Our ACTA 2024 Symposium Speakers

Christopher Reid is a cardiovascular epidemiologist and clinical trialist with a specific interest in large scale clinical trials, quality improvement and outcomes research.  

He holds a NHMRC Principal Research Fellowship and has had continual NHMRC research funding since 1997. He holds Professorial Research Fellow positions at both Curtin and Monash University and is Co-Director of the Monash Centre for Cardiovascular Research and Education in Therapeutics (CCRE) and Director of the Curtin Centre for Clinical Research and Education (CCRE).

Professor Christopher Sweeney is the inaugural Director of the South Australian immunoGENomics Cancer Institute (SAIGENCI) at the University of Adelaide. 

He received his medical degree from the University of Adelaide and completed an internship at the Royal Adelaide Hospital. Professor Sweeney did his residency in internal medicine at Gundersen Lutheran Medical Center (Wisconsin, USA) and a fellowship in hematology/oncology at Indiana University Medical Center (Indiana, USA), where he was later appointed Associate Director for Clinical Research for the Simon Cancer Center.

Dr Felicity Flack provides strategic support to the Chief Executive and Board, develops national policies, and coordinates the national strategic planning process. She is also responsible for negotiating strategic partnerships with external collaborators that share common goals and manages communications for the national network.

Felicity has considerable national research data infrastructure, research ethics and governance experience, having worked in hospitals, research institutes and universities for more than 20 years.

Ms Francesca Orsini is a Biostatistician within the Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatics Unit (CEBU) at the Murdoch Children’s Research Centre (MCRI), Melbourne Australia.

Ms Orsini commenced her career as a biostatistician in 2009, working in an Italian contract research organisation (CRO), OPIS Srl. In 2011 she moved to Melbourne to join CEBU, where she is also a member of the Melbourne Children’s Trials Centre (MCTC). Ms Orsini’s role encompasses protocol design, protocol writing, contributing to grant applications, all aspects of statistical analysis and manuscript writing, for a wide-range of clinical trials, including studies in pre-term neonates, allergy studies, novel vaccines, cerebral palsy, public health, and education. She is also an active member of various DSMBs.  Francesca has published 27 papers in peer reviewed journals such as JAMA and Lancet Infect Diseases.

Ms Orsini is the lead biostatistician for the POLAR Trial and sits as a representative on both the Trial Executive Committee (TEC) and the Trial Steering Committee (TSC).

Professor Dore is Head, Viral Hepatitis Clinical Research Program, Kirby Institute, UNSW Sydney, and Infectious Diseases Physician, St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney, Australia. He has been involved in viral hepatitis and HIV epidemiological and clinical research, clinical care and public health policy for 25 years. He has developed extensive national and international collaborations, and internationally recognised in the areas of HCV natural history and epidemiology, therapeutic strategies for acute and chronic HCV infection, particularly among people who inject drugs, and HCV elimination strategies. 

Professor Dore was a member of National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Council and is a NHMRC Leadership Investigator. 

Professor Dore established the St Vincent’s Hospital viral hepatitis service in 1999 and led its development into one of the leading national and international HCV treatment services, with a particular focus on marginalised populations including people who inject drugs, homeless persons, and people who are incarcerated. 

An authentic and accomplished leader with extensive clinical, regulatory and healthcare policy experience. Hashim has a proven track record for problem solving through innovative approaches, and adds substantial value to the design and implementation of healthcare programmes at national level.

In addition to his 24 years of clinical experience, Hashim has a PhD in Medicine, with a focus on immunometabolism and obesity-related asthma. He has published and presented research in prestigious journals and conferences, demonstrating my expertise and contribution to the field. He has also completed executive education programs from Yale and AICD.

Helen Monaghan is Head of Clinical Trial Partnerships at The George Institute for Global Health and has extensive experience in managing multi-centre clinical trials and leading a large project operations team. 

Helen has more than 25 years’ experience working on academic investigator-initiated trials and joined The George Institute in 2000 as Senior Project Manager on the landmark ADVANCE trial.  Helen is the Operations Lead on the Join Us project, leading the team supporting the recruitment, managing the collaborating organisations and sitting on the Management Committee. 

