Prof Sue Walker, AO

                                                             Professor Sue Walker is the Chair of                                                               the MACH Women's and Newborn                                                                 Health Network. 

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Professor Susan Walker is the Sheila Handbury Chair of Maternal Fetal Medicine, University of Melbourne. She is Head of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University or Melbourne and also Director of Perinatal Medicine at Mercy Hospital for Women. She currently serves in the Victorian Fetal Therapy Service, a 3 centre collaboration responsible for delivering fetal surgery services to the women of Victoria. She serves on numerous RANZCOG committees, including as Deputy Chair of the Women's Health Committee. She teaches at The University of Melbourne, La Trobe University and University of Papua New Guinea. Her research interests include disorders of fetal growth, reducing the burden of preventable stillbirth, pre-eclampsia treatments, and the impact of sleep disordered breathing on obstetric outcomes.

Dr Oliver Daly

                                                           Dr Oliver Daly is a RANZCOG-                                                                         certified Urogynaecologist                                                                                   and Obstetrician,  and clinical lead                                                                   for Urogynaecology  at Western                                                                       Health in Melbourne.

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Oliver is passionate about improving pelvic floor outcomes of pregnancy and in women suffering pelvic floor disorders. As part of his PhD he leads a Medical Research Future Fund project investigating the systemic causes of variation in obstetric anal sphincter injury rates and outcomes and an international collaboration to develop Core Outcomes in Oasi Prevention and Treatment (CO-OPT). Previously, he has lead several funded initiatives establishing best practice in postnatal bladder management, improved health service delivery through the implementation of a multi-disciplinary pelvic floor clinic and the development of a pregnancy information smartphone app for culturally and linguistically diverse women. He has been the recipient of the RANZCOG Taylor-Hammond research scholarship, Brown Craig travel fellowship and the Urogynaecological Society of Australasia (UGSA) travelling fellowship. Oliver is actively involved in multi-disciplinary teaching for the University of Melbourne, Western Health and runs pelvic floor workshops locally and internationally.

Oliver is a member of Safer Care Victoria’s trans-vaginal mesh committee building capacity to support women affected by mesh complications and the evidence-based use of mesh. He is the Australasian representative for the CoRe Outcomes in Womens and Newborn health (CROWN) initