Nadine is a physiotherapist, NHMRC Leadership Fellow (leadership level 2) focused on musculoskeletal pain and orthopaedic research, particularly clinical trials, and Academic Director of the University of Queensland's Clinical Trials Centre. Nadine is also the program lead for the Health Research Accelerator (HERA 2) program focused on innovation in clinical trials (ULTRA - UQ's Clinical Trial Capability). She is passionate about supporting multidisciplinary groups to work together, with critical mass, to design, conduct, analyse and translate the results of high quality clinical trials, in ways that improve patient and service outcomes.
Nadine is a lifetime Fellow of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy in the UK, and has held previous National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Senior Investigator awards and is the only physiotherapist to have held an NIHR Research Professorship in the UK. Having moved to Australia in January 2021, she was the inaugural Director of the STARS Research and Education Alliance between the University of Queensland and Metro North Health in Queensland (STARS is the Surgical, Treatment and Rehabilitation Service, the newest public hospital in Brisbane). Nadine is part of the STARS Alliance multidisciplinary team including conjoint appointments between the University and hospital, across the disciplines of physiotherapy, nursing, occupational therapy, psychology, consumer involvement in research, interdisciplinary collaborative practice in education and practice, and research management.
Nadine's research focuses on musculoskeletal pain, including low back pain, osteoarthritis and shoulder problems, and she has a particular interest in developing, testing and implementing treatments and health services. She has led or collaborated on more than 31 randomised trials, attracting over $145 million in research funding from, for example, the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), Versus Arthritis, and the Medical Research Council in the UK, PCORI in the USA and the NHMRC and MRFF in Australia. Current examples include international collaborative RCTs funded through the NIHR-NHMRC collaborative trial scheme focused on comparative effectiveness of surgery and conservative care for persistent, severe low back pain and comparative effectiveness of different approaches to shoulder joint replacement for patients with shoulder osteoarthritis. She has supervised 15 PhD students to completion, and 19 Masters research project students (nearly all were healthcare professionals), with 5 PhDs currently in progress in the UK, Europe and Australia. Nadine has led or contributed to over 311 peer reviewed publications, including the Lancet Series on Low Back Pain in 2018.
Examples of recognition as a national and international leader in the field include:
2024-2029 NHMRC Investigator Grant, Leadership level 2, supporting a program of research focused on new musculoskeletal RCTs and sharing existing RCT data to answer further research questions
2023 Stanley Paris Visiting Fellowship award, University of Otago, New Zealand, supporting visiting fellowship in March 2024
2022 Chief Executive's Award for Research, Metro North Health and Hospital Service Research Excellence Award
2020 Senior Investigator award from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) in the UK, awarded to the top 200 clinical researchers in the country.
2019 PEDro recognition for the UK FASHIoN trial - chosen by a panel of international trialists as one of the five most important physiotherapy trials published in 2014-2019. Announced on 4 November 2019.
2019 Invited member of the International Research Strategy Advisory Committee for the Health Research Board’s (Ireland) new five year research strategy development. September-October 2019
2018 Miegunyah Distinguished Visiting Fellowship 2019, University of Melbourne, Australia. February-March 2019
Mark Liu is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow focusing on the potential for clinical trials to affect change on a larger, longer-term scale. He was the interning early-career researcher for a multidisciplinary patient safety trial conducted at eight hospitals across Sydney, Melbourne and regional New South Wales. His doctoral research program involved physical activity for cancer patients, with an emphasis on creating long-term behaviour change for underserved groups.
Methodological expertise:
Implementing trials in real-world contexts
Behaviour change theory
Consumer involvement
Leveraging routinely collected healthcare data for research
Other areas of interest: supportive care for people with cancer, inequities in healthcare
Jonathan is Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Musculoskeletal and Orthopaedic Research at the STARS Education and Research Alliance. “STARS” is the Surgical, Treatment and Rehabilitation Service specialist public health facility in Brisbane and the “Alliance” is between the University of Queensland and Metro North Health in Queensland, Australia.
His vision is to improve the quality of life of people with the most common and disabling types of joint pain by investigating the most effective and safe treatments to support condition management. A key part of this is understanding what works best for whom and why. He has a specialist interest in the clinical management of joint pain due to osteoarthritis with education, exercise and weight loss. To maximise research impact he also seeks to understand the best ways of getting new knowledge from research to the people who need it most including healthcare practitioners and people with joint pain.
His boundary-spanning physiotherapy career has involved clinical, academic, conjoint, policy and professional body roles. Prior to joining the University of Queensland, he was Research into Practice Adviser at the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy in the UK and he holds an Honorary Senior Research Fellow position at Keele University, UK.
He has published over 40 peer-reviewed journal articles in top musculoskeletal journals including The Lancet Rheumatology, Osteoarthritis and Cartilage, Rheumatology and the British Journal of Sports Medicine. He has lead-supervised three research students to completion (1 PhD, 1 MPhil and 1 Academy of Medical Sciences project student) and has 1 ongoing Prof Doc student. He contributes to national policy (e.g. 2022 UK NICE osteoarthritis guideline committee), is a steering group member of the Osteoarthritis Research Society International Joint Effort Initiative (which seeks to improve the international implementation of evidence based osteoarthritis care) and has held national committee strategy, research and communications officer roles (e.g. for: The Community Rehabilitation Alliance; The British Society of Rheumatology, and; the Council for Allied Health Professions Research). He thrives through collaboration and welcomes approaches from prospective PhD students. He is committed to improving equity, diversity and belonging in Allied Health Professions research.
