Dr Brett Abbenbroek is the Program Manager of Sepsis Australia and the Asia Pacific Sepsis Alliance (APSA) in the Critical Care Division at The George Institute. 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 extensive critical care clinical, education and management experience. His qualifications include intensive care, health management, a Bachelor of Science and Masters in Public Health. In May 2018 he completed his doctoral studies into the efficiency and effectiveness of organisational models in critical care and the impact on patient and nurse outcomes. Study findings inform the Australasian Health Facility Guidelines for new and redeveloped ICU’s.

Early in his career, Brett worked on several projects within developing nations including Nepal, Vanuatu and China to establish cardiac surgical and critical care programs. Concurrently, Brett gained experience in a range of health policy, planning, project management, digital health and clinical safety advisory roles. As the State-wide Coordinator for Critical Care Service Planning (NSW) across ICU, ED and medical retrieval services he worked closely with clinicians to enhance the development, integration and delivery of critical care services. This led to a successful Treasury bid for funding to build and implement the electronic Record for Intensive Care (NSW) for which Brett was the Program Manager for Change and Adoption. A health service planning and management consultancy business followed leading to project management roles within the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care on a series of national eHealth clinical safety programs,  electronic medication safety and the development of evidence-based national clinical care standards. This experience was integral to the development and launch of the national Sepsis Clinical Care Standard in June 2022 which places Australia at the forefront globally towards achieving a systems-based approach for improving outcomes and reducing the burden of sepsis.

Briar is a National Heart Foundation of Australia Postdoctoral Research Fellow and Accredited Practicing Dietitian within the Food Policy Division and the Professorial Unit at The George Institute for Global Health, Sydney. She is also a conjoint lecturer with UNSW. Her work is currently focused on two main areas: firstly, investigating the relationship between diet and poor brain health in Australia, and secondly, scaling-up of food policy interventions in Pacific Island Countries.

Briar was awarded her PhD in March 2022. Her PhD focused on investigating the relationship of sex and gender with the diet-related burden of cardiometabolic diseases. She used both quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate this topic. Throughout her PhD she worked as a research associate for the WHO Collaborating Center on Population Salt Reduction, at The George Institute.

Briar holds an undergraduate degree in Nutritional Science (BSc) and a Master’s of Dietetics (MDiet) from the University of Otago, New Zealand.

Camila is a General Practitioner from Colombia with experience in primary health and community care. Camila’s research focus has been on cultural safety and cultural safety training for medical students. More recently, she has developed a special interest in the health and wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Her research focuses on addressing health inequalities and the impact of colonisation and intergenerational trauma on the health and wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. She completed a master’s degree in Public Health and joined the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Program at the George Institute for Global Health in 2021. Currently, Camila is involved in the design, implementation and evaluation of diverse research projects that work at the knowledge interface to improve Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health outcomes from diverse settings including medical education, healthcare, and community settings. 

Dr Candice Delcourt is a clinician researcher. She holds an NHMRC Investigator Grant, Synergy Grant and MRFF funding. She is a Senior Research Fellow and Head of the Neurology Program at The George Institute.

She is a Clinical Associate Professor at Macquarie University and a Conjoint Senior Lecture at The University of New South Wales. She is a practicing neurologist in Sydney and in rural outreach locations. Her research interests are stroke, health systems, clinical trials and epidemiology.

Carinna Hockham is a postdoctoral Research Associate in the Global Women’s Health Program at The George Institute for Global Health, Imperial College London.

She has an MSc in Control of Infectious Diseases from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and a DPhil in Epidemiology from the University of Oxford. Her current research primarily involves the use of large population databases, together with linked routinely-collected health data, to examine sex- and gender-based differences in risk factors for chronic kidney disease and multimorbidity, as well as associated health outcomes and health service use. In addition, Carinna has worked on multiple randomised controlled trials involving novel adaptive methodology (e.g. BEAT-Calci and CLARITY) and was an inaugural Fellow of the Innovative Trials Development Group at the Institute. 

As a Research Strategy & Services Advisor, Carlyn manages the administration of a range of funding, from the initial process of application through to post-award management.

In her role as Quality Assurance Coordinator, she is involved in the implementation of academic risk management processes.

Carlyn joined The George Institute in 2011. She has a PhD in Infectious Diseases & Immunology and additional Commercialisation training through the Graduate Certificate in Innovation & Enterprise program through The University of Sydney.

Catherine Brenner is a Non-Executive Director of Scentre Group (Westfield), Djerriwarrh Investments, Carindale Property Trust and Schools Plus, and Chair of Australian Payments Plus. She is also a Panel Member of Adara Partners.

