Steering Committee
Prof Natasha Smallwood is the Professor and Director of Respiratory Medicine at the Alfred Hospital (Melbourne) and School of Translational Medicine at Monash University (Melbourne, Australia). In addition to her respiratory qualifications, she holds postgraduate qualifications in Medical Leadership, Epidemiology and Palliative Care.
Prof Smallwood has authored over 150 publications and been awarded approximately $12 million as major research grants. She has clinical and research interests in severe lung disease, particularly chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and interstitial lung disease.
Prof Smallwood is the President for the Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand, a past Board Director for the Victorian Doctors Health Program (Australia), and holds multiple leadership roles. She is a taskforce member for various national and international respiratory guidelines. She recently worked with the Australian Commission for Safety and Quality in Healthcare to develop the first ever national clinical care standard in respiratory medicine for people with COPD.
A/Prof James Fingleton is Clinical Director Sub-speciality Medicine and a respiratory physician at Wellington Hospital. James is also an Associate Professor at the University of Otago, Wellington. He has a sub-specialist interest in asthma and COPD and was lead for the previous NZ National Asthma audit. He is a Fellow of the Thoracic Society of Australia New Zealand (TSANZ) NZ branch and Co-Chief Investigator of the Australia New Zealand Respiratory Audit Program (ANZRAP).
James also teaches as a Senior Clinical Lecturer at the University of Otago, Wellington and is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board and Asthma and COPD guidelines committees of the Asthma and Respiratory Foundation New Zealand.
Dr Jennifer (Jenny) Alison is Emeritus Professor, Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney, previously Professor of Respiratory Physiotherapy, University of Sydney and Professor of Allied Health, Sydney Local Health District. She has supervised 28 PhD students to completion and was awarded an Australian Government Office of Learning and Teaching Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning.
Jenny is a Fellow of the European Respiratory Society and Fellow of Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand (TSANZ), was awarded the TSANZ 50 th Anniversary Medal for Education and Training and an Inaugural Lung Health Legends Award, Lung Foundation Australia. Jenny has extensive experience in leading large multi-site funded clinical trials and has over 230 publications, h-index 41. Jenny has a strong commitment to improving outcomes for people with chronic lung disease.
Prof John Blakey is the Head of Department of Respiratory Medicine at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital in Perth. He is the medical advisor for Asthma Australia and is proud to be working as part of a multi-professional team towards halving asthma admissions in Australia. John is a Clinical Professor at Curtin University Medical School and has a record of award-winning health services research.
A/Prof Joy Lee leads the Asthma and Allergy Unit at the Austin Hospital and consults for Melbourne Allergy Asthma & Immunology Consultants, as well as in the public sector at the Alfred Hospital and Monash Medical Centre. She has a special interest in the management and treatment of allergic diseases, including allergic rhinitis and allergic asthma. She has experience in the use of immunotherapy for grass pollen and dust mite allergy as well as monoclonal antibody treatments for severe asthma and urticaria.
Dr Lee has a PhD with the School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine at Monash University. Her thesis focus was on improving asthma inhaler usage and difficult to control asthma. She has also undertaken research on epidemic thunderstorm asthma.
Dr Lee is an investigator in clinical trials for therapies in asthma and allergic nasal disease. Her research has been recognised with awards from both the Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand and the National Asthma Council. She is a sought-after speaker, media expert and medical educator.
A/Prof Vidya Navaratnam is a respiratory physician and trained epidemiologist. Her research interests focus on utilising routinely collected health data (including the use of electronic healthcare records) to conduct large-scale epidemiological studies and health services research in people with chronic lung disease.
Ms Betty Poot is a Nurse Practitioner at Te Whatu Ora Capital Coast and Hutt Valley and adjunct teaching fellow at Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington New Zealand (NZ). She is a committee member of the TSANZ NZ branch and is a TSANZ fellow. With extensive experience in both patient care and clinical leadership, Betty has been on working groups, contributing to the development of best-practice guidelines in Asthma, COPD and Bronchiectasis.
Betty has a particular interest in bronchiectasis, actively contributing to research to enhance patient outcomes. Betty also leads nurse-led clinics, providing expert care, education, and support to patients with complex respiratory conditions in a multidisciplinary team setting.
As dedicated advocate for nursing, Betty is committed to promoting advanced nursing practice and nurse-led services particularly in respiratory nursing. Betty actively supports the profession, working to elevate the visibility, recognition, and impact of respiratory nurses in multidisciplinary teams.
Dr Amy Pascoe is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow with the Chronic Respiratory Disease Research Group at Monash University and Alfred Health in Melbourne, Victoria. Her research interests include symptom-supportive care, health service delivery, and healthcare equity in chronic respiratory disease.
