Working Group 2022

Digital Health Week is supported by a Working Group with member representation from the University of Sydney and the University of Melbourne. The Working Group is a valued group, responsible for providing guidance across the scientific program and event organisation. The group members’ expertise include consultation on the scientific program, input from early career researchers and HDR student representatives, and large event and project management experience. If you would like to contact the Working Group, please email your questions or comments to melissa.brunner@sydney.edu.au.

	Dr Marcel Batten is part of the FMH Networks support office and manages the Digital Health and Informatics Network (DHIN) at The University of Sydney. Marcel’s research background is in the field of Immunology, having been a Lab Head at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research and, more recently, a researcher with the Melanoma Institute Australia. Marcel has been managing the Cancer Research Network for the past 18 months and has recently added DHIN, Academic Implementation Science Network and the Cardiovascular Initiative management to her responsibilities. Marcel is excited to be working on Digital Health Week 2022 and is very much enjoying learning about the innovative projects, minds, and stories in the digital health and informatics world. With a focus on event management and comms, for Digital Health Week 2022, she is confident it will be a week of interesting and ground-breaking discussion! Find the Digital Health and Informatics Network (DHIN) on Twitter
	Dr Ann Borda is an academic, Senior Lecturer and Participatory Health Lead at the Centre for Digital Transformation of Health at the University of Melbourne. She is a certified health informatician and has held the role of PI in numerous research grant funded collaborations in assistive health technologies, health and biomedical citizen science and emerging participatory practices in digital health. Among recent projects, Ann has been involved in the co-design of a future model for patient-centred virtual care with the Melbourne Academic Centre for Health network, co-design planning for a national peer platform for brain cancer survivors, co-authoring ethical and equitable guidelines for community engaged research and co-producing a community research resource with health stakeholders on unregulated DIY technology to manage diabetes in children and youth. She is an Honorary Senior Research Associate at University College London and a Fellow of the Australasian Institute of Digital Health. Ann is enthusiastic about the wide-ranging conversations that Digital Health Week 2022 will support and the opportunities for advancing dialogue across digital health practices, inclusive participation and innovation.
	Conference Chair Dr Melissa ‘Liss’ Brunner is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Acquired Brain Injury Communication Lab at the University of Sydney. She is an early career researcher and certified practicing speech pathologist with clinical and research expertise in acquired neurologic disorders. With research experience and collaborations that extend across interdisciplinary health care contexts, Liss has specialist skills in qualitatively driven social media and digital health mixed methods research. Her doctoral research laid the necessary groundwork in understanding the complexity of the issues surrounding people with a traumatic brain injury in using social media and how it may (or may not) be addressed during their rehabilitation. Liss strongly believes in using social media for research translation (in particular on Twitter as @LissBEE_CPSP) and believes that Digital Health Week is a fantastic opportunity to continue building meaningful connections and inclusion for all stakeholders in the Digital Health space.
	Dr Daniel Capurro is a MD, general physician, and PhD in Biomedical Informatics. He is an academic in the School of Computing and Information Systems and Deputy Director of the Centre for Digital Transformation of Health, both at the University of Melbourne. Dr. Capurro has over 10 years of experience in advanced clinical data analytics. His work includes implementation of electronic medical records, clinical informatics, digital phenotyping, and clinical data mining. He founded the Chilean National Centre for Health Information Systems and was Chief Medical Information Officer where he implemented a network-wide Electronic Health Record and other health information systems. He currently leads a team of researchers in the area of digital phenotyping, clinical data analysis, and process mining. Dr. Capurro obtained his MD and Internal Medicine specialty from P. Universidad Catolica de Chile, his PhD from the University of Washington, USA and is a Fellow of the Australasian Institute of Digital Health and Fellow of the American Medical Informatics Association. Dr. Capurro believes building collaboration networks sits at the core of health informatics research and practice. Having the chance to help organise Digital Health Week is an opportunity to contribute to these networks in Australia and beyond. Daniel can be found on Twitter
	Dr Rowena Forsyth Dr Rowena Forsyth is a health sociologist and a Lecturer in Biomedical Informatics and Digital Health and part of the Cyberpsychology Research Group at the University of Sydney. She uses qualitative methods to understand social, relational and ethical aspects of how health professionals, patients and families use health information. Her research has studied a variety of health information topics including the transition from paper based to computerised pathology ordering, patient-held health records, ethical aspects of bone marrow transplant and medical tourists’ decision making and use of online support communities. Rowena is looking forward to DHW22 and fostering interdisciplinary collaborations and thoughtful discussion of innovation and participation in digital health. You can find Rowena on Twitter: @RowenaForsyth
	Technology Lead Dr Anna Janssen is a health technologist and digital health researcher in the Research in Implementation Science and eHealth Group. She has also undertaken industry research fellowships through the Capital Markets Cooperative Research Centre and the Digital Health Cooperative Research Centre. Anna has a broad interest in the design and use of digital technologies in healthcare, and their effect on health in general. Her research looks specifically at attitudes of health professionals towards electronic data, harnessing electronic health data to change behaviour, the use of disruptive technologies such as virtual and augment reality in healthcare, the scalability and sustainability of digital health technologies and the design of health technology. She has been involved in a number of eHealth research projects, including investigating methods for engaging health professionals in online forums, and exploring the impact of technology on oncology MDTs in Western Sydney. Anna is Technology Lead for Digital Health Week, and aims to help realise the conference vision of bringing together eHealth researchers across faculties, disciplines and institutions to share their experiences.
