Professor Jason Acworth is a Paediatric Emergency Physician at the Queensland Children’s Hospital, is the Medical Lead for the hospital’s Rapid Response System and is Director of the STORK Statewide Simulation Service. Jason has a long-held passion for paediatric resuscitation and simulation education and research. His current research work is focussing on paediatric rapid response systems in Australia and New Zealand and components of high quality paediatric CPR. He is the current President of Advanced Paediatric Life Support Australia, is the paediatric representative on the Australian Resuscitation Council and is a member of the ILCOR Paediatric Life Support Task Force. ILCOR is the international peak body in resuscitation and sets the international standards for Resuscitation Councils around the world. Jason was a part of the group that established the PREDICT (Paediatric Research in Emergency Departments International Collaborative) paediatric emergency research network, serving as its inaugural Vice Chair (2004-2008) and later as Chair (2008-2009). He was also Chair of the international Paediatric Emergency Research Network (PERN) in 2010. Jason has co-authored over 60 publications in peer reviewed journals and in the last 10 years and has shared in research funding support of over $5 million.
Lisa Akison is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Biomedical Sciences (SBMS) at the University of Queensland. She has conducted research using rodent models for over 30 years and has been a reproductive biologist since 2005. She completed her PhD (2013) and early Post-doctoral training at the Robinson Institute, University of Adelaide, where she examined the molecular regulation of ovulation and oviductal function. Following her move to UQ in 2015, her research focussed on the developmental origins of health and disease, where she examined developmental programming of various organs and physiological processes. In particular, she has examined the impact of prenatal alcohol exposure, examining impacts on the embryo, fetus and adult offspring. She is also interested in the role that the placenta plays in mediating these effects.
Lisa received training in systematic review and meta-analysis methodology in 2016 and has since published systematic reviews on diverse topics in child and infant health. She now teaches critical appraisal of clinical studies and systematic review methodology to 3rd year biomedical science students, as well as endocrinology, physiology and histology. She has research interests in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, and is a current member of the Biomedical Education Research Group at SBMS.
I am an academic paediatric neurologist, clinical researcher, and specialist in acquired brain injury in children and adolescence. I studied at the University of Edinburgh and British Columbia before taking up my first academic position at the University of Calgary in 2002. Here I developed and directed the Traumatic Brain Injury and Concussion Research Program at the Alberta Children's Hospital and where I cemented my interest in the biology and treatment of children with brain injuries. I have extensive clinical research experience, devising and overseeing clinical trials in children both nationally and internationally. I moved to the Child Health Research Centre at the University of Queensland, Australia in October 2017 and joined the Queensland Paediatric Rehabilitation Service and Queensland Cerebral Palsy Rehabililation Centre to facilitate research into improving the health outcomes of children with acquired brain injury in Queensland and Australia.
My research focuses on the neurobiological signatures and treatment of subtle neurological dysfunction in mild traumatic brain injury and concussion, especially the behavioural and cognitive impairments that are found in post-concussion syndrome. I use multimodal neurological assessments to do this. My research explores combining neuroimaging and neurophysiological investigations, including perfusion studies using MRI (ASL-fMRI) and transcranial magnetic stimulation to help us understand the changes in the brain in children who are slow to recovery following a concussion. This is to help us develop and assess more effective and tailored treatments for children with concussion and traumatic brain injury. I explore novel therapies for children with persistent post-concussive symptoms in clinical trials including the use of neuraceuticals, pharmacotherapies, and non-invasive brain stimulation treatment.
I am the director of the newly-established KidStim Lab at the Child Health Research Centre. This is the first non-invasive neuromodulation facility aimed at improving the health outcomes of children with brain injury in Australia and is led by a mulitdisciplinary team of clinicians and scientists from Brisbane bring a unique clinical and scientific knowledge-base to help achieve our goals. Rehabilitation therapy in combination with repetitive transcranial direct current stimulation (rTMS) and other direct current stimulation modalities (e.g. tDCS) will be explored. It also offers the potential for treatment of the mood and behavioural disorders (e.g. depression and anxiety) commonly seen after brain injury but also so disruptive to the life of the normally developing teenager.
