Professor Chris Reid

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).

Dr Jodie Austin

Dr Jodie Austin is a clinical pharmacist by background working for both the public and private hospital sectors across Australia and the United Kingdom. Over the last decade her career shifted into the field of clinical informatics, working to establish and maintain electronic medical records for both private and public healthcare organisations. She completed her PhD in digital health through the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Queensland, focused on the management of high-risk medications within a digital hospital environment. 

She currently works for the Queensland Digital Health Centre at the University of Queensland. She is the Director of Clinical Informatics, working within the SMART Hub, a service established to assist researchers with accessing Queensland Health, electronic medical record data. She holds a research conjoint position with the Office of the Chief Clinical Information Office at eHealth Queensland.

Dr Saraid Billiards

Dr Saraid Billiards is the CEO of the Association of Australian Medical Research Institutes (AAMRI), the peak body representing medical research institutes across Australia. Saraid has more than 20 years of experience in the health and medical research sector, including over a decade in senior roles within Australia’s major government funding agencies — the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) and the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF). She previously led Strategy and Engagement for Science in Australia Gender Equity (SAGE), a transformative initiative supporting systemic change for gender equity in Australian academic institutions.

A highly regarded leader, policy expert and researcher, Saraid is deeply committed to advancing health and medical research, as well as promoting gender equality, diversity, and inclusion across the sector.She holds a PhD in neurophysiology from Monash University and was a research fellow in the Department of Neuropathology at Harvard Medical School.

Professor Laurent Billot

His research focuses on biostatistics and their application to clinical and health services research. He is recognised internationally for his leading role in the design and analysis of large-scale trials in critical care, cardiovascular, neurological and musculoskeletal diseases. He holds a Master of Science in Statistics and Computer Science and a Master of Research in Public Health (Biostatistics). He is an accredited statistician by the Statistical Society of Australia (AStat).

Professor Bianca Brijnath

Professor Bianca Brijnath is a Professor of Health Communication in Society at La Trobe University. Her background is in medical anthropology and public health, and her research focuses on cultural diversity, dementia, and mental health. Within these areas, she has conducted numerous studies on dementia prevention, awareness, diagnosis, and care, particularly within culturally diverse communities in Australia and beyond.

Bianca has authored over 150 publications and created more than 70 multilingual films, comics, and animations. Additionally, she has generated over $26 million in research income. In recognition of my work, she was inducted into the State Government of Victoria’s Multicultural Honour Roll in 2022.

Dr Adrian Burton

Adrian has 20 years’ experience applying emerging information technology to research at national and international scales. With backgrounds in IT, academia, government and linguistics, he addresses opportunities holistically, ensuring that policy, people, and governance frameworks work alongside systems, services and infrastructure.

Professor Blanca Gallego Luxan

Professor Blanca Gallego Luxan leads a research unit in Clinical analytics and machine learning at the Centre for Big Data Research in Health, UNSW.

Trained as a physicist, Blanca obtained a PhD in climate modelling from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). She then relocated to Australia where she worked at the University of Sydney developing accounting frameworks for assessing the environmental impact of corporations. Blanca joined the Australian Institute of Health innovation (AIHI) in 2006. 

During her time at AIHI, she established a growing and successful research program in Health Analytics, developing and evaluating state-of-the-art techniques for clinical decision support, precision medicine, patient safety, and biosurveillance. In November 2017 she joined the Centre for Big Data Research as head of the Clinical Machine Learning Research Unit.

Suchit Handa

Dr Suzie Harte

Dr Suzie Harte is the National Program Manager for the PARTNER Network program, bringing health research to rural Australians. Her role with the University of Melbourne, School of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Science is funded by a Medical Research Future Fund infrastructure grant as part of the Australian Teletrial Program. As a passionate health researcher and accredited practising dietitian Suzie has special interests in health systems, health and education equity, community involvement in research, paediatric health and disability. 

Building on her PhD qualitative research program of study investigating children’s eating behaviour, Suzie has been involved in novel research studies in the field of neurodevelopmental disability, paediatric acquired brain injury, neurodiversity and Long COVID. Suzie has extensive career experience in large-scale global systems development programs across industries as diverse as satellite communications, pharmaceutical business intelligence and travel ticketing systems.

Prof Thomas Jaki

I am Professor of Computational Statistics at the University of Regensburg and MRC Professor of Statistics at the MRC Biostatistics Unit at the University of Cambridge. My work focuses on developing and evaluating novel statistical methods for clinical studies. These methods are adapted for specific applications to ensure they can be used in the pharmaceutical industry and also in public sector research institutions. My current research focuses on model-based dose-finding trials, Master protocols and the evaluation of algorithms.

Jennifer Muller

Jessica Smith

Jessica Smith is a Project Manager at The George Institute for Global Health, where she leads Join Us — Australia’s national research register connecting the public with health research across the country. With over a decade of experience in projects and public health, Jessica is skilled at building partnerships, advancing health initiatives, and delivering complex projects from concept to completion. She holds a Master of Public Health from the University of Sydney where she focused on health literacy and patient engagement.

