Plenary Speaker: Professor Trevor Russell

Professor Trevor Russell is the Director of the RECOVER Injury Research Centre where he leads a stream of research on Technology Enabled Rehabilitation. He is also co-director of both the Centre for Research in Telerehabilitation and the Telerehabilitation Clinic at the University of Queensland. His research focusses on the use of digital technologies for the remote delivery of health services with a particular focus on telerehabilitation technologies. His work is amongst the earliest and most extensive in this field.

Invited Speaker: Dr Clare Burns

Invited Speaker: Dr Clare Burns

Dr Clare Burns is an Advanced Speech Pathologist and Clinician Research Fellow, Royal Brisbane & Women’s Hospital, Queensland and an Honorary Senior Lecturer at The University of Queensland, Australia (UQ).  She has over 20 years of clinical experience and over the last 12 years has conducted research in speech pathology and technology enabled health care. She has developed, evaluated and implemented a range of telehealth services incorporating speech pathology (specifically swallowing and head and neck cancer services), multidisciplinary care, and broader allied health services.  Dr Burns co-authored Speech Pathology Australia’s Position Statement on Telepractice and the Clinical Oncology Society of Australia’s Clinical Practice Guidelines for Teleoncology. She is a guest lecturer for undergraduate and post graduate students at UQ and an invited presenter at national and international conferences. She is an Affiliate of Centre for Research in Telerehabilitation and Centre for Research Excellence in Telehealth, UQ.

Invited Speaker: Dr Susan de Jersey

Invited Speaker: Dr Susan de Jersey

Dr Susan de Jersey is an Advanced Accredited Practicing Dietitian and Metro North Health Clinician Research Fellow.

She has significant clinical experience working in rural, remote and metropolitan areas across the health care continuum in Australia and the United Kingdom.

Susan’s research focusses on clinically relevant perinatal health concerns and translation into clinical practice. She has a national reputation as an expert and leader in early life nutrition. Her program of research is focussed on understanding the role of weight and nutrition in improving outcomes for mothers and their offspring in the reproductive years.

Susan is a clinical leader to a team of dietitians working in antenatal care across Metro North. She provides care to women and their families within the antenatal clinic at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital. Susan’s team work to implement and evaluate routine practice changes to ensure women are provided with evidence informed care.

Facilitator: A/Prof Ingrid Hickman

Facilitator: A/Prof Ingrid Hickman

A/Prof Ingrid Hickman is an Advanced Accredited Practicing Dietitian with a PhD in metabolic medicine from the University of Queensland.

For the last 10 years she has led a multidisciplinary clinical research team as the principal research fellow with the Nutrition and Dietetic department at the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane.

Her career has focused on translating scientific evidence supporting ‘food as medicine’ into improved clinical care for people with chronic metabolic conditions.

From mechanisms of disease progression through to patient centred co-design of health services, A/Prof Hickman’s eclectic approach to medical research aims to find solutions to health care problems and build research capacity in clinical staff.

Panel member: Dr Rachelle Pitt

Panel member: Dr Rachelle Pitt

Rachelle is a Speech Pathologist with a background in the development and translation of clinical interventions to the online environment; an academic pathway sparked by service delivery challenges faced working in rural Queensland.

She has worked in academia and health including clinical practice, clinical education, teaching, and research development. Rachelle is currently leading the statewide research capacity building agenda for Health Practitioners within the Allied Health Professions’ Office of Queensland.

Rachelle is passionate about supporting clinicians with great ideas to navigate the world of research and knowledge translation, and demonstrating the value of clinician research through work that can be rapidly translated into practice.

Invited Speaker: Dr Kirsten Strudwick

Invited Speaker: Dr Kirsten Strudwick

Kirsten works as a primary-contact physiotherapist in the QEII Emergency Department. She completed her PhD in 2020, which developed tools we can use to measure quality of care for common presentations to the ED.

She really enjoys her new role of being a “Clinician-Scientist” with some ongoing research activities, however admits to finding the balance of clinical load, research and motherhood challenging.

Invited Speaker: Professor Liz Ward

Invited Speaker: Professor Liz Ward

Prof Ward, BSpThy(hons), Grad Cert Ed, PhD, FSPAA, is the Director of the Centre for Functioning and Health Research (CFAHR) in Queensland Health and Professor in the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences at The University of Queensland.

She is a leading international researcher with over 350 publications, and has been a keynote/invited speaker in more than 20 countries. Her research interests primarily centre on the practice area of dysphagia, with particular interest in acute care populations and patients receiving management for head and neck cancer.

She has had extensive experience in health services research: building evidence for clinical practice areas, evaluating new models of care and addressing undergraduate/workforce clinical training issues.

Through her leadership role within CFAHR, Prof Ward has assisted numerous clinical teams to implement and evaluate new models of care. She is passionate about improving health services for patients and reducing the “research-to-practice” gap in evidence implementation.

Her work has led to many health service enhancements and has validated multiple new and expanded clinical roles in both speech pathology and other allied health professions.

In 2014, Professor Ward was made “Fellow” of Speech Pathology Australia in recognition of the standing of her contributions to the profession.

Invited Speaker: Dr Marianne Wyder

Invited Speaker: Dr Marianne Wyder

Dr Marianne Wyder is a social worker with a background in sociology. Over the past 20 years she has worked in various research and clinical positions in the Government, Non-Government and University sector.

Her research experience spans the health sector and includes expert knowledge on mental health issues, capacity building, inequality, involuntary treatment, family breakdown, gender, drug and/or alcohol abuse and suicidal behaviours.

She is currently employed as a Senior Research Fellow in Metro South Addiction and Mental Health services where her role involves conducting and facilitating practice based research, service evaluations, as well as supporting clinicians to undertake practice based research projects.