Catherine was previously Managing Director at ABN AMRO Australia & New Zealand (formerly BZW). She is the former Chair of AMP and served on the boards of Catherine was previously Managing Director at ABN AMRO Australia & New Zealand (formerly BZW). She is the former Chair of AMP and served on the boards of Coca-Cola Amatil, Boral, Sydney Opera House and the Art Gallery of NSW.

Catherine joined the Board in August 2019 and is Chair of the Audit Committee and Member of the Risk Committee.

Catherine is a Associate Project Manager working in the Injury Division at The George Institute for Global Health. Catherine has been working within the Injury space since 2014. With a background in Health and Health Promotion, her expertise lies within child safety, particularly, child passenger safety in vehicles.

Her main roles are in project delivery and management. Catherine has extensive experience preparing ethics applications for committee reviews, recruiting participants for projects, developing databases to meet project needs, collecting data from research participants, managing research and participant data to ensure compliance, drafting reports to stakeholders and manuscripts for publication. She recently completed data collection for a randomised controlled trial involving 427 participants. Catherine conducted home visits to assess correctness of car seat installation 6-months after parents/families received an intervention developed by the research team.

Previously, Catherine has conducted qualitative interviews with parents and families from culturally and linguistically diverse communities to identify user needs in child restraint safety information. Similarly, she has been involved in focus group work with motorcyclists to investigate rider needs in protective clothing. Aside from conducting fieldwork, she has also been involved in numerous laboratory-based studies focusing on improving usability of child restraints and improving the comprehension and delivery of child restraint safety information.

Chris is the Programme Director for Multiple Long-Term Conditions at The George Institute for Global Health, UK and Clinical Reader in Global Brain Health at Imperial College London. He works clinically as a Cognitive Neurologist at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust in London.

He has a particular interest in the impact of multiple long-term conditions upon cognitive function in low and middle income countries and leads a programme of research on dementia and its co-morbidities in Latin America. His work is driven by the belief that high-quality, multi-disciplinary science can and should drive changes in public policy for the benefit of those most in need.

Chris trained in medicine at the universities of Cambridge and Edinburgh and completed specialist training in cognitive neurology in San Francisco and Oxford. His research has explored the ways in which memory and thinking are affected by brain diseases such as dementia and epilepsy. At The George Institute and Imperial College London, Chris’ work focuses on evaluating and improving brain health amongst disadvantaged communities and understanding how this relates to burden of chronic disease.

Professor Clara Chow is a cardiologist committed to reducing the burden of cardiovascular disease through prevention and innovative approaches to achieve this. She is Program Director Community Based Cardiac Services, Westmead Hospital and Professor of Medicine, Western Clinical School, Sydney Medical School, University of Sydney.

She has a PhD in Medicine from the University of Sydney and completed a postdoc in Cardiovascular epidemiology and clinical trials at McMaster University, Canada. Clara holds a Career Development Fellowship of the NHMRC co-funded by the National Heart Foundation. She has over 100 publications, focused on clinical and community approaches to cardiovascular prevention and including papers in leading international journals. She led the initial TEXT ME trial that showed text messaging programs were effective in lowering cholesterol, blood pressure and weight in patients with coronary heart disease. 

Daisy Coyle is a Research Fellow at The George Institute, Accredited Practising Dietitian (APD) and a Conjoint Lecturer at UNSW. She leads a program of work evaluating food policies to achieve healthier and more equitable diets. This research is supported by an NHMRC Emerging Leader Investigator Grant (2024-2028) and a Heart Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship (2024-2025).

Daisy generates evidence to support the design and development of policies that can meaningfully improve public health and she works closely with NGOs, government, and public health and academic collaborators to translate this evidence into action. Her research interests span across ultra-processed foods, foods for early childhood, salt reduction and added sugars. She is also a media Dietitian and regularly provides expert commentary on a range of nutrition topics across radio, TV and print media nationally.

Daisy received her PhD from UNSW in 2021 for her work in evaluating efforts to improve the healthiness of the food supply in Australia, with a specific focus on food reformulation. Daisy also holds a Bachelor of Nutrition and Dietetics from the University of Newcastle (First Class Honours) and a Bachelor of Science (Nutrition and Metabolism & Physiology) from the University of Sydney.

Professor David Brieger is an interventional cardiologist and head of the coronary care and coronary interventions at Concord Hospital and Professor of Cardiology, University of Sydney. His particular clinical interests include coronary disease and atrial fibrillation and he practices across the full spectrum of cardiac disease. He maintains an active research interest in new antithrombotic drugs for cardiac conditions, and the promotion of high quality care for patients during and following their hospitalization.