Veronica Le Nevez is Head of Impact and Engagement Australia at The George Institute for Global Health, where she leads the Institute’s advocacy and policy engagement activities in Australia and the Pacific region to help increase the impact of the institute’s health and medical research. Programmes of activity include preventive health, food and nutrition, primary care, injury, better treatments for non-communicable diseases, women’s health and critical care, and others.

Veronica has spent her career in public policy, having worked extensively in the environment portfolio and in digital innovation. Prior to joining The George Institute, Veronica was General Manager Policy and Advocacy at the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, and held policy development and implementation roles at the University of Sydney. Veronica has a Bachelor of Science in Resource and Environmental Management, and a Master of Environmental Science from Macquarie University and is currently studying a Masters of Business Administration at the University of New South Wales.

Georgia is a Senior Policy and Advocacy Advisor for the Impact and Engagement team at The George Institute, based in the Sydney office. Georgia supports the Institute’s advocacy and political engagement activities in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region. Her main programmes of activity include women’s health, preventive health, and improving health systems to achieve equity.

Georgia White is an experienced policy professional focused on global health both within government and the non-profit sector. Prior to joining The George Institute, she worked for several years at a global non-profit focused on HIV and TB in New York City. She has also worked as a senior policy adviser within the Victorian Government and in Cambodia as part of Australia’s official development assistance program. Georgia has a Bachelor of Arts in Communication from the University of Technology, Sydney, and a Master in Health Policy from The University of Sydney. 

Prasanthi is an injury epidemiologist focusing on monitoring and evaluation of child road safety projects in 6 countries through the Botnar Foundation and working with longitudinal data to analyse gender differences and injuries amongst a large cohort of adolescents from Vietnam, Peru, Ethiopia and India.

Prasanthi obtained her medical degree from Cambridge University (UK), and then spent over a decade working within the field of injury prevention at Johns Hopkins (Baltimore, US). With a young family and move back to the UK, she wanted to be part of a dynamic and innovative team slightly closer to home and was therefore thrilled to have the opportunity to join the George Institute, UK, helping to further develop the injury research portfolio.

Associate Professor Naomi Hammond is the Critical Care Program Head at The George Institute for Global Health. She also works part-time as the Intensive Care Clinical Research Manager at Royal North Shore Hospital, Sydney, Australia. Naomi holds several other appointments including NHMRC Emerging Leader Fellow; Conjoint Associate Professor at the Faculty of Medicine, University of New South Wales; an Editorial Board Member for Australian Critical Care Journal; Chair of the Australian Critical Care Nurses Research Advisory Panel; and Senior Research Fellow with the Australian Sepsis Network.

Naomi is a clinical nurse researcher and has led a program of sepsis research through international collaborations including facilitating 4 clinical trials in COVID-19 in India.  She leads the Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Society Point Prevalence program. She has also undertaken international point prevalence studies including a large epidemiological study of patients with sepsis in Indian ICUs. Called the SIPS (Sepsis in India Prevalence) study, it has provided vital insights into changing epidemiology with different sepsis definitions, bacteriology, and antimicrobial resistance patterns.

Naomi’s main research interests include fluid resuscitation, sepsis, fever management, knowledge translation and implementation research, health economics, and long-term outcomes post-critical illness. Naomi has experience supervising and mentoring medical trainees, nursing staff, PhD, Masters and medical students in both the clinical and academic environment.

Additional to Naomi’s academic portfolio, she also has extensive clinical trials operational management experience including finance, regulatory processes, personnel, project and program management in a clinical and NGO environment.

Frances Bass works part-time at The George Institute for Global Health as a Senior Project Manager in the Critical Care Program. She also works at Royal North Shore Hospital as an Intensive Care Clinical Research Manager.

Frances is a Registered Nurse having completed a Bachelor of Nursing, Graduate Certificate in Critical Care, and Masters of Science (Research). She has extensive experience in the management of critical care clinical trials operations including, investigator-initiated, collaborative group and commercially sponsored trials.

Frances sits on a number of scientific management committees. She is Secretary for the Australian College of Critical Care Nurses (ACCCN) NSW/ACT Branch Management Committee and a member on the ACCCN Research Advisory Committee. She is also a reviewer and committee member of the Northern Sydney Local Health District, Human Research Ethics Committee.

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 TGI, she worked as a Research Coordinator for ICU and neurology trials. Since working at TGI, 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.

Anna is working as an Associate Project Manager working on the STARS (stroke) and STEPCARE (cardiac arrest) studies. Since joining The George Institute in 2019 she has worked as a Senior Clinical Research Associate on various studies, both in Critical Care as well as other medical fields.  Prior to her employment at The George Institute, Anna was a Clinical Trials and Research Coordinator for the Intensive Care Units at Western Health, Victoria.  Anna has also worked as a Clinical Research Associate for Orion Clinical Services (CRO) and as a Research Coordinator for the Gastroenterology Department at Box Hill Hospital.  She also has a Bachelor of Biomedical Science with Honors from the University of South Australia, a Postgraduate Diploma in Forensic Science from La Trobe University and a Postgraduate Certificate in Business Administration from Swinburne University.

Karena Conroy leads the Consumer and Community Involvement Program at The George Institute for Global Health, having established this central support structure from the ground up. She is a health research facilitator and occasional researcher, with an educational background in the social sciences, psychology, and a PhD in Health.

Her work focuses on improving and increasing consumer and community involvement in health research across the Institute and the wider health and medical research sector. Karena brings together knowledge and experience from both health research and lived experience of health conditions, enabling her to bridge these perspectives effectively.

Karena is committed to involving community members in meaningful, impactful ways that align with best practice. She is passionate about improving population health and believes that working collaboratively with those affected by health research is key to achieving better outcomes.