Examples of national and international recognition include:
-Invited advisor to NHS England Obesity Expert Group and report writer of “the impact of weight and weight management on osteoarthritis of the hip and knee” 2021-23.
-Chartered Society of Physiotherapy competition award- Leadership Development Programme MSc module funding 2021.
-Invitations to give international conference plenaries including the Osteoarthritis Research Society International (OARSI) Epidemiology and Therapy Year in Review in 2021.
-Clinical Research Network West Midlands Research Scholar Fellowships x2 2020-2022
-Invited osteoarthritis expert to UK Royal Pharmaceutical Society 2020
-National Institute of Health Care Research (NIHR) Academic Clinical Lecturer in Physiotherapy 2016-2019
-Chartered Society of Physiotherapy Robert Williams Award for top 10 abstract at The World Confederation of Physical Therapy 2015
Centre for Neurorehabilitation, Ageing and Balance Research
Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences
Affiliate of RECOVER Injury Researc
RECOVER Injury Research Centre
Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences
Research Fellow
RECOVER Injury Research Centre
Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences
Availability:
Available for supervision
Media expert
Dr Megan Ross (she/her) is a titled research physiotherapist and postdoctoral research fellow at RECOVER Injury Research Centre, The University of Queensland. She is part of a research team, led by Professor Trevor Russell, which focuses on developing more effective and efficient health services supported by technology innovation. Megan’s current research projects include exploring consumer perspectives of the telerehabilitation service delivery model, factors that influence the uptake and utilisation of telerehabilitation, and exploring the acceptability and usability of digital health innovations. Megan has a broad range of research skills that span both quantitative and qualitative methods and co-design approaches, including systematic reviews, cross-sectional and longitudinal study designs and data analysis, discrete choice experiments, interviews and focus group discussions and thematic analysis.
Dr Ross received a Bachelor of Physiotherapy (with First Class Honours) in 2012 and a PhD in Physiotherapy in 2020 from The University of Queensland. Megan is the inaugural Chair of the Australian Physiotherapy Association’s LGBTQIA+ Advisory Committee, is Deputy Chair of the Australian Physiotherapy Associations’ National Advisory Committee and sits on the Queensland Gender Affirming Network Steering Committee. Dr Ross leads a program of research in the area of LGBTQIA+ experiences of, and access to healthcare with a focus on physiotherapy and allied health. Megan is passionate about ensuring safe and affirming access to healthcare for people with diverse gender identities, sexual orientations and sex characteristics and has received over $1M AUD in funding, including a CIA MRFF grant to co-design, implement and evaluate an LGBTQIA+ affirming model of primary care. The overarching objective of Dr Ross’s work is to improve access to, provision of, and experiences with health care and ultimately contribute to improved health and wellbeing for the LGBTQIA+ communities.
Dr Viana Vuvan is a titled Musculoskeletal Physiotherapist and Lecturer in Physiotherapy at The University of Queensland. Viana has a strong clinical background in musculoskeletal physiotherapy, with experience in managing a wide range of musculoskeletal and sports-related injuries. Viana has a special interest in the management of upper limb musculoskeletal disorders and enjoys sharing her experience with students in the undergraduate and postgraduate physiotherapy programs. Viana is an active member of the Sports Injury Rehabilitation and Prevention for Health (SIRPH) research unit and the Neck and Head Research Unit (NAHRU) at the University of Queensland.
Viana’s research is focused on improving the management of persistent musculoskeletal pain conditions, such as tendinopathies, and better understanding the mechanisms underlying their chronicity. Viana’s PhD research focused on lateral elbow tendinopathy and explored the factors contributing to pain, disability and chronicity within this group. Additionally, Viana has explored similar mechanisms in other tendinopathies, including Achilles, patellar tendinopathy, plantar fasciopathy, as well as in whiplash associated disorders. She has shared her research at numerous state-wide, national and international conferences, and has been awarded for her presentations at several conferences.
Centre for Research on Exercise, Physical Activity and Health
Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences
Affiliate of Centre for Neurorehabi
Centre for Neurorehabilitation, Ageing and Balance Research
Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences
Senior Lecturer in Physiotherapy
School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences
Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences
Availability:
Available for supervision
Media expert
I am a physiotherapist with a clinical specialty in the management of individuals with neurological conditions and vestibular disorders. I have a keen interest in examining how the body's balance systems, including the inner ear (vestibular system), eyes (ocular system), and sensory modalities (touch, proprioception), interact with the brain to optimize movement control, functionality, physical activity, and participation outcomes for individuals affected by neurological and vestibular pathologies. This includes conditions such as multiple sclerosis, cerebellar dysfunction, traumatic brain injury, stroke, Parkinson's disease, myasthenia gravis, motor neuron disease, concussion, Meniere's disease, vestibular migraines, acoustic neuromas, and age-related vestibular dysfunction. Additionally, I am interested in the influence of lifestyle choices on vestibular system functioning and integration, particularly how factors such as physical activity, community integration, sleep, and overall wellness affect both neurological and vestibular conditions, including Meniere's disease, vestibular migraines, and age-related vestibular dysfunction.
