Invited Keynote Speakers

PRESIDENTIAL LECTURE

Pedro NOBRE (Portugal) – WAS President

Title of the presentation: Building bridges: From research on sexual problems to the promotion of sexual health and rights

Pedro Nobre is currently President of the World Association for Sexual Health (2017–2021) and Professor of Psychology at Porto University. He is also Director of the Doctoral Program in Human Sexuality and Coordinator of the Laboratory for Research in Human Sexuality (SexLab) at Porto University as well as Research Fellow at the Kinsey Institute (USA). He is also responsible for various research projects on sexual health, has published over 100 scientific papers in international journals and is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Sexual Medicine, Archives of Sexual Behavior, Journal of Sex Research, and International Journal of Clinical & Health Psychology. Moreover, he received several international prizes for scientific merit including the Best Paper Award presented at the WAS world meeting in 2007 (Runner-up). Pedro Nobre is Past-President of the Portuguese Society of Clinical Sexology (2008–2011) and was President of the Organizing Committee of the 10th Congress of the European Federation of Sexology (2010) and Co-chair of the IASR meeting in 2012. He was Chair of the Scientific Committee of the World Association for Sexual Health (2013–2017) and member of the WAS Advisory Committee where he is the project leader of the World Database on Sexual Health.

JOHN MONEY LECTURE

Anne PHILPOTT (UK)

Title of the presentation: Placing Pleasure into the tired narratives of Danger, Death, Disease in Sexual Health Promotion

Anne is a public health professional, pleasure propagandist and 'guerrilla girl' of HIV prevention. She founded ’The Pleasure Project’ in 2004, in frustration of endless AIDS meetings where no one talked about people’s motivations for having sex.

The Pleasure Project forges connections between the worlds of public health, academia, and the media and is globally recognised as the agency that has championed putting pleasure into safer sex education. They have influenced many agencies to deliver more effective and relevant sex education and are now working with the World Association of Sexual Health to launch a declaration of pleasure. Anne is published widely in health journals and the media, and as a speaker at international conferences, promoting pleasure in sex education and as the ultimate indicator of female empowerment. The Pleasure Project was awarded the Phil Harvey ‘Prize for Passion in Reproductive Health’ in 2016.

Anne developed her passion for sexual and public health, through working on prevention of teenage pregnancy in the UK, domestic violence refuges in London and through increasing use of female condoms globally by 60%. Alongside her work with The Pleasure Project, Anne is a senior health advisor for the UK Government and headed the regional Ebola team. She is responsible for creating WISH, the UK Governments largest ever international sexual health programme and spearheaded their work on ensuring the health portfolio expanded to include nutrition. She is speaking in her personal capacity.

INVITED KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Lori BROTTO (Canada)

Title of the presentation: Paying attention in sex: The science of mindfulness for improving sexual response

Dr. Lori Brotto is a Professor in the UBC Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and a Registered Psychologist. She is the Executive Director of the Women's Health Research Institute at BC Women’s Hospital. Dr. Brotto holds a Canada Research Chair in Women's Sexual Health. She is the director of the UBC Sexual Health Laboratory where research primarily focuses on advancing the science of psychological and mindfulness-based interventions for women’s sexual health. Dr. Brotto is an Associate Editor for the Archives of Sexual Behavior, has over 150 peer-reviewed publications, is passionate about knowledge translation, and as such, is frequently featured in the media on sexual health topics. Her book, Better Sex Through Mindfulness: How Women Can Cultivate Desire (Greystone Publishing) is a knowledge translation of her research over the past 15 years demonstrating the benefits of mindfulness for women’s sexual concerns and genital pain.

Mauro CABRAL GRINSPAN (Argentina)

Title of the presentation: The road to hell. Intersex people, sexual health and human rights

Mauro Cabral Grinspan is the Executive Director of GATE, and coordinates its international initiative on Depathologization and Human Rights. He is also the Co-Director of the Chair on Trans Studies at Buenos Aires University, and participates in the Argentinian collective Justicia Intersex, among other institutional affiliations. Mauro participated in the elaboration of the Yogyakarta Principles (2007) and the Yogyakarta Principles+10 (2017), and edited the books Interdicciones. Escrituras de la Intersexualidad en Castellano (2009) and Desbordes (2019, in press), as well as many articles on diverse intersections among bodily diversity, biotechnology and the Law.

Neil DATTA (European Union)

Title of the presentation: “Restoring the Natural Order”: The religious extremists’ vision to mobilize European societies against human rights on sexuality and reproduction

Neil Datta has been the Secretary of the European Parliamentary Forum on Population and Development (www.epfweb.org) since 2004. EPF is a network of over 30 groups of parliamentarians from across Europe who are committed to championing women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights. Neil founded the organization with a select group of parliamentarians and with the support of IPPF in 2000, and has been responsible for its growth to its current membership of over 30 all-party parliamentary groups on population and development issues. Neil has over fifteen years experience in the field of political involvement in population and development. Throughout this period he has conducted in-depth research on anti-choice activity in Europe. Before becoming EPF Secretary, Neil coordinated the Parliamentary Programme of the International Planned Parenthood Federation European Network.

