The Research Team
Principal Investigator
Dr Rachel Menzies is the principal investigator of this study. She is a Research Fellow and Lecturer at the University of Sydney, where she continues to conduct research into death anxiety, mental health conditions and their treatment. She is also a clinical psychologist and director of the Menzies Anxiety Centre, which she established to improve access to treatments for death anxiety.
Rachel completed her Honours degree in psychology at the University of Sydney, winning the Dick Thompson Thesis Prize for her work on death anxiety and its relationship with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD).
Rachel completed her Masters of Clinical Psychology and her PhD at the University of Sydney. She was awarded the 2021 national Australian Psychological Society (APS) Award for Excellent PhD Thesis, for her research on death anxiety, its role in mental illness, and its treatment. In 2023, she was awarded the national APS Early Career Research Award.
Rachel has delivered workshops on death anxiety and its relation to anxiety and mood disorders across 7 Australian cities, in a 2019 national tour hosted by the Australian Association for Cognitive and Behaviour Therapy (AACBT). She regularly delivers workshops on death anxiety to various national and international organisations.
In addition to her peer-reviewed journal publications on the topic of death anxiety, Rachel’s research on existential issues has been featured in numerous books. She was featured in The Conversation Yearbook 2016, a collection of the top 1% of ‘standout articles from Australia’s top thinkers’. Rachel has published five books on the topic of existential issues and death anxiety. In 2021, Rachel released Mortals: How the Fear of Death Shaped Human Society, which was awarded the Nib People’s Choice Prize and the William James Book Award. In 2022, she released two further books: Free Yourself from Death Anxiety: A CBT Self-Help Guide for a Fear of Death and Dying, and Existential Concerns and Cognitive-Behavioral Procedures: An Integrative Approach to Mental Health.
Co-Investigator
Dr. Fjola Helgadottir has specialized in evidence-based treatment for complex psychological conditions for two decades.
Dr. Helgadottir runs AI Therapy, where cutting-edge technology provides psychological service for individuals via fully automated computer programs.
Dr. Helgadottir has been using Telehealth and innovating in health care since 2007. She received the Tracey Goodall Early Career Award for her innovations in online psychological treatment. Dr. Helgadottir has also been involved in teaching & research with Universities around the globe.
Research Assistants
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Dennyson Veloso
Dennyson is a research assistant on the study. He is also a PhD candidate at the University of Sydney.
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Maddie Forrester
RESEARCH ASSISTANT
Maddie is a research assistant on the study. She is also a provisional psychologist and a PhD candidate at Monash University.
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Daelin Coutts-Bain
RESEARCH ASSISTANT
Daelin is a research assistant on the study. He is also a psychologist, and a PhD candidate at the University of Sydney.
