Our Board of Directors

Hannah is a Naturopath and herbalist based in Sydney, New South Wales.  She was first elected to the NHAA Board of Directors in 2018 and has led the Marketing and media subcommittees during her tenure.

Hannah established her own Naturopathic clinic after graduating from her studies in 2012.  Her areas of interest include mental health, women’s health and fertility.

As well as practicing in her Marrickville clinic, Hannah has volunteered at the Leichhardt Women’s Community Health Centre as a research assistant.  She has presented at various events including The Real Food Project and the Marrickville Business Association.  In 2019 Hannah was asked to present at the Central & Eastern Sydney Primary Health network annual conference, Rethinking Mental Health as well as the 2021 National Symposium on Herbal and Naturopathic Medicine.

Sonya originally trained as a cultural anthropologist and lived and worked in Australia, Thailand, India and the USA before returning to Australia to pursue her love of herbal medicine. She completed her BHSc(Naturopathy) in 2019, and established her Blue Mountains based practice on graduation. She has growing clinical interests in mental health, preventative health care/healthy ageing, and chronic pain/neurodegenerative disease management, and she loves combining the best of naturopathy’s traditional knowledge with the latest scientific research. She has also recently joined the international team at Pukka Herbs as their Australian/NZ herbalist.

Sonya joined the NHAA as a student, and in 2017, co-founded the organisation’s Sydney chapter, SydHerbs. She is now looking forward to continuing her contribution to the NHAA, its members and her profession as a board member. She has six years’ experience serving on the boards of various not-for-profit organisations.

Sarah is a Naturopath in clinical practice in Brisbane, having graduated with Distinction from Endeavour with a BHSc Naturopathy, she has transformed her lifelong passion for health and wellness into her working profession.

Sarah comes with an expansive career in communications and technology, and in more recent years online collaboration expertise including online events, support, and training. With a passion for our profession and its future, she brings enthusiasm to be involved with making positive change for better integration of Naturopaths and Herbalists into public healthcare.

In her personal time, you will find Sarah enjoying her passion for good food, creating new meal ideas, cooking for her family or in the garden with her herbs.

Carolyn Ledowsky is a naturopath, herbalist and nutritionist and is currently undertaking her PhD at the University of Technology Sydney. Her research is focused on folate forms and infertility – specifically “The effectiveness of 5-methyltetrahyrofolate versus folic acid prenatal multivitamins in couples with a history of recurrent pregnancy loss: A feasibility randomised controlled trial”.

Carolyn is the founder of MTHFR Support Australia and is an educator of practitioners worldwide on how genetics has an influence on health and disease. She is a regular speaker worldwide on methylation and genetics and works tirelessly researching the nutrients and herbal medicines that epigenetically influence enzymes to make up for genetic susceptibility or environmental assaults that influence the way genes behave. She is a passionate advocate for the industry.

Carolyn started her career with a Bachelor of Economics and then spent the next 20 years in the advertising, marketing and event management positions with some of Australia’s leading advertising agencies and worked with Commonwealth Bank,Westpac and the NSW Government designing the strategy, marketing and execution of their major events. Her experience in the corporate sector means she has the ability to interact with fellow board members, management and stakeholders to further the objectives of the NHAA. She has strong skills in development of Educational programs, media, event management, with vast Government experience and is an early career researcher

Tracelee is a qualified naturopath and herbalist based in Sydney. She is a passionate naturopathic academic, working in Naturopathy and Western Herbal Medicine university programs for the past 12 years. Tracelee appreciates being able to support graduates entering the naturopathic profession with innovative skills to adapt to the current evolving health industry.

As a health practitioner in private practice, Tracelee combines her knowledge and discipline expertise as an educator in student-led clinics in Sydney. In 2021, Tracelee started her journey into a PhD at Torrens University and will explore herbal medicines prescribed by Naturopathic and Western Herbal Medicine student practitioners in patient anxiety.

Tracelee is a newly elected NHAA Board Director, and member of the NHAA Education committee. She is keen to promote education in our profession to reflect best practice and has a strong desire to keep supporting current and future association members.