Neil holds a Master's Degree in European Public Administration from the College of Europe in Bruges and a Bachelor of Arts in History and Languages from the State University of New York at Binghamton. Neil was born on 01 July 1971, holds 5 nationalities (British, French, Indian, USA and Canada) and is bilingual English/French.

Ame Atsu DAVID (Togo, West Africa)

Title of the presentation: Patriarchy, Colonialism and Religion: Putting the African Child at the Center of comprehensive sexuality education in West Africa

Ame Atsu David is an international freelance consultant specialized in child rights, comprehensive sexuality education and gender. She has been collaborating for several years with international Non-Governmental Organisations such as Save the Children International and IntraHealth among others, and United Nations agencies, particularly United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) to promote children and young people’s access to comprehensive sexuality education and services in West and Central Africa. She has conducted numerous trainings on the concept of comprehensive sexuality education for State actors and civil society organisations to enhance their understanding of the concept in the African context. She has also carried out several school-based HIV prevention and sexuality education programmes reviews based on international evidence and good practice which are being used to strengthen quality comprehensive sexuality education in school programmes.

Gary W. DOWSETT (Australia)

Title of the presentation: Infection and identity, desire and disease: gay men, HIV/AIDS and the history of sexuality

Professor Gary W. Dowsett, PhD, FASSA, is Deputy Director and Chair in the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia. A sociologist, he has long been interested in sexuality research, particularly in relation to the rise of modern gay communities. Since 1986, he has been researching the HIV epidemic, particularly in Australia’s gay communities, and has worked on many international HIV/AIDS and sexual health projects since the late 1980s. He was Associate Professor in Sociomedical Sciences (2002-2005) and in Clinical Sociomedical Sciences (2005-2009), in the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, New York, USA. In 2003, he was elected to the International Academy of Sex Research. In 2006, he was appointed to a Personal Chair in Sex, Health and Society at La Trobe University. In 2005, he was awarded a prestigious Victorian Health Promotion Foundation Senior Research Fellowship for a five-year study of men, sexuality and health. In 2008, he was admitted as a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. In 2014, he was appointed Adjunct Professorial Fellow at the Centre for Social Research in Health at UNSW, Australia. His research focuses on: (1) gay men and sexual recovery after prostate cancer treatment; (2) young men’s body image, sexualisation and body culture; (3) ethical and social aspects of ‘HIV cure’ research; (4) ‘crystal’ use, gay men and hepatitis C; and (5) the intersection of sexuality, technology and the law. He was a founding member of the International Association for the Study of Sexuality, Culture and Society, and of the Association for the Social Sciences and Humanities in HIV. He has published six books, 120 refereed journal articles and book chapters, 35 research reports, and over 70 other publications.

Annamaria GIRALDI (Denmark)

Title of the presentation: The heart and sex. The impact of cardiovascular disease on sexual function

Professor Annamaria Giraldi is Senior Consultant in Psychiatry in the Sexological Clinic at Psychiatric Center Copenhagen and Professor of Clinical Sexology at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, where she also received her medical degree and PhD.

Professor Giraldi has been involved in basic research on vascular and smooth muscle function in male and female sexual responses. She has performed clinical research on the pharmacological and psychotherapeutic treatment of male and female sexual dysfunctions as well as clinical and epidemiological research on somatic disease, psychiatric problems and sexuality.

Clinically Professor Giraldi works with men, women and couples with sexual dysfunctions and has worked within transgender care.

Professor Giraldi has published more than 100 papers, editorials and book chapters in the field of male and female sexual medicine. She is Deputy Editor of the Journal of Sexual Medicine and has served as an Associate Editor for Sexual and Relationship Therapy and Sexual Medicine. Among her many professional affiliations, Professor Giraldi was previously President of both the Scandinavian Society for Sexual Medicine and the International Society for the Study of Women’s Sexual Health, where she has also served on the Board and Scientific Committee. In addition, she was Chair of the subcommittee on Female Sexual Health for the European Society for Sexual Medicine (ESSM), where she now sits on the faculty panel for the ESSM School of Sexual Medicine. Professor Giraldi is President Elect of the International Society for Sexual Medicine.

Frances KISSLING (USA)

Title of the presentation: Lost In The Pelvic Zone: Catholic Thought on Sexual Ethics

Frances Kissling is the president of The Center for Health, Ethics and Social Policy in Washington DC. For 25 years she serves as the international organization Catholics for a Free Choice where she described her mission as follows: “I spent the first decade of my professional life looking for a government I could overthrow that could not throw me in jail and I found it in the Vatican.” Kissling is noted for her quick wit and the seriousness of her challenges to religious doctrine that limits women's autonomy and restricts sexual and reproductive rights. In addition to advocacy, Kissling is an ethicist who has taught reproductive health ethics at the University of Pennsylvania and UNAM, been a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Studies and the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. She has published over 250 articles in the international press and peer reviewed journals.