Dr Kath Benfer is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow with the Queensland Cerebral Palsy and Rehabilitation Research Centre, The University of Queensland. Her Post-Doctoral work focuses on community-based early detection and intervention for infants at high risk of cerebral palsy in low-resource countries (India and Bangladesh). She was awarded the prestigious Endeavour Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Scholarship through the Australian Commonwealth Government to conduct the study. Kath’s PhD explored oropharyngeal dysphagia, gross motor function, growth and nutrition in preschool children with cerebral palsy, in both Australia and Bangladesh. Her work arising from her doctoral studies has been published in 10 peer-reviewed publications and presented widely at international conferences. Dr Benfer has over 12 years of experience as a speech pathologist within paediatric disability, with community-based child and family support services. Kath also has an interest in cross-cultural issues in child health, having worked in Bangladesh for over 2 years both as an AusAid volunteer teaching on the country’s first Bachelor of Speech Therapy degree, as well as conducting research in this context. She has completed her Master of Public Health at La Trobe University in Melbourne within the research and international health streams.
Tamara is a trained respiratory scientist and has 7 years' experience in measuring the lung function of children aged 3-18 years. She has recently completed her PhD whereby she validated the use of normal healthy reference values for two lung function tests (spirometry and fractional exhaled nitric oxide) for children who identify as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander. She has a particular interest in childhood respiratory illnesses such as cystic fibrosis and asthma, emerging clinical measurement techniques, as well as Australian First Nations respiratory health. Her current research aims to better understand the mechanisms of early CF lung disease and to improve current clinical outcome measures to aid in appropriate CF management.
Dr Samudragupta Bora is the Founding Director of the Health Services Research Center at University Hospitals Health System, Associate Professor of Pediatrics at University Hospitals Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital, USA, and Honorary Associate Professor at The University of Queensland. He previously served as Director of Early Childhood Neurodevelopmental Outcomes at University Hospitals Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital and Group Leader of Neurodevelopmental Follow-Up and Outcomes at Mater Research Institute, The University of Queensland. He is the immediate past Chair of the Long-Term Outcomes of High-Risk Babies Subcommittee of the Perinatal Society of Australia and New Zealand.
His research focuses on improving the quality of life for high-risk infants, particularly those born preterm, and their families, along with a growing focus on congenital heart disease and global child health. Research studies span two core themes: 1) developing a better understanding of the long-term neurodevelopmental outcomes of high-risk infants, and 2) discovering the independent and interdependent roles of neurological and social factors underlying these outcomes. In addition to research, he is committed to mentoring the next generation of clinician-scientists and scientists. He has extensive experience promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion in academic medicine.
Professor John Cairney is the Head of School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences. He is an academic leader in the field of paediatric exercise medicine and child health research and is particularly well-known for his work on developmental coordination disorder (DCD) and its impact on the health and well-being of children. Prof John Cairney started at UQ in January 2020.
Until the end of 2019, he was the Director of Graduate Studies in the Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education at the University of Toronto and Director of the Infant and Child Health (INCH) Research Laboratory at both the University of Toronto and McMaster University. He is also an Adjunct Professor in the Departments of Public Health Sciences and Psychiatry at the University of Toronto and Department of Family Medicine at McMaster University and a core scientist with the Offord Centre for Child Studies, CanChild Centre for Childhood Disability Research at McMaster University, and the independent Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences.
Professor Cairney completed his PhD studies at the University of Western Ontario and has held academic appointments at Brock University, the University of Toronto and McMaster University before his current UQ role. He has held, among other research leadership positions, a Canada Research Chair in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto, and a Professorship in Child Health, and subsequently a Research Chair, in the Department of Family Medicine at McMaster University.