Ian Marschner is Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Sydney and Director of Biostatistics at the NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre. He has over 30 years experience working on clinical trials and methodological research. 

He is a Chief Investigator for the Australian Trials Methodology (AusTriM) Research Network, and formerly he was Head of Statistics at Macquarie University, Director of Biometrics at Pfizer and Associate Professor at Harvard. 

A/Prof Ingrid Hickman is a Principal Research Fellow in Implementation Science with the UQ ULTRA team (Clinical Trial Capability) located within the Centre for Clinical Research in Brisbane. 

A/Prof Ingrid Hickman is an implementation scientist and has over 20 years experience in health services clinical research. Her career has focused on research excellence, strategic leadership and translating scientific evidence into improved clinical care for people with complex chronic conditions. 

From randomised controlled trials and mechanisms of disease progression through to patient centred co-design of health services, her collaborative approach to research aims to find solutions to health care problems. 

Dr. Linda Worrall-Carter is a recognised world leader in the field of women’s heart health. She has researched the area for 15 years, received over $10 million dollars in funding and authored more than 100 publications.

Linda identified that heart health research alone would not save women’s lives, reduce the economic and societal burden on the Australian healthcare system, nor drive changes in attitude and behaviour. Instead she recognised that a different approach was needed.

Her Heart was established to drive change through creating awareness of heart disease being Australia’s number one women’s health issue, and empowering women with knowledge so they can learn more about how to initiate change.

Mike is Professor of Health Economics and was Director of the Centre from December 1995 to September 2005. His particular field of interest is in the economic evaluation f health care treatments and programmes. He has undertaken evaluations in a wide range of medical fields including care of the elderly, neonatal intensive care, immunisation programmes, services for people with AIDS, eye health care and pharmaceuticals.

He is the author of two major textbooks and more than 700 scientific papers, has acted as a consultant to the World Health Organization and was Project Leader of a European Union Project on the Methodology of Economic Appraisal of Health Technology. He has also served on the Boards of Directors of the International Society of Technology Assessment in Health Care and the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research. He has been President of the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research.  He is currently Co-Editor-in-Chief of Value in Health. 

  With over four decades of experience as a consumer advocate, Mitch has worked at local, state, national, and international levels to support the health and wellbeing of diverse communities. 

He is  currently a Consumer Advisor / Community Involvement Coordinator at Telethon Kids Institute, where he facilitates the inclusion of the community at every stage of the research journey, especially for the BEAT CF program, which aims to improve the outcomes for people living with cystic fibrosis.

  Dr Nicola Straiton is a nurse and Senior Research Fellow at the Nursing Research Institute, a collaboration between St Vincent’s Hospital Sydney and the Australian Catholic University, her research interests include cardiovascular disease, implementation science and digital health. 

Her role involves designing, leading, and conducting collaborative research to enhance the translation of evidence into practice and to build the research capacity and capabilities of clinician researchers. To further these efforts, Nicola currently co-leads ACTA’s Translation of Research into Practice Special Interest Group (TRIP SIG) and SPHERE’s (Sydney Partnership in Health, Education, Research & Enterprise) Nursing and Midwifery Implementation Science Academy's early and mid-career researcher group. Additionally, Nicola serves as an advisory and scientific member of the Australian and New Zealand Alliance for Cardiovascular Trials.

Nicola is also a keen advocate for involving patients and the public in research prioritisation, co-design and dissemination.

Professor Susannah Ahern is a medical administrator and academic in health services research and management at Monash University. As the Head of the Clinical Outcomes Reporting and Research Program, she is the Monash Academic Lead for national clinical quality registries, including the Australian Cystic Fibrosis Data Registry, the ADNeT Dementia Registry, the Australian Breast Device Registry and the Australasian Pelvic Floor Procedure Registry. 

She is also the recipient of many grants for registry-related research and improvement projects. She has published over 90 academic papers and thirty-five technical registry reports, and is a member of a number of international registry collaborations. She currently participates in a number of national committees regarding clinical quality registries, and is co-Chair of the Australian Clinical Trial Alliance (ACTA) Registry Special Interest Group (SIG). Her work informs national registry policy and practice, including the development and implementation of the National Clinical and Virtual Registry Strategy 2020-2030.