Judith LEVINE (USA)

Title of the presentation: U.S. sex offense policy: The next “surveiller et punir”

Judith Levine is an American journalist, essayist, and author. She has published hundreds of articles and commentaries on sex, gender, justice, and feminism, as well as five books, including the award-winning Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children From Sex (2002) and the forthcoming The Feminist and the Sex Offender: Confronting Sexual Harm, Ending State Violence (Verso, 2020), co-authored with Erica R. Meiners. Levine is also a longtime political activist, engaged in movements from feminism, sexual liberation, and racial justice to labor unions and peace. She lives in Brooklyn, New York (U.S.) and a small rural town in Vermont.

Richard PARKER (USA)

Title of the presentation: The Global Politics of Pleasure and Danger: Struggles for Sexual Health and Sexual Rights in the 21st century

Richard Parker is Professor Emeritus of Sociomedical Sciences and Anthropology and a member of the Committee on Global Thought (cgt.columbia.edu/) at Columbia University in New York City, as well as Senior Visiting Professor in the Institute for the Study of Collective Health at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. He is also the Director and President of the Brazilian Interdisciplinary AIDS Association (ABIA), a leading non-governmental AIDS organizations in Brazil (www.abiaids.org.br), as well as founder and Co-Chair of Sexuality Policy Watch, a global coalition of researchers, policymakers and activists from a wide range of countries and regions with secretariat offices in Rio de Janeiro and New York City (www.sxpolitics.org), founder and Chair of Global AIDS Policy Watch (www.gapwatch.org), a knowledge network and policy watchdog initiative on the global HIV epidemic, and Editor-in-Chief of Global Public Health (www.tandfonline.com/loi/rgph20#).

Dr. Parker has conducted long-term research in Brazil since the early 1980s, as well as comparative studies in Vietnam, South Africa, and the USA, on the social and cultural dimensions of gender and sexuality, the social aspects of HIV/AIDS, and the relationship between inequality, stigma, and discrimination. He is especially well known for his work on the politics of global health and on the role of social movements and community mobilization in responding to key public health challenges. He is the author of more than 250 publications. Recent books include Sexuality, Health and Human Rights, co-authored with Sonia Corrêa and Rosalind Petchesky, published by Routledge in 2008, Bodies, Pleasures and Passions: Sexual Culture in Contemporary Brazil, Second Edition, published by Vanderbilt University Press in 2009, the Handbook on Sexuality, Health and Rights, co-edited with Peter Aggleton and published by Routledge in 2010, and the Handbook on the Politics of Global Health, co-edited with Jonathan Garcia and published by Routledge in 2019.

Zoë PETERSON (USA)

Title of the presentation: Identifying and preventing sexual aggression perpetration: Obstacles and reasons for optimism

Zoë Peterson is trained and licensed as a clinical psychologist and is an Associate Professor of Counseling and Educational Psychology and Director of the Kinsey Institute’s Sexual Assault Research Initiative at Indiana University. Dr. Peterson researches sexual consent, sexual assault, sexual coercion, and unwanted sex. She has studied men’s and women’s experiences as both victims and perpetrators of sexual aggression. Dr. Peterson also served as editor of the Wiley Handbook of Sex Therapy (2017). She is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Sex Research, and she is President-Elect of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality (SSSS).

Paolo VALERIO (Italy)

Title of the presentation: Promoting sexual rights and fighting homo-transphobia in a university context in Italy

Paolo Valerio was Full Professor in Clinical Psychology at the University of Naples Federico II. He is actually Honorary Chairperson of the Center for Active and Integrated Inclusion of Students (SInAPSi), President of the Foundation “Gender Identity Culture” and President of O.N.I.G. (Osservatorio Nazionale sull’Identità di Genere), the Italian equivalent of WPATH (Word Professional Association for Transgender Health). He is member of the Associazione Italiana di Psicologia (Italian Association of Psychology) and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH). He participated in many EU research projects. Specifically, he was: 1) Marie Curie Fellow; 2) Scientific coordinator of “Hermes – Linking network to fight sexual and gender stigma”, an EU project co-financed by the Daphne III Programme; 3) Member od the advisory group of “Empowering LGT young people against violence: a P2P model”, an EU project co-financed by the Daphne III Programme. He has published in Italian and international peer-reviewed journals and edited collections on the following research areas: psychodynamic counselling in higher education, gender variance, disorders of sexual differentiation, psychological correlates of somatic diseases, adolescent development and risk factors in adolescence, sexual and gender prejudice.