EP3 Melbourne 2025

Assoc Professor David Butler, B.Phty, M.App.Sc, EdD

Understanding and Explaining Pain are David’s passions, and he has a reputation for being able to talk about pain sciences in a way that everyone can understand. David is a physiotherapist, an educationalist, researcher and clinician. He pioneered the establishment of the Neuro Orthopaedic Institute (Noigroup) in the early 1990s. David is an Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of South Australia and an honoured lifetime member of the Australian Physiotherapy Association.

Among many publications, his texts include Mobilisation of the Nervous System 1991 The Sensitive Nervous System (2000), and with Lorimer Moseley –  Explain Pain (2003, 2013), The Graded Motor Imagery Handbook (2012), The Explain Pain Handbook: Protectometer (2015) and in 2017, Explain Pain Supercharged. His doctoral studies and current focus are around adult conceptual change, the linguistics of pain and pain storytelling. Food, wine and fishing are also research interests.

Lorimer is one of the most requested keynote speakers internationally in the field of pain science. His research and creative activity, education, leadership and engagement achievements have been recognised by the Bradley Distinguished Professor Award for preeminent academic staff and the Officer of the Order of Australia, Australia’s second highest civilian honour for ‘distinguished service to humanity at large in the fields of pain and its management, science communication, education and physiotherapy’.

Currently, a Professor of Clinical Neurosciences and Foundation Chair in Physiotherapy at the University of South Australia, Lorimer is also an honoured member of the Australian Physiotherapy Association, an Honorary Fellow of the ANZCA Faculty of Pain Medicine and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences. He has authored hundreds of articles, multiple books and chapters, and is cited in clinical guidelines internationally. With over 30 years of clinical experience working with people in persistent pain, his community outreach and whole-of-community education initiatives are internationally renowned.

PhD MScRS BScPT

Associate Professor of Clinical Pain Neuroscience. Tasha leads the Persistent Pain Research Group at the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI). She is also the Co-Director of IIMPACT in Health at the University of South Australia. Tasha’s research, spanning pain education to virtual reality, aims to understand why we have pain and why it doesn’t go away. She has won numerous awards from national and international pain associations, including the prestigious Ronald Dubner Award from the IASP. Recognised as a Top 5 under 40 Science Communicator in Australia, Tasha has also written over 100 articles, given over 90 keynote lectures at international scientific meetings, is an Associate Editor for The Journal of Pain, and is on the European Pain Federation Academy Board for Professional Pain Education.

Alongside Lorimer Moseley and David Butler, Tasha authored The Knee Osteoarthritis Handbook, a very enlightening and useful guide for anyone with painful knee osteoarthritis (OA), whether they have had treatment or surgery, or not.