	Nataša Lazarević (pronounced Natasha), has been fortunate enough to live in 5 different countries, but that also means that she finds the concepts of nationality, identity, and sense of belonging hard to understand. According to her passports, she is both Australian (as of recently!) and Serbian. However, Nataša was born in Germany, spent a couple of years in Serbia, then grew up in Botswana for most of her childhood, the United Arab Emirates for most of her teenage years, and then moved to Australia in 2013. She has learnt that our sense of culture and identity is so much more than what our passports reveal. Nataša is a PhD student at the University of Sydney, and works on an interdisciplinary project that combines the fields of digital health, machine learning and anatomy. The project about applying our understanding of the human body to create technological solutions to monitor our bodies and health remotely. The goal of her research is to build a body measurement technology that extracts measurements from key regions of the body from photos/videos taken by pregnant women over time, with a plan to incorporate this technology in a pregnancy App. Nataša is also passionate about promoting the equality of underrepresented groups in STEM so she co-founded Visibility STEM Africa (VSA @ViSTEM_Africa) with her dear friend Nathasia Mudiwa Muwanigwa (@Tasia1409). VSA promotes the visibility of Africans in STEM and provides them with opportunities to flourish. Twitter: @NataLazzza
	Alison Lister is the Enterprise Development Consultant at the Centre for Digital Transformation at Melbourne University. She completed her MBA at Melbourne University this year and has over 20 years’ experience working in digital development and marketing in the UK. There, she worked on core government programs in the ICT in Schools initiative and on the establishment of NHS.uk. She has a keen interest in digital equity and harnessing the knowledge within data to enable better outcomes in health.
	Dr Mark Merolli is a Physiotherapist and Senior Lecturer/Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne. He teaches and researchers in physiotherapy, and digital health and informatics. He is a certified health informatician Australasia (CHIA), and Fellow of the Australasian College of Digital Health (AIDH). Mark’s research interests include exploring digital models of care in musculoskeletal health, as well as workforce advancement in the field of digital health.
	Dr Jessica Orchard is an early career researcher and Adjunct Senior Lecturer at the Charles Perkins Centre, University of Sydney. She is also a final year PhD candidate and Research Coordinator at the Heart Research Institute, with a background in public health and law. Jessica’s research aims to improve the quality of cardiac screening programs to prevent sudden cardiac death and catastrophic disability from stroke. These projects have used novel eHealth tools and have made best practice recommendations to address legal and ethical responsibilities which arise during the process. Jessica’s research aims to improve the quality of screening programs to reduce the tragedy of sudden cardiac death in athletes and prevent the devastating impact of stroke. Jessica joined the Digital Health Week 2021 Working Group to foster collaboration across disciplines in digital health research and help discover the potential applications of innovative technology to improve health. She is on Twitter
	Dr Jacques Raubenheimer is Senior Research Fellow, Biostatistics, in the theme of Bioinformatics and Digital Health at the University of Sydney. His role encompasses participation in a variety of projects related broadly to toxicology as part of the Translational Australian Clinical Toxicology program, which was originally established with funding from the Australian NHMRC. His focus is on using large, country-level, longitudinal datasets for pharmacological research in public health. He also as a special interest in widely available internet data, focusing on Google Trends research as well as studies examining social media information related to alcohol and other drugs.
