Career Summary Professor Fitzgerald is the Professor of Psychiatry and Director of Epworth Centre for Innovation in Mental Health (ECIMH). He completed a PhD in 2003 after a fellowship at the University of Toronto and specialist training in Psychiatry. He established ECIMH and currently lead a team of ~30 fellows /post-doctoral researchers, research nurses, research assistants and doctoral students. ECIMH is dedicated to the development and testing of novel brain stimulation treatments for psychiatric disorders such as depression, schizophrenia and autism. Professor Fitzgerald is also the founder of TMS Australia (providing TMS services through clinics in 3 states of Australia) and Resonance Therapeutics (RTx) (a start-up phase neuro-technology company).
Research Support Professor Fitzgerald has had consistent research funding from the NHMRC, the MRFF, ARC, NARSAD, VNI, Beyond Blue, the Stanley Medical Research institute, the Flack trust, Perpetual Trustees, the Weston Foundation (Canada) and Neurosciences Australia.
Contribution to field of research Professor Fitzgerald's major contribution has been to substantially advance the development of a number of brain stimulation treatments in psychiatry. This has been most prominent with TMS treatment for depression where he have conducted 15+ substantive clinical trials, authored multiple national and international guidelines, directly developed over 25 clinical programs translating this research in both the public and private sectors and recently led a successful application to Medicare for public funding. He has published over 450 peer reviewed journal articles, multiple book chapters and one book. He is an inventor on several brain stimulation patents.
Collaboration Professor Fitzgerald has collaborative relationships with leading international researchers in multiple important national and international research hospitals and universities including the University of Toronto, Harvard University and the Medical University of South Carolina.
Professional academic and leadership activities Professor Fitzgerald is a board member/director of Neurosciences Victoria (NSV) and member of the NSV Science council. He was the founding Vice President of Biological Psychiatry Australia and a founding committee member for the Australasian Brain Stimulation Society. He co-convened the first and second Australasian Brain Stimulation Meetings (2013 and 2016) and the first Australasian brain stimulation course (2013). He has served on committees for the International Society for Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (ISTS), Orygen Youth Health, the World Federation of Biological Psychiatry and EEG and Clinical Neuroscience Society (2011-2015). He is the Psychiatry Deputy Editor for Brain Stimulation and on several Journal advisory boards. On average he edits or reviews around 150 papers per year. He has reviewed grants for the NHMRC, ARC, NIH, Welcome trust and grant funding organisations in Germany, Netherlands, Ireland, Canada, Israel and Hong Kong.