Associate ProfessorMark Stokes

Mark Stokes
Associate Professor, School of Psychology, Deakin University | Registered Psychologist

Mark Stokes leads the Healthy Autistic Life Lab (HALL) at Deakin University, a globally collaborative research group dedicated to improving mental health and wellbeing for autistic people across the lifespan. With over three decades in autism research, he is ranked among the top 100 autism researchers worldwide, with an h-index of 88+, more than 110,000 citations and a field-weighted citation index of 25.20.

HALL’s work focuses on supporting autistic adolescents and adults through major life transitions, including finding employment, forming partnerships and developing intimacy, so that they can build lives that support mental health and positive wellbeing. Its research programs span intersectionality, mental health and suicide prevention, employment, LGBTIQA+ identities and sexuality, relationship development, the female profile of autism, menstrual cyclicity, pregnancy and parenthood, ageing, the transition to adulthood, and the neurobiology of autism, including mirror neuron systems.

Mark completed his PhD at La Trobe University in 1996 and has held appointments at La Trobe, Monash and Vanderbilt Universities. He was Director of the Victorian Injury Surveillance Unit at Monash University’s Accident Research Centre (1999 to 2002) before joining Deakin in 2002. He has authored more than 400 research outputs, including over 200 peer-reviewed publications, book chapters and government reports, and has delivered more than 200 conference presentations. He has attracted over $3.88 million in external research funding and has supervised more than 34 doctoral completions, with 9 further students currently enrolled.

Mark is a founder, Life Member and former President of the Australasian Society for Autism Research, and a former Global Senior Leader and National Lead for Australia to INSAR. He is a global senior contributor to the Global Burden of Disease network, a director of the Council for the Aged (Vic), and a Life Member and former President of Kidsafe Australia and Kidsafe Victoria. He also founded the bushfire-relief charity Bands Together. A former Chair of Deakin’s Faculty of Health Human Research Ethics Committee, he has more than 14 years’ experience on the University’s Human Research Ethics Committee.