Professor Cairney has been the recipient of ~$A17 million in research grants as a principal investigator and has some 310 published works with a Scopus h index of 51 (Aug 2022).
Professor Cairney is a former President of the North American Society of Pediatric Exercise Medicine.
I am a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Digital Health and Accredited Practising Dietitian (APD) interested in the prevention and management of noncommunicable diseases, especially obesity, across the lifecourse.
Through research, I aim to add health to life and equity to health by changing policies and practices to reduce the impact of obesity.
My research program aims to forge a new nexus across dietetics, digital health and public health to improve healthy weight. In my Postdoctoral Fellowship, I have established a new evidence base that supports precision public health approaches to the prevention and management of obesity, including innovate methods of public health surveillance that can use data from sources such as electronic medical records. I trained as a Paediatric Dietitian and have experience as a clinician-researcher working in Queensland's healthcare system, specifically in preventing and managing childhood obesity via clinical, community, and public health programs.
I have used epidemiology, public health informatics, action research, co-design, and ethnographic methods to generate new knowledge in obesity and digital health. I was awarded my PhD (UQ) in November 2020, which developed and validated i-PATHWAY, a clinical model to predict childhood obesity from the first 1,000 days to help guide its prevention. This research was the first of its kind in Australia and uncovered new evidence for risk factors for childhood obesity that are evident from the early years.
At The University of Queensland (UQ), I am a member of the Queensland Digital Health Centre, located within the Centre for Health Services Research (Faculty of Medicine). I established and currently Co-Chair the UQ Digital Health HDR Cohort, which provides research mentorship and support to ~20 PhD, MPhil and Honours research students.
Our team partners closely with multiple healthcare and research organisations across Australia to innovate and translate obesity research into practice, including Health and Wellbeing Queensland (public health and prevention of chronic diseases), Queensland Health (healthcare system) and the Digital Health Cooperative Research Centre (digital health research). I hold an Honorary Appointment with Health and Wellbeing Queensland, and an Affiliate Research Fellow position with the Faculty of Medicine (UQ) to help bridge the gap between obesity research and practice.
David is a Consultant Paediatrician, Metabolic Physician, Clinical Geneticist and clinician researcher. His area of expertise is the diagnosis and management of children with rare diseases. David is involved in multiple ongoing research projects aimed at novel disease discovery, improved diagnostic testing and treatments for children with inherited genetic disorders. He is director of a national clinic for Ataxia Telangiectasia brashat.org.au and has recently been awarded a $2.5 million NHMRC research grant for a phase 2/3 trial for treatment of this disorder.
Dr Emma Crawford is an occupational therapist and researcher whose work centres on promoting wellbeing for infants, children, families and communities. Emma's primary focus is on cross-cultural projects that link with community organisations to create social change and reduce the impacts of disadvantage by supporting health enhancing environments and activities in early life. At the centre of Emma's work is the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 3 - ensuring healthy lives and promoting wellbeing across all ages. Currently, Emma is leading several projects:
1) The BABI Project (research): refugee and asylum seeker families' expereinces during the perinatal period (systematic review, qualitative focus group and interview research)
2) The Uni-Friends program (student delivered service and student placement) - a social-emotional helth promotion program that draws on cultural responsiveness (The Making Connecitons Framework) and community development principles in an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Community Controlled School
3) LUCIE-NDC (research) - mothers' experiences of accessing Neuroprotective-Developmental Care in the first 12 months of their infants' lives
Emma has a strong interest in understanding human experiences, community-driven initiatives, and strengths-based, innovative, evidence based, complex approaches to wellbeing that consider individuals and systems She also carries out research regarding allied health student placements in culturally diverse settings including low-middle income countries and Indigenous contexts. She works as a Lecturer at the University of Queensland, Australia after having worked in a range of occupational therapy roles including with children with autism, with asylum seekers, with Indigenous Australians with chronic disease, and completing her PhD in Political Science and International Studies in 2015.
