My goal is to help prevent and alleviate suffering for the sickest, poorest, and most vulnerable people through research and discovery. I try to focus on mental health research for the socially disadvantaged.
I have 9 years of experience applying machine learning and biostatistics to clinical/public health research (27 articles on PubMed +700 citations) and 4 years of experience in clinical psychiatry, where I treated patients. I have general medical registration with AHPRA.
My research includes the areas of poverty, crime, social disadvantage, prenatal drug abuse, prematurity, children with disabilities, mental health, out-of-home care, addiction, Aboriginal Health, communicable diseases, cancer, heart disease, smoking cessation, breastfeeding, health and well-being, health education and aged care.
Perinatal Drug Exposure, prematurity and inhaled nitric oxide treatment, bronchopulmonary dysplasia, unsupervised clustering of neonatal ICU infants and short-term/long-term outcomes/cost to health services/education /, out-of-home care outcomes and service utilisation for babies and their mothers. Results of a population birth cohort 'Joining the Dots' of 1.8 million babies and their mothers in NSW between 2001 and 2020. Methods focused on causal mediation analysis.
Supervising Clinicians and Honours Research Students as a Medical Statistician and co-supervisor. Two of my honours students were Gold Medallists in their seminar series.
For Phase 1 and Early Phase 2 Studies in neuroleptic/psychotropic/analgesic medication with a focus on psychedelics: Statistical Analysis Plans Data Analysis Randomisation Schedule Sample Size Calculations
Innovation in Data Related Planning and Tasks Advising Sponsors in Sponsor Meetings
Leading the external communications team for answering questions from the public regarding the Sydney COVID Lockdown
Leading a team in the management of Adverse Effects following Immunisation for COVID
Contributing to the containment of a COVID outbreak in Lockdown
As an Investigator, designing and overseeing a real world implementation RCT of Co-designed Universal Micro-messaging Health Education Videos for Breastfeeding in Rural Mothers in South Africa.
National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre (WHO Collaborating Research Centre), UNSW
January 2020
to December 2020
Sydney
Investigating the role of Social Disadvantage in Criminal Trajectories of those using Drugs as the index offence.
Evaluation of an Aboriginal Cultural Competency Program for non-Aboriginal Drug Rehabs
Supervising an Aboriginal PhD Student in research for a Continuous Quality Improvement of Aboriginal Residential Drug Rehabs
RCT Evaluating Health Education Videos for Breastfeeding delivered by "Mentor Mothers" for Poor Mothers in South Africa. In collaboration with Stanford University and Heidelberg University
Assessing the effectiveness of oseltamivir prophylaxis in preventing Influenza outbreaks in Aged Care Facilities.
Estimating Childhood Disability in Southwest Sydney and advocating a state-wide Child Disability Register
Outbreak Control (eg Measles; Gastro in a school, child care or aged care facility; Influenza in an Aged Care Facility)
Educating district aged care facility managers ad nursing staff on managing and preventing the spread of influenza outbreaks in a one day teaching session
Environmental Health Risk Assessments (PFAS, M12 noise and vibration, Establish Surveillance for Lead Notification with a high-risk Lead Battery Manufacturer, Mercury in Fish)
Speeding up the management of Syphilis notification through automating repetitive data entry tasks using R and Adobe Optical Character Recognition for data extraction and processing.
Teaching and upskilling staff in research methods and assisting the Medical Epidemiologist in reporting and surveillance work (Annual STI report | Published Meta-Analysis of Gonorrhoea prevalence and antibiotic resistance for studies in the past 30 years in Australia and New Zealand)
Assessing the need for screening for Latent Tuberculosis Infection for refugee children under 2 years
The Albion Centre - (WHO Collaborating Research Centre)
February 2016
to July 2016
Sydney
HIV research and gaining exposure to HIV medicine as well as training and enabling staff in research methods.
HIV Complexity - Described the increasing burden of comorbidities in patients with HIV, where care needs a multi-disciplinary team approach. Used directed acyclic graphs.
HIV Smoking Audit - Predicting which patients will benefit most from a smoking cessation intervention
Worked in Psychiatry treating Aboriginal People with mental illness from remote areas.
Took the history and mental state of patients and liaised with the multidisciplinary team. Prescribed medication, performed on-call duties, did ECT under supervision
Taught Medical students about psychiatry regularly by teaching them psychiatric theory and interview skills
Worked empathically under pressure, Treated quite severe mental illness
Caring for mentally ill patients under consultant psychiatrist supervision o Elicit History and Mental State to adjust medication. o Communicate with the multidisciplinary team and family+carers of the patient. o Clozapine and Outpatient Clinics