Dr. Sanjay Ramakrishnan is a respiratory physician and clinician scientist at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital and the University of Western Australia. He specializes in asthma and COPD exacerbations, focusing on improving biological assessment and biomarker-guided treatments for these critical conditions. After training in Australia, he earned his PhD at Oxford University. He led multiple groundbreaking clinical trials in COPD during his time in Oxford. His research has led to national and international guideline change.
Sanjay is the current deputy convenor of COPD TSANZ Special Interest Group. He also has extensive editorial experience, acting as a COPD associate editor for Respirology, member of the COPD editorial board at Chest, and a junior editor for the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.
Now based in Perth, he leads his research group, aiming to ensure biomarker-guided treatment for every patient, in every clinical setting.
Dr Annie Walker is a specialist respiratory and sleep physician at the Central Adelaide Local Health Network in South Australia, having completed her specialist training at The Royal Adelaide and The Alfred Hospitals. She is currently completing a PhD through Monash University, examining new models of integrated palliative care and breathlessness management for people with lung cancer.
She has a post-graduate degree in medical education and is a clinical senior lecturer at the University of Adelaide. She serves on the executive committee for the South Australia and Northern Territory Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand (TSANZ), as well as the National TSANZ Lung Cancer Working Party. Her clinical and research interests include breathlessness, non-invasive ventilation and integration of palliative care in lung cancer and advanced respiratory diseases.
Prof Vanessa McDonald is a Professor of Nursing in the School of Nursing and Midwifery at the University of Newcastle, Australia and an honorary clinical nurse consultant in the Department of Respiratory and Sleep Medicine at John Hunter Hospital. She is Director of the Centre of Excellence in Asthma Treatable Traits, and the Hunter Medical Research Institute’s Asthma and Breathing programme.
Vanessa’s research interests are centred around the development of innovative approaches to the management of chronic airway diseases. She is passionate about the development and implementation of personalised medicine strategies that place the person at the centre of health care delivery.
Over 25 years Vanessa has developed expertise in respiratory clinical nursing practice and education, has contributed extensively to respiratory health advocacy and health policy and, is recognised as an internationally recognised respiratory researcher having published over 250 manuscripts or book chapters. She is committed to improving the health and quality of life of people with lung disease in our region and internationally, and to the mission of lung health.
Associate Professor Shivanthan Shanthikumar is a paediatric respiratory physician and researcher specializing in childhood asthma. He is the lead of the Complex Asthma service at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne and head of the Respiratory group at Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. Associate Professor Shanthikumar is passionate about bridging the gap between scientific discovery and clinical practice, ensuring that new insights translate into tangible benefits for patients. He has published widely in peer-reviewed journals, authored to paediatric asthma guidelines through the Paediatric Improvement Collaborative, assessed quality of asthma care in Victoria, and served as a clinical lead of the SaferCare Victoria Improving Childhood Asthma Management program. He regularly delivers education to clinicians regarding childhood asthma. He also works closely with consumers via multiple collaborations with Asthma Australia. Through his clinical care, research, education, and advocacy, Associate Professor Shanthikumar hopes to significantly reduce the burden associated with childhood asthma.
Dr Johnnie Walker trained in London and graduated in 2001, becoming a Consultant in Acute and Respiratory Medicine in Bradford, UK in 2012. Johnnie moved to New Zealand with his family in 2021 and is now a Respiratory specialist running the severe asthma clinic in Tauranga and is the asthma lead for Bay of Plenty. Johnnie is also an active member of the New Zealand Severe Asthma Network.
Prof Simon Craig is a Paediatric Emergency Physician at Monash Children’s Hospital, Adjunct Clinical Professor, Dept. of Paediatrics, Monash University and Honorary Research Fellow at Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. In addition to his emergency qualifications, he holds postgraduate qualifications in Medical Education and Public Health.
Prof Craig has authored over 150 publications and has been awarded over $40 million no major research grants. He has diverse research interests across paediatric critical illness, acute respiratory illnesses including asthma and bronchiolitis, clinical trials and observational studies.
Prof Craig is currently chair of the Paediatric Research in Emergency Departments International Collaborative (PREDICT) network. He has authored a number of Paediatric Emergency Medicine textbooks, and developed the Monash Children’s Paediatric Emergency Medication Book, which has been adapted for use internationally.
Dr Mike Forrester is a paediatric clinician-researcher with 25 years acute and ambulatory experience, and a general paediatric consultant at University Hospital Geelong.
