Dr Brett Abbenbroek is the Program Manager of Sepsis Australia and the Asia Pacific Sepsis Alliance (APSA) in the Critical Care Program at The George Institute. His APSA responsibilities extend to a coalition of 23 countries across the Asia Pacific, managing region-wide initiatives in education, research and quality improvement for better outcomes in sepsis survivors. Stopping Sepsis - National Sepsis Action Plan. These responsibilities also extend to APSA which is a coalition of 23 countries across the Asia Pacific to manage regionwide initiatives in education, research and quality improvement for better outcomes in sepsis survivors.

Brett is a Registered Nurse with over 40 years of experience in clinical, education, research and management roles in critical care and emergency; and extensive international experience in establishing cardiac surgical and critical care services in China, Croatia, Indonesia, Nepal, and Vanuatu. His leadership role for critical care service planning in NSW includes the statewide integrated service model for intensive care and medical retrieval, NSW ECMO Helicopter Medical Retrieval Service, and the statewide electronic Record for Intensive Care. He established a health service planning and management consultancy business, leading to project management roles within the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care (ACSQHC) on the national eHealth and electronic medication safety program, and development national clinical care standards for health service accreditation.

In 2018, Brett completed his doctoral studies on the efficiency and effectiveness of critical care service models, and the association with organisational reliability and outcomes for patients and the nurse workforce (‘The Hot-Floor Study’). This work informs the Australasian Health Facility Guidelines for new and redeveloped ICUs. His track record in implementation research, linking research and practice, is exemplified in national and international studies on the efficacy of sepsis detection tools for incorporation into the ‘National Consensus Statement: Recognising and Responding to Acute Physiological Deterioration’; point-of-care testing for sepsis in remote Australia and for First Nations peoples; consumer based prioritisation for best practice in post sepsis models of care and associated clinical indicators for monitoring and evaluation within the Australian Health Service Safety and Quality Accreditation Scheme; and translation of global sepsis best practice guidelines through global Delphi expert consensus research into context specific guidelines for clinicians practicing in low resource settings.  

In his current role, Brett is driving implementation of the Stopping Sepsis National Action Plan and Sepsis Clinical Care Standard, and projects to reduce the impact and burden of sepsis. 

Mahesh Ramanan is a Senior Staff Specialist in Intensive Care Medicine at Caboolture Hospital and Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital, QLD, Australia. His main research interests include long-term outcomes of critical illness, pragmatic clinical trials and big data. During his training in Intensive Care Medicine, Mahesh completed a Masters degree in clinical epidemiology at the University of Sydney and was awarded a PhD from University of New South Wales under the supervision of Professor Balasubramanian Venkatesh investigating the evolution of trials methodology and recruitment challenges in critical care clinical trials.

Mahesh is the principal investigator of a currently recruiting MRFF-funded cluster-randomised trial of fluid therapy in diabetic ketoacidosis and is a chief investigator and/or management committee member of several NHMRC/MRFF funded clinical trials.

He is the current Chair of the Queensland Critical Care Research Network. Mahesh's vision for the Network is to bring pragmatic research to peripheral, non-tertiary hospitals which have traditionally not played a major role in clinical research.

Dr Serena Knowles is the Program Manager for the Critical Care Program at The George Institute for Global Health. Serena supports the Program Head and Program Lead in managing all aspects of the Critical Care program, including operational activities, business administration, management of grant applications and program strategy and development.

Serena is a nurse researcher, with over 15 years of clinical critical care experience and over 14 years of research experience. Serena completed her PhD in 2016 investigating the use of an evidence-based implementation strategy to effect clinician behaviour change and to improve clinical practice in the area of bowel management within the intensive care unit. Prior to working at The George Institute, she worked as a Research Coordinator for ICU and neurology trials. Since working at The Institute, she has worked in numerous roles, including Clinical Research Associate, Project Manager, and Operations Lead.

She is the current Co-Convener for the Point Prevalence Program, a collaboration between TGI and the Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Society. Serena has an interest in process evaluation and implementation science.