Dr Gursimran Dhamrait is an epidemiologist whose research mostly encompasses pregnancy and birth outcomes, perinatal health, early childhood development and the environments in which children develop. Her work extends to systematic reviews, the application of methods to improve causal inference from observational studies and research to inform health services and government. Gursimran specialises in using large-scale population-level data and applying a multidisciplinary research approach to understand the intricate mechanisms influencing early childhood development.
Dr Kathryn Fortnum is a Research Fellow at the Health and Wellbeing Centre for Research Innovation, a collaboration between the School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences at the University of Queensland, and Health and Wellbeing Queensland. Her research speciality is on the role of physical activity in the management of chronic health conditions. Dr Fortnum is an Accredited Exercise Physiologist and has a particular interest in children and youth, and mental health. Dr Fortnum has worked clinically in inpatient and community settings for the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service WA, and supported children impacted by neurological disorders including spina bifida and cerebral palsy to engage in community-based physical programs.
Stephen is a Narungga and Ngarrindjeri man from South Australia, and Senior Research Fellow with the University of Queensland Poche Centre for Indigenous Health and PhD candidate with the School of Public Health at the University of Queensland.
Stephen is an epidemiologist and public health researcher who has worked with Aboriginal communities and organisations across Australia. Stephen has experience in conducting health services research, sexual health, adolescents and young people’s health and wellbeing, and Indigenous methodology.
Stephen completed a Master of Philosophy in Applied Epidemiology at the Australian National University in 2019, and has a Master of Public Health (Flinders University, 2013), a Graduate Certificate Health Services Research and Development (The University of Wollongong, 2012), and a Bachelor of Health Sciences (Public Health) (The University of Adelaide, 2008).
Dr Anthony Herbert has trained in paediatrics at both the Mater Children's and Royal Children's Hospitals in Brisbane. He also worked at the Alberta Children's Hospital in Calgary, Alberta, Canada for a year in 2001. He completed training in paediatric medical oncology. He subsequently completed a fellowship in paediatric palliative care working with both adults at the Mater Health Services and with children at The Children's Hospital at Westmead (CHW) in Sydney, Australia. At CHW, he was able to gain a broad exposure to all aspects of pain medicine and palliative care including experience in the use of patient controlled analgesia (PCA), multi-disciplinary management of persistent pain and hospice care (at Bear Cottage). During this time, he developed a particular interest in cancer pain management.
Anthony commenced work as a Staff Specialist in Paediatric Palliative Care with Children's Health Queensland Hospital and Health Service in September 2008. At this time he was based at the Royal Children's Hospital, Brisbane, but also consulted at the Mater Children's Hospital, Brisbane. In November 2014, the Lady Cilento Children's Hospital (LCCH) opened in Brisbane. Anthony became the Director of the Paediatric Palliative Care Service at LCCH in June 2015.
Research interests have included telehealth, insomnia, music therapy, perinatal palliative care, service development, respite provision and communication in paediatric palliative care. He has also had an interest in education related to palliative care - for undergraduates and post graduate students. More recently he has been involved in the Quality of Care Collaborative of Australia (QuoCCA) which is a national project (funded by the Department of Health, Commonwealth) looking at education provision, particularly in rural and remote settings. As part of this work, Anthony has also developed an interest in the education of undergraduate students in paediatric palliative care, particularly at the time of short clinical placements. In this context, he has found the resources of the Palliative Care Curriculum for Undergraduates (PCC4U) particularly helpful. His interest in providing education has also extended to Vietnam and Malaysia.
Dr Anthony Herbert was Chair of the Australian and New Zealand Paediatric Palliative Care National Reference Group from 2012 - 2013. He has also been chair of the Palliative Care Working Group of the Child and Youth Network in Queensland from 2012. Anthony has also been a committee member of the Chapter of Palliative Medicine linked to the Royal Australasian College of Physicians. He was involved in the recent writing of "Palliative Care" (Version 4) with Therapeutic Guidelines. He has also been an active contributor to the national resource "A Practical Guide to Palliative Care in Paediatrics".