Dr Janet Schloss is Clinical Research Fellow and Senior Lecturer at the National Centre for Naturopathic Medicine (NCNM). Janet is an accomplished researcher with extensive experience in coordinating clinical trials. In addition to her academic career, Janet is also a practicing clinical nutritionist and naturopath with over 20 years experience. 

Following the completion of her doctorate in 2015, Janet has focused her research on supporting people who have cancer through studying the use of complementary medicines to assist side effects of chemotherapy and radiation treatments. 

Janet works with a number of Oncologists, assisting patients with nutrition consultation to help decrease side effects and support them whilst undergoing medical treatments such as chemotherapy, radiation, surgery, immunotherapy and hormone treatment. She consults extensively with clients being treated for cancer and auto-immune conditions to reduce the likelihood of metastasis, tumour growth and inflammation while building immune modulation and improving overall health and wellbeing.

Janet has completed a number of ground-breaking studies and has over 70 publications in clinical naturopathy, cancer and auto-immune diseases, some of which have gained wide-spread national media attention. Through her critical and rigorous research, she helps patients and practitioners to establish evidence-based practice.

Janet has lectured in naturopathy, nutrition and student clinic supervision for over 14 years at Endeavour and is now supervising HDR students for NCNM. Prior to her appointment at NCNM, was the Clinical Trials Manager at Endeavour College of Natural Health. 

She has a strong passion for her profession, which has been shown through many professional speaking engagements throughout Australia and overseas, including the ASCO Annual Meeting in 2015–the largest, most prestigious oncology conference in the world–where she presented a complementary medicine clinical trial to over 32,000 delegates.

In addition to her role at NCNM, Janet was a Research Fellow and a member of the International Naturopathic Leadership group with the Australian Research Centre for Complementary and Integrative Medicine([ARCCIM), and a member of Australian Traditional Medicine Society, Society of Integrative Oncology and American Society of Clinical Oncology.

I have previously served on the NHAA board from 2013-2019 completing the maximum term at that time. I contributed initially leading the marketing and communications sub committee, then Vice President then ultimately President from 2015-2019. I am proud of many of my achievements whilst on the board, and highlights include; activating a focus on communications to members of parliament and the media – one of which saw me representing the NHAA being interviewed on The Project, changing the name from National Herbalists Association of Australia to the Naturopaths and Herbalists Association of Australia to better reflect our membership, joining the World Naturopathic Federation as a foundation member, representing Australia on the WNF Executive as Treasurer and setting the associations focus on celebrating our 100 year anniversary.

My background in the corporate, small business and academic worlds, provides me with the unique skill set, perspective and experience that I bring to this role including: lecturing and curriculum development for the BHSc Naturopathy, Program Management, experience in the corporate and not-for-profit sector across a variety of management roles and of course private practice as a naturopath. I am currently a member of the Jacka Foundation for Natural Therapies and am employed as Director of Innovation, Industry & Employability (Health & Education) at Torrens University Australia. I feel I have more to offer the NHAA serving an additional term on the board and would appreciate the opportunity.

Sophia is a Blue Mountains-based naturopath, massage therapist and researcher. Sophia wears many different professional and personal hats always endeavouring to balance her love of clinical care along with that of research. Amongst these hats, Sophia consults with and facilitates groups for naturopathic practitioners incorporating group consultations into their clinical practice. She also works as a massage therapist/health promotion worker at a local women’s health centre, and co-ordinates an MS cohort study at the Sydney Adventist Hospital. Alongside these roles Sophia is a PhD candidate with the National Centre for Naturopathic Medicine where she has explored healthcare experiences of women with endometriosis, and trialled a 12-week program of naturopathic group consultations for women and gender-diverse folk with endometriosis.

The aim of this research is to help meet unmet healthcare needs of those with endometriosis and to explore a new model of delivering naturopathic medicine to address issues of access and integration. Sophia believes naturopathy is an important yet under-utilised component of Australian healthcare, an essential and collaborative care-type to improve patient outcomes. Her desire is to see the advancement of naturopathic medicine where it is accessible to all Australians, and to advance naturopathic education with the incorporation of innovative models of delivering naturopathic care to improve access, and integration into the healthcare landscape in sustainable and fulfilling ways for naturopathic practitioners. When the professional hats are off Sophia simply wants to be in nature – her greatest inspiration, eat good food (with good people) and enjoy slow moments.