy and Programs Task Group at Women's Health Victoria.

Sheena is the General Manager of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Engagement for AFL SportsReady and Fellow of the Centre for Sustainability Leadership. With a career background in Aboriginal and Multicultural Affairs, Sheena has a particular focus on health equality, clinical governance and workforce reform.

Sheena was recently recognised as a Top 50 Australian Advanced Not-For-Profit Governance Leader.

Executive Officer – Gavin Ryan

gavin ryan

Gavin has worked in leadership roles in not-for-profit, private enterprise and Government, working for Victorian Government Ministers in both the Bracks and Brumby Governments. Gavin has sat on various business and community boards,among them community health providers, running community campaigns to build positive outcomes and drive change in healthcare provision. This work has included stints in countries such as Timor-Leste and Fiji from 2006 onwards around community development and provision of basic healthcare, and Gavin continues to work with communities in Timor. Previously Gavin served on the board of the North Richmond Community Health Centre for several years, and worked as part of the Yarra Drug and Health Forum where he worked toward drug harm reduction in their inner city of Melbourne and was successful in the campaign to have new premises built for the North Richmond Community Heath Centre.

Board Secretary & Finance Manager – Glenn Donahoo

Glenn Donahoo

Glenn Donahoo comes to PPHA after successfully managing a year long political campaign and involvement in a number of other community and political movements. In these roles he has been proactive in ensuring administrative needs, particularly relating to financial disclosures and budgeting, have been met and aims to bring these skills and knowledge to PPHA.

Since taking a role in the public health space, Glenn has focused on policies that can reduce the harm caused to many of societies most vulnerable people due to existing laws that focus on criminal justice outcomes rather than health outcomes.

Director, Stakeholder Engagement – Stephanie Thuesen

stephanie thuesen

Stephanie comes from Mackay in Central Queensland and has worked between Queensland and Victoria since 2008. Following an acting career that involved running her own successful theatre company while studying across Japan and the United States, Stephanie used the strong communication skills she learnt to coordinate hundreds of volunteers in grassroots community and volunteer driven campaigns. Stephanie has a deep commitment to supporting her community, volunteering and continuing to run campaigns on law reform in relation to child sexual abuse and on increasing access to drug outreach programs.