	Dr Audrey Rollin is a digital health researcher and communications and marketing professional. Audrey is an active member of the University of Sydney’s Cyberpsychology Research Group, which investigates the impact of technologies on human behaviour. Her fascination (and concerns) for the slow-pace development of research and innovation in the healthcare sector and the critical need for transformative change led her to complete a PhD investigating technology implementation to enhance melanoma supportive care. Audrey currently holds a position as a Special Projects Officer for CSIRO, where she develops solutions to tackle the growing threat of antimicrobial resistance. She has a strong interest in closing the industry-research gaps to establish evidence-based digital solutions that positively impact health outcomes.
	Dr Anna Singleton is an early-career researcher at the University of Sydney with a background in psychology research (MSc Experimental Psych; BSc Hons I Psych - Canada). She is passionate about co-designing low-cost, scalable, and accessible digital health strategies (e.g. text messages, mobile apps) with consumer representatives to improve health of people diagnosed with and recovering from cancer. Anna has led an Australia-wide implementation pilot trial of the EMPOWER-SMS health and wellness text message program, which supported 850 breast cancer survivors during the COVID19 lockdowns. EMPOWER-SMS was co-designed with breast cancer survivors, health professionals and researchers to support women’s mental and physical health during survivorship. Anna has also led or assisted in recruitment of over 1300 participants to text message-related randomised controlled trials for people with breast cancer, lung and heart disease. The EMPOWER-SMS program is now being implemented into usual care in 2 Australian Hospitals and is being modified to support women with cancer in rural and remote communities of Northwest Territory Canada. As a result of Anna's PhD research, she has been awarded over $269,00 in research prizes and awards ($72,770 as CIA) and published 19 peer-reviewed manuscripts (5 first-author, 1 senior author), many in high-ranking journals such as BMJ Heart, BMC Cancer, and Journal of Medical Internet Research. Anna is looking forward to connecting with everyone at Digital Health Week 2022 through our amazing Social Media team (Natasa Lazarevic, Milan Vaghasiya) and Twitterati members who will be keeping the conversation going on Twitter!
	Dr Zerina Tomkins is a clinician-scientist with strong interest in enhancing individual's health resilience to climate change through community empowerment, research and education. She is an associate professor of nursing at Monash University, School of Nursing and Midwifery where she is also involved in the development of digital health education interventions. As a member of the Digital health Week organising committee, Zerina is keen to discuss the role of digital health in developing interventions addressing the impact of climate change on noncommunicable diseases across the lifespan that is inclusive, culturally sensitive, interdisciplinary and person-centric. Zerina can be found on a href="https://twitter.com/TomkinsZerina" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Twitter
	Milan Vaghasiya is an enthusiastic researcher, a health informatician and a health manager. He is currently working as a Clinical Documentation Specialist in Western Sydney Local Health District. He also works as a Clinical Reference Lead at the Australian Digital Health Agency. Previously, he worked for more than ten years as a clinician in Westmead Emergency Department. Milan is doing his PhD at the University of Sydney. His research focuses on the implementation and adoption of the Electronic Medication Management System and how it contributes to improving patient safety and organisation efficiency in hospital settings. His expertise/interests include evaluating IT system implementation, UX, electronic health records, data analytics, clinical informatics, organisational efficiency, and patient safety. He received a Master of Health Management & Master of Public Health from the University of New South Wales (UNSW). Being a member of the Digital Health Week 22 organising committee, Milan is excited to be part of a wide-ranging discussion on how technology can help to solve healthcare problems. Milan can be found on Twitter or Linkedin
	Dr Ling Zhang is a clinical researcher and a practicing registered nurse of Faculty of Medicine and Health at the University of Sydney. She has a strong research interest in understanding and supporting patients who have heart disease throughout their recovery, encouraging and enabling good self-management and reducing cardiac events recurrence through secondary prevention. Dr Zhang is passionate about determining the role of digital technology in supporting disadvantage cardiac patient groups including those from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds and those with inadequate health literacy and poor English language proficiency.