Dr Oli Sophie Meredith
2024 Global Conference Speaker
Biography
BA Double Hons; MA; PhD: Public Health
Lecturer – Faculty of Science and Health, Charles Stuart University
Dr Oli Sophie Meredith (she/they) is an autistic and ADHD non-binary researcher based on Ngunnawal land, focusing on the lived experiences of neurodiverse and marginalised communities. Leading the Hiding or Thriving project on ADHD, Oli examines coping strategies and healthcare barriers for women and gender-diverse people. With a PhD in Public Health from UTS, Oli’s research spans health service use, sport’s impact, and neurodiversity in higher education. They are also an advocate, poet, and teach mindfulness, reiki, and yoga.
Unmasking the journey; ADHD, invisible illness, and the power of women’s voices
Through the gruelling pursuit of obtaining a PhD in public health, Oli (she/they) set out to gather the tools to amplify the voices of women and others living with invisible illnesses like ME/CFS and fibromyalgia. Having struggled to find support herself, she journeyed along an illuminating path toward her own healing. Along the way, a revelation shifted everything—ADHD. This discovery transformed her understanding, revealing the untold stories of women and gender-diverse people with ADHD, stories just beginning to emerge.
In this keynote, Oli invites you into her world of masking and unmasking, of hiding and thriving, and of well-being strategies as she explores what it means to live fully with ADHD. Reflecting on this journey, she reveals how it led her to guide a multidisciplinary team in the groundbreaking project Hiding or Thriving: The Lived Experiences and Coping Strategies of Women and Gender-Diverse People with ADHD. Together, they ask women and gender diverse people to share their stories, piecing together the first threads of a larger, shared narrative in the ADHD community Healing Project. Oli will touch on some of their early discoveries, offering a glimpse into this unfolding collective experience.