About Elizabeth

Dr Elizabeth (Liz) Convery is the Chief Executive Officer of the Centre for Disability Studies.

She joined CDS in August 2026 from the Behavioural Insights Team, a global social purpose consultancy, where she was the Head of Research (APAC). In addition to leading the research function and serving on the APAC executive leadership team, she also led major programs of work in health, aged care, disability, and work health and safety, delivering work for such clients as the Commonwealth Attorney-General’s Department, SafeWork NSW, the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission, and the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing. Most recently, she led the development of the National Prevention Framework for the Abuse and Mistreatment of Older People, which translates the National Plan to End the Abuse and Mistreatment of Older People 2026-2036 into practical prevention guidance for individuals, families, communities, and organisations.

Previously, Liz was a senior research audiologist at the National Acoustic Laboratories, where her work focused on self-fitting hearing aids, human-technology interaction, and innovative service delivery models. She has published extensively and lectured internationally on these topics. The results of her work have directly informed policy recommendations of the World Health Organization and the US President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology under the Obama administration.

Liz holds a PhD from the University of Queensland. Her doctoral work focused on hearing loss self-management in older adults through the complementary frameworks of the Chronic Care Model and the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health. Liz’s applied, person-centred approach to research and policy was informed by her years working as a clinical audiologist for Hearing Australia and the Northern Territory Department of Health in Darwin, and as a volunteer clinician on a Royal Australasian College of Surgeons ear health team that provided visiting services in Kiribati.

Contact Liz at elizabeth.convery@sydney.edu.au