Allied Health Research Symposium

Keynote and Panellist

Dr David Ireland is a Senior Research Scientist at the Australian E-Health Research Centre. Here he works with speech & occupational therapists and other clinicians in realising technology interventions that have gone on to win national awards in research & development.

He received a Bachelor of Engineering in Microelectronics, Masters of Philosophy, and a Ph.D. in electronic engineering and computer science from Griffith University. Reportedly a "legend in chatbots for health" he has developed chatbot technology for applications in chronic pain, autism spectrum disorder, smoking cessation, Parkinson's disease, dementia and genomics.

He is an associate editor for the journal of Artificial General Intelligence, where he contributes and edits on publications related to the philosophy of AI.

Panel Chair

Dr Katrina Campbell brings over two decades of experience across clinical, academic, executive and advisory roles. She has driven measurable impact across health systems, from international research leadership and nationally recognised capability building initiatives to statewide reform and health service wide programs.

With deep expertise in implementation science, operational excellence, workforce development and digital innovation, Katrina has a proven track record of building high performing teams and designing sustainable models of care that deliver scalable change in complex environments.

She is passionate about bridging the gap between evidence, policy and practice to drive meaningful improvements in access, quality and health equity.

Panellist

Professor Michael Barras is the Director of Pharmacy at the Princess Alexandra Hospital and a Research conjoint with the School of Pharmacy (Hospital 0.8 FTE / UQ 0.2 FTE).

He currently supervises 8 HDR students conducting research related to medication safety, health informatics and advanced scope clinical pharmacy. He has a strong interest in designing, testing and monitoring individualised dosing strategies for high-risk patients in the hospital setting. Michael has many significant research relationships in hospital, university, and industry settings.

Panellist

Dr Jodie Austin currently works as the Clinical Informatics Director for the SMART Hub, embedded within the Data Science Collaborative Research Platform and the Queensland Digital Health Centre at the University of Queensland. She also holds a conjoint research position with the Office of Chief Clinical Information Officer, eHealth Queensland.

Jodie is a clinical pharmacist by background, having worked in both the public and private hospitals settings across Australia and the United Kingdom. Over the past decade her line of work transitioned into the field of clinical informatics. She completed her PhD in 2024, exploring the management of high-risk medications within digital hospital environments.

Panellist

Dr Clare Burns is a clinician researcher who leads research in the fields of speech pathology and technology enabled health care. Her work focuses on utilising technology to enhance access to and delivery of health services to optimise consumer outcomes. She has developed, evaluated, and implemented a range of telehealth services to deliver speech pathology interventions, multidisciplinary care, and broader allied health services. Recently she has led the development and evaluation of an immersive virtual reality environment for communication rehabilitation and is collaborating with a broad allied health and technology team to develop virtual reality programs to support functional rehabilitation.

Clare works as Advanced Speech Pathologist and Research Coordinator at the Speech Pathology Department, Royal Brisbane & Women’s Hospital and is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at RECOVER Injury Research Centre, The University of Queensland.

Panel Chair

Dr Nina Meloncelli is an Accredited Practising Dietitian, clinician-researcher and Program Director of the HELIX Hub in Metro North’s Healthcare Excellence and Innovation. She has extensive experience supporting healthcare staff to implement research evidence through education, training, coaching and mentoring.

Her passion lies in removing obstacles to improving healthcare for clinicians and teams and the pragmatic application of tools, frameworks and methods to enable better implementation and innovation.

Panellist

Jodie Nixon is the Metro South Health Manger for Consumer Partnering.

Prior to commencing work in the consumer partnering space Jodie was an Occupational Therapist who has worked for more than 25 years in the field of cancer care. She has completed a PhD which explored the distress associated with cancer treatment.

Jodie is passionate about embedding person-centred care into health service delivery via a systems approach, and to use best practice evidence to support the voice of the consumer to inform how we deliver health services.

Panellist

Dr Ruth Cox is the Director Occupational Therapy at the QEII Hospital, in Metro South Health, Brisbane Australia. She is passionate about partnering with consumers in quality improvement and research so that all voices can influence healthcare.

Her other research interests include models of care, skill mix, and co-design.

Panellist

Kelsey Pateman is the Principal Research Fellow for Allied Health at the RBWH. Kelsey originally is an Oral Health Therapist and completed her PhD research in 2017.

Kelsey champions consumer partnership in research and is a passionate advocate for co-design.