Passionate about making research more inclusive, Jessica is developing a global Accessibility Toolkit through TGI’s Emerging Thought Leaders program, designed to help researchers create participant materials and design studies that are accessible and inclusive. Whether working with national partners or collaborating across borders, Jessica brings a commitment to equity, innovation, and impact — ensuring research is not just done for people, but with them.

Dr Tanya Symons

Dr Tanya Symons is a highly experienced clinical trial consultant and an internationally recognised expert in Good Clinical Practice (GCP). She has delivered GCP and ethics committee training to over 80,000 individuals worldwide.In the UK, Tanya manages the internationally recognised NIHR Clinical Trials Toolkit. 

In Australia, she collaborates with governments, government-funded organisations, and clinical trial sponsors to ensure trial initiatives align with international best practices.Tanya has authored or co-authored several national guidelines, including the TGA Australian Clinical Trials Handbook, the NHMRC Safety Reporting and Serious Breach Guidelines, and the ACTA/CTIQ Consumer Involvement and Engagement Toolkit.Her research interests include consumer involvement in research and the integration of clinical trials within a learning healthcare system.

A/Prof Emma Tavender

A/Prof Emma Tavender is the Team Leader for Implementation Science and the Knowledge Translation Co-ordinator for the Emergency Research Group at Murdoch Children's Research Institute (MCRI) and the Paediatric Research in Emergency Departments International Collaborative (PREDICT) Network.

Emma’s research is focussed on understanding health professional behaviour and designing and evaluating strategies to improve and sustain evidence-based practice in the Emergency Department and acute care setting.

A/Prof Natalie Taylor

A/Prof Natalie Taylor is an Implementation Scientist, advancing methods to translate evidence into practice in healthcare settings to support healthcare professionals and improve patient care and outcomes. Her work involves extensive collaboration with academic, health, government, and non-profit organisations across Australia and internationally. Natalie designs and conducts both hybrid and pure implementation trials with accompanying process evaluations. 

Natalie is pioneering research that combines implementation and data sciences to optimise understanding around patterns associated with successful implementation of new treatments, technologies, policies, and guidelines. Natalie is the Director of Research at the School of Population Health, UNSW Sydney, where she also leads her team – Implementation to Impact (i2i) – focusing on studying and supporting implementation across a range of clinical contexts, including cancer, genetics and genomics, infectious diseases, and cardiovascular health.

Dr Guy Tsafnat

Dr. Guy Tsafnat is a leading expert in the application of artificial intelligence (AI) to digital health and evidence-based medicine. With over 27 years of experience of innovation in both academia and industry, his work focuses on the intersection of AI and clinical decision making. He is the Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Evidentli Pty Ltd, an Australian company that uses AI to clean and harmonize real-world healthcare data with healthcare and life sciences clients in the USA, UK, EU and Middle East. Tsafnat holds a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering. He has held positions as a senior research fellow and is an Adjunct Fellow at the Australian Institute of Health Innovation at Macquarie University. 

Guy Tsafnat is a prominent figure in the field of evidence production automation, co-founding the International Collaboration for the Automation of Systematic Reviews (ICASR). This group brings together clinical researchers, computer scientists, and other experts from over 20 countries to advance the automation of systematic reviews.He has authored over 100 peer-reviewed academic papers and scholarly works. His contributions to the field are recognized by his roles as an Associate Editor for two major digital health journals, the Journal of Biomedical Informatics and the Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR). He is also a Fellow of the Australasian Institute of Digital Health. Dr. Tsafnat's work is driven by the goal of making healthcare more effective and efficient through the use of technology.

Professor Steve Wesselingh

Professor Steve Wesselingh took up the position of the Chief Executive Officer at the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) in August 2023. Professor Wesselingh is an infectious diseases physician and researcher. He undertook his undergraduate and doctoral training at Flinders University and his post-doctoral training at Johns Hopkins in the United States.

Until July 2023, Professor Wesselingh was the inaugural Executive Director of the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI). He was also a member of NHMRC Council, Chair of Research Committee, and the President of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences (AAHMS).Between 2007-2011, he was Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences at Monash University.

A/Prof Chris Williams

Duncan Young

Duncan Young is the Chief Data Officer and head of Health Economics and Research at the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing. This role promotes and champions a data-driven culture across the department and enables this through data analytics, data science, evaluation, modelling, and data governance. This area also has policy responsibility for Commonwealth health and medical research initiatives to improve patient care, the efficiency and effectiveness of the health system, and boost economic growth. 

Duncan previously worked for over 20 years, including nearly 15 years in the Senior Executive Service with the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). With a mathematics and computer science background, Duncan led the 2016 Census, a significant transformation to a digital-first design that delivered significant savings, environmental benefits, and reductions in workplace injuries. Duncan was also the national program manager for the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey in 2017 – a logistically complex undertaking that needed to be delivered in only 99 days. The conduct of this survey was recognised for its high participation rates, cross-government collaboration, high public trust and delivering well below budget. Duncan has also managed the ABS’ survey program and data acquisition services through COVID-19.