Kate Hoy

Professor Kate Hoy is Head of Interventional Neuropsychology and Deputy Director of the Epworth Centre for Innovation in Mental Health (ECIMH), a Monash University and Epworth HealthCare research centre. 

Professor Hoy, a current NHMRC fellow and Clinical Neuropsychologist, is a leading clinical researcher having been awarded three sequential NHMRC Fellowships, an NHMRC excellence award (Top Ranked CDF) and a 2017 Victorian Telstra Business Women’s Award. With more than 15 years’ experience in clinical brain stimulation research, she runs a substantive program focused on developing novel biological treatments for cognitive disorders. She currently leads a number of world first clinical trials aimed at improving cognition in Alzheimer's, as well preventing dementia in people with mild cognitive impairment. Her team is also conducting research looking at cognitive impairment in schizophrenia, depression, anxiety, head injury, Huntington's disease and mild cognitive impairment, as well as investigating ways in which to optimise efficacy of prefrontal brain stimulation techniques. She has received over 4.5 million dollars in funding for this research to date and has published over 100 scientific journal articles. 

Professor Hoy is internationally recognised as a leading brain stimulation researcher. She is on the editorial board of Cortex, has given more than 40 invited presentations on cognition and brain stimulation (including keynote presentations), and is a founding executive member and current President of the Australasian Brain Stimulation Society.

Professor Hoy is a passionate and active science advocate, particularly around issues of equity, diversity and inclusion and career sustainability. She is a former Deputy Chair of the Australian Academy of Science’s Early and Mid-Career Researchers forum, has been a returning mentor in the Global STEM Alliance initiative: 1000girls, 1000futures and currently works with the Australian Academy of Science across a number of national diversity and inclusion initiatives. In 2016 she founded the WomeninBrainStim.com initiative, a database website which has had a positive impact in addressing the extreme gender imbalances at international brain stimulation conferences, as highlighted in Science Careers. 

She is also dedicated to communicating science to the public, not only her own research, but the importance and impact of science in general. She gives regular talks on her research to a range of audiences, she is active on twitter, has published articles in consumer targeted magazines (i.e. Link Disability Magazine, Australian Quarterly) and on the conversation website, and has been interviewed in the media on nearly 40 occasions.