Manoj continues to practise as an Intensive Care Physician and is based part-time at St. George Public Hospital in Sydney, playing a key role in the intensive care research program with Professor John Myburgh. He is also a Conjoint Lecturer at the Faculty of Medicine, UNSW.

His postgraduate qualifications include Fellowship of both the Royal College of Physicians in the United Kingdom and Australia and Fellowship of the College of Intensive Care Medicine.

Research interests include large scale clinical observational and randomised trials. Further specific areas of research interest include the role of fever in severe infections and acute brain injury, Intensive Care Unit Acquired Weakness and Early Mobility, and Outcome Evaluation in Critical Care Medicine research.

Dr Kelly Thompson is a National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia Emerging Leader with The George Institute for Global Health. Concurrently she is Director of Research Operations at Nepean Blue Mountains Local Health District. 

She holds a Doctor of Philosophy and Master of Public Health from the School of Population Health within the Faculty of Medicine at UNSW, Sydney. She is a Registered Nurse, with a Bachelor of Nursing from the University of Newcastle, with clinical experience in intensive care. 

Kelly's primary research interest is in health equity in the clinical area of infection and sepsis. She uses population level data to understand and improve equity in health outcomes for survivors of sepsis and critical illness.  

Lachlan is an Intensive Care Specialist who works at Royal North Shore Hospital, Sydney. He holds appointments as Honorary Research Fellow at The George Institute, and Senior Lecturer at the University of Sydney.

Lachlan is an early career researcher having completed his PhD in 2025 (UNSW). He has an interest in Acute Kidney Injury research, as well as sepsis, neurocritical care, burns injury and the quality of ICU survivorship for patients and their carers. He previously completed a masters focused on analytical bias in meta-analysis.  

Professor Simon Finfer AO is a Professorial Fellow in the Critical Care Division at The George Institute for Global Health, Adjunct Professor at the University of New South Wales and Professor of Critical Care, School of Public Health, Imperial College London. 

Simon leads the Sepsis Research Program at The George Institute which is focussed on the design and conduct of robust high-quality RCTs that will reduce death and disability due to sepsis in Australia and around the world. 

Simon has obtained over $50M in research funding and authored or co-authored over 250 peer-reviewed papers with 20% of those in the highest-ranking medical journals. He served as a guest editor for the New England Journal of Medicine from 2012 to 2014 and is currently an editor of the Oxford Textbook of Critical Care and the Critical Care Section Editor of the Oxford Textbook of Medicine. 

Simon was a founding member and is a past-Chair of the Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Society (ANZICS) Clinical Trials Group, past chair of the International Sepsis Forum, and past Vice President of the Global Sepsis Alliance. He is the Director of the Australian Sepsis Network and Asia Pacific Sepsis Alliance. 

A Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences, Simon was appointed an Officer (AO) in the Order of Australia in the Queen's Birthday Honours List 2020 for "distinguished service to intensive care medicine, to medical research and education, and to global health institutes." 

Anthony Delaney is a Fellow of the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine and the College of Intensive Care Medicine. He is a Professorial Fellow in the Division of Critical Care at the George Institute for Global Health, also holding appointments as Associate Professor at Sydney Medical School, University of Sydney and an adjunct Associate Professor at the Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Research Centre, in the Department of Epidemiology and Preventative Health at Monash University. He maintains a clinical role as Senior Staff Specialist in the Malcolm Fisher Department of Intensive Care Medicine at The Royal North Shore Hospital.

Associate Professor Delaney's major research interests are centred on improving methods of resuscitation of patients with sepsis and septic shock and improving outcomes for patients suffering acute severe brain injuries.

Dr Kumar is a Public Health researcher pursuing his PhD in the area of ICD-coded sepsis disease burden at the Critical Care Division of the George Institute for Global Health, and working as Research Associate with the Australian Sepsis Network.

Dr Kumar is a physician having a postgraduate degree in clinical pharmacology and an experienced medical researcher with more than 14 years of cumulative academic-industry experience. In addition to his academic achievements, he has worked extensively in various roles ranging from early-to-late phase clinical and medical research. He has extensive clinical trials management and operational experience including large multinational studies.