Professor Craig A McBride PhD, FRACS, FACS is a full-time Senior Staff Specialist Paediatric Surgeon at Children's Health Queensland. He is also an educator, a researcher, and a father to two boys. In addition to his public work, he has a private practice at www.betterkids.com.au.
Professor McBride is originally from Aotearoa/New Zealand and worked in three of the four Paediatric Surgical units in that country, before moving to the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne for the final two years of his surgical training. Following Fellowship in 2007, he moved to Brisbane and has been here ever since.
He has specialised interest and expertise in thoracic, hepatobiliary and pancreatic surgery, burns and trauma. He is also a member of both the Children's Health Queensland Human Research Ethics Committee and the Clinical Ethics Response Group at Queensland Children's Hospital, as well as being involved in the Queenslannd Children's Critical Incident Panel and the Clinical Incident Subcommittee of the Queensland Paediatric Quality Council.
Craig has published research in many areas related to children's health.
Treasure McGuire graduated with a Bachelor of Pharmacy and a Bachelor of Science (Pharmacology) from the University of Queensland UQ). She also completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Clinical Pharmacy and Graduate Certificate in Higher Education at UQ. In 2005, she completed her PhD in the School of Population Health, UQ, entitled Consumer medicines call centres: a medication liaison model of pharmaceutical care.
She has held a sennior conjoint appointment between the School of Pharmacy, UQ and Mater Pharmacy, Mater Health, Brisbane since 1996, and was appointed as a Senior Lecturer in 2006. In her Mater role, she has been Assistant Director of Pharmacy (Practice and Development) over this same time period. At UQ, she coordinates a graduate clinical pharmacy course within the Master of Clinical Pharmacy program. In 2016, this program received a UQ Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences Team Award for Programs that Enhance Learning and in 2017 a citation in the University of Queensland Award for Excellence in Teaching and Learning.
Treasure’s research is translational, focussing on patient centred-care and quality use of medicines in the domains of medicines information, evidence-based practice, medication safety, reproductive health, complementary medicines, communicable diseases and interprofessional education. She is a Fellow of the Australian College of Pharmacy and a Fellow of the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia.In recognition of her services to medicines information, she received the Lilly International Fellowship in Hospital Pharmacy and the Bowl of Hygeia of the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia. In 2015, she was the recipient of the Sr Eileen Pollard Medal (Mater Research-UQ) for excellence in incorporating research into clinical care provision.
Amy is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work and an Honorary Research Fellow in the Parenting and Family Support Centre at UQ. She is the recipient of consecutive Children's Hospital Foundation Early Career Fellowships (2018-2021, 2021-2022). Amy is a paediatric nurse and completed her PhD (Health) in 2011, for which she received the Executive Dean's Commendation for Higher Degree Research. Amy's research aims to improve heatlh and developmental outcomes for children and thier families. Areas of focus include the use of evidence-based parenting support to improve outcomes for children with chronic health and developmental conditions (e.g., asthma, eczema, type 1 diabetes, autism spectrum disorder), supporting families to develop healthy habits from early childhood (e.g., oral health, nutrition, screen use), and supporting parents in the transition to parenthood (e.g., perinatal mental health, breastfeeding).
Associate Professor Andy Moore is a Paediatric Oncologist and Director of Research at Children's Health Queensland Hospital & Health Service (CHQ). He is also Director of the Queensland Children's Tumour Bank, a unique resource located on the Queensland Children's Hospital precinct, facilitating local, national and international collaborative research across all childhood cancer types and supporting enrolment of children on clinical trials. A/Prof. Moore's clinical and research interests focus on childhood leukaemia, particularly acute myeloid leukaemia (AML), an aggressive form of leukaemia with a poor prognosis. He also holds a number of leadership and advisory roles, including Deputy Chair of the Australian & New Zealand Childrens Haematology / Oncology Group (ANZCHOG).