Dr Forrester is a Snr Research Fellow with Deakin’s Institute for Health Transformation, and a nationally recognised leader in high-value, environmentally-sustainable healthcare research and implementation, recently leading the National Sustainable Asthma Care Roadmap. Recommendations arising from these roundtables, which engaged 50 organisations and sector leaders, are being progressed by the National Implementation-Committee for Quality and Sustainable Asthma Care (NICQSAR), which he co-chairs. This asthma sector coalition’s aim is to make asthma care better, safer, easier, more equitable, and environmentally sustainable for 2.8 million Australians.
Dr Forrester is a Chief Investigator (CIB) on a grant application for an NHMRC-funded pilot RCT evaluating anti-inflammatory reliever therapy (budesonide–formoterol) for adolescents presenting to emergency departments, and an AI on a 2026 CRE application in Acute Paediatric respiratory Illness.
Melinda McGinty is a Respiratory Clinical Nurse Specialist and Manager at Hutt Hospital. She has 25 years’ experience of working in Respiratory (including 10 years on a High Dependency Unit managing patients on Non Invasive Ventilation). She was also a Clinical Nurse Specialist in Immunology at Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust, England.
Melinda has an interest in Asthma, COPD and representing the nursing voice. She will become the Respiratory Nurse SIG, New Zealand Co–Convenor at the next SIG annual meeting; is founder and chair for the RN prescribing group, Hutt Hospital and member of RN prescribing Clinical Governance Group for her district. She was also lead for Hutt Hospital in the last NZ National Asthma Audit.
Dr Charmaine Gray is a Paediatric Emergency Physician and Director of Research at Flinders Medical Centre Emergency Department (Adelaide). She also holds a Senior Lecturer position at Flinders University. Dr Gray is a long standing member of the Paediatric Research in Emergency Departments International Collaborative (PREDICT) network and has recently been awarded her PhD which investigated the utility of asthma scores in shaping future practice in acute exacerbations of asthma. She is passionate about creating an evidence base for our care of children with asthma and incorporating the consumer voice in research. She has published widely in peer-reviewed journals and has co-authored textbook chapters on acute asthma.
Alex Wallace is a Paediatrician at Waikato Hospital in Hamilton New Zealand, and Senior
Lecturer in Paediatrics with the University of Auckland. She undertook her Paediatric training at Waikato Hospital and subsequently at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Edinburgh, and Great Ormond Street Hospital in London. After returning to NZ she worked as a Paediatrician at Tauranga Hospital before commencing a PhD in 2009 at the Liggins Institute under the supervision of Professor Dame Jane Harding. Since finishing her PhD, Alex has divided her time between her clinical, teaching, and research roles.
Alex’s main research interests are in the grass-roots Paediatric problems of bronchiolitis and preschool asthma. She is currently co-principal investigator of a large multi-centre randomised controlled trial investigating outcomes for children with acute moderate to severe exacerbations of preschool asthma treated with 1- versus 3-days of oral prednisolone.
Dr Libby Haskell is a paediatric emergency Nurse Practitioner, and New Zealand’s first in this specialty. She works in the Children’s Emergency Department at Starship Hospital, Auckland where she leads with clinical expertise and a commitment to improving outcomes for children and their families. Libby is also a senior research fellow at the University of Auckland and completed her PhD on improving care for infants with bronchiolitis through a cluster randomised controlled trial across 26 hospitals in New Zealand and Australia. This research was conducted within the Paediatric Research in Emergency Departments International Collaborative (PREDICT) network.
As an early career researcher, Libby contributes to high-impact paediatric clinical research. Her post-doctoral position involves co-ordinating two randomised controlled trials investigating best treatment for preschool wheeze/asthma and moderate-to-severe asthma in children aged 4 to 11 years. Her research interests span paediatric respiratory conditions, fever management, and knowledge translation. She is Vice-Chair of the PREDICT executive committee, playing a key role in shaping local, regional, national and international guidelines for bronchiolitis care.
Alexander Adamson is a Research Associate in Medical Statistics at Imperial College London, where he conducts analyses for the National Respiratory Audit Programme (England and Wales). He completed his PhD at Imperial in 2022, focusing on the evaluation of strategies to reduce the burden of COPD using Bayesian methods. Prior to this, he obtained a Master’s degree in Epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and a degree in Biological Sciences from the University of Oxford. In addition to his audit work, he is involved in numerous projects using Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) data, a large electronic healthcare record database comprising UK general practice records. His research interests include coding systems, Bayesian statistics, machine learning, and the analysis of large- scale electronic healthcare record data.
Prof Quint leads the Respiratory Electronic Health Record group, a clinical epidemiology research group whose interests centre on using various sources of de-identified, routinely collected electronic healthcare records to study a number of respiratory diseases. Work centres on maximising the quality, linkage and usage of these data for clinical and research purposes. Many of the outputs are used for informing policy, and in the planning and allocation of resources.
