Carlo Longhitano is the Associate Professor of Psychiatry at JCU and a forensic psychiatrist at North Queensland Forensic MH Services. He obtained his MD in 1999 with the University of Catania, Italy, with a dissertation on the effects of psychological therapies on cognitive impairments in schizophrenia. He completed his postgraduate general psychiatric training in Oxford (United Kingdom) and higher training in forensic psychiatry at St George's University of London.

 

Carlo held senior positions in forensic psychiatry across London before calling Townsville, Australia, home since 2018. Having maintained his research and teaching interests throughout his career, he has developed a collaboration with Prof Zoltan Sarnyai, leading to a PhD project on the effects of nutritional interventions in psychosis.

 

Carlo is the co-investigator at JCU's randomised clinical trial of ketogenic diet vs standard diet in human adults with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. The project is supported by Metabolic Psychiatry clinical trial working group and funded by the Baszucki Brain Research Fund.  

 

Additionally, Carlo is a member of the forensic faculty of the RANZCP, a board member at Margaret Roderick Centre for MH Research and a scientific advisor to the Australasian Metabolic Health Society. He believes that the future of mental health treatment lies in the intersection between lifestyle interventions and personalised medical treatments. Carlo is the author of several peer-reviewed articles and two textbook chapters. 

Dr Billy Lugg is a consultant psychiatrist specialising in consultation-liaison psychiatry, the complex interface between physical and mental health. He is genuinely interested in a pluralistic approach to formulation and care, including the judicious use of medication where clinically indicated, and he considers metabolic health at the core of the care he provides. His goal is to help people live more and merely exist less. 

  

Billy has worked extensively across Australia in community, inpatient, emergency, crisis outreach, old age, youth and medical/surgical settings, giving him a broad clinical foundation in adult psychiatry. He continues to work in a major public hospital in NSW, outreach in remote Northern Territory, and in medicolegal. His areas of clinical experience include psychosis and bipolar spectrum disorders, anxiety, depression, posttraumatic stress disorders, obsessive-compulsive and substance-related problems. He has completed additional training in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, brief intervention, opioid treatment accreditation, and aggression and violence management. 

  

His academic contributions to psychiatry have been recognised by the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists with the Faculty of Psychotherapy Essay Prize and the Faculty of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry Advanced Trainee Abstract Prize. Billy has published multiple papers in psychiatric journals.