A/Prof Ranil Gunewardene

A/Professor Ranil Gunewardene Macquarie University Sydney Australia; is the founder and has been the director, of Mental Health Services at Northern Beaches Hospital since 2018. He is a founder and director of the Mindlife Clinic and Mindcafe Education Services. Dr Ranil established and has led New South Wales’ first psychedelic assisted therapy and research service, Evolution MET in Sydney since 2023. He is the state’s first most experienced TGA Authorised Prescriber of Psychedelic Therapies. These services have a focus on trauma and treatment resistant mental health conditions. He has presented at many prestigious congress events; most recently including the MAPS Psychedelic Science Congress in Denver Colorado and the British College of Psychiatry. He has innovative research collaborations with Prof David Nutt and the team at Imperial College London 

Dr Ranil was previously the Clinical Director of Mental Health at Mosman Private Hospital and the Hornsby KRG Mental Health Services for approximately 15 years. Dr Ranil is the most experienced Clinical Director currently working in the Northern Sydney Districts across private and public mental health care; having worked in the region since the year 2000. He started his leadership role with Hirondelle Private Hospital in April 2026.

Due to his unique wide-ranging senior clinical and leadership experience; he is an expert in a number of areas of psychiatry. He is an Australian and global leader in the provision of innovative psychedelic therapies for trauma and other treatment resistant conditions.

Dr Ranil has a passion for teaching, and for delivering excellence in mental health service provision and patient care. His CV features an extensive professional history of creating safe, high performing new mental health services, and growing existing services, into safe, high performing, client focused care providers.