She leads NHSEngland’s Respiratory Data Strategy and is the Associate Director for the HDR UK A+LUK Respiratory Data Catalyst. She partners with the Royal College of Physicians where she is the Analysis Lead for the National Respiratory Audit Programme and is co-lead of the HDR UK Inflammation and Immunity Driver Program. She currently serves as joint Editor-in-chief of the journal Thorax.
Dr Jessica Costa-Pinto is a Paediatrician at Box Hill Hospital, Eastern Health, and an early career researcher completing her PhD at Deakin University, and is passionate about improving respiratory outcomes for her patients.
She is the PhD student and a Chief Investigator on the Children’s Inpatient Research Collaboration of Australia and New Zealand’s (CIRCAN’s) first NHMRC funded (>$1.6M) trial, involving over 45 hospitals across Australia and New Zealand. The Assessing the Reduction of Recurrent admissions using OM-85 for the treatment of preschool Wheeze (ARROW) is a multi-centre, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, aiming to reduce hospital presentations among preschool aged children with wheeze, and has recruited >1000 participants using a novel decentralised design.
Dr Payal Mandaliya is a Paediatric Respiratory Physician and General Paediatrician at Maitland Hospital, NSW, and Conjoint Senior Lecturer at the University of Newcastle. She is an ERS HERMES Diplomate in Paediatric Respiratory Medicine and is currently undertaking a Master’s in Sleep Medicine at the University of Sydney.
Her clinical and research work focuses on paediatric respiratory conditions, particularly asthma, preschool wheeze, and congenital thoracic malformations. She is a site investigator for the multicentre ARROW trial and has published in peer-reviewed journals.
Dr Mandaliya is actively involved in clinical governance and medical education through her work with the RACP, AMC Workplace-Based Assessment program, and the NSW Agency for Clinical Innovation. She is committed to improving paediatric asthma care through streamlined management and the standardisation of asthma action plans across care settings.
Sam Dalton is a Respiratory & Sleep Paediatrician working at Christchurch Hospital, Waitaha Canterbury, Aotearoa New Zealand. He undertook Paediatric training in Christchurch, then Respiratory & Sleep fellowships in Melbourne at Monash Children’s Hospital and The Royal Children’s Hospital. Sam enjoys the full spectrum of Paediatric Respiratory & Sleep care from practical problem-solving for patients and whānau, to contributing to national and Australasian networks, audits and guideline groups in the areas of Asthma, Cystic fibrosis, Bronchiectasis, and Obstructive Sleep Apnoea.
As an honorary Clinical Lecturer for University of Otago and as the Paediatric Representative on the RACP Aotearoa NZ Respiratory and Sleep Advanced Training committee he is keen to support others joining the field. Sam has followed a primarily clinical rather than research career path but has been involved in publications on a variety of subjects and was NZ primary investigator on an international multi-site cystic fibrosis trial.
Professor Stuart Dalziel is the Cure Kids Chair of Child Health Research at the University of Auckland, where he is also a Professor of Paediatrics and Emergency Medicine. Clinically he works as a Paediatric Emergency Medicine Physician in the Children’s Emergency Department at Starship Children’s Hospital, where he is also the Director of Emergency Medicine Research.
Stuart’s research is strongly aligned to his everyday clinical practice as a Paediatric Emergency Medicine Physician. It focuses on both medical emergencies, such as status epilepticus, and common paediatric conditions, such as asthma, bronchiolitis, and the use of paracetamol and ibuprofen. Stuart has undertaken one of the largest randomised controlled trial of children in New Zealand looking at prevention of asthma and has lead trials of ICS/LABA in children. Stuart has received over $NZ85 million in research support and has published over 280 peer-reviewed papers.
Professor Vijaya Sundararajan is the National Director of Health Equity Research, St Vincent’s Health Australia. She initially qualified as a general physician before completing research fellowships in epidemiology and health services research. She is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians.
Upon arriving in Australia, she worked to develop Victoria’s data linkage capabilities, secured funding for the establishment of the Centre for Victorian Data Linkage and served as its Inaugural Director until 2011.
Professor Sundararajan has been a Chief Investigator on 5 NHMRC/MRFF grants, published 216 peer reviewed papers and on the Editorial Board of the journal Health Services Research and the World Health Organization’s Topic Advisory Group on Quality and Safety. She has also served as Head, Department of Public Health, La Trobe University.
Vijaya’s research aims to understand health outcomes in chronic disease from diagnosis to the end of life and to investigate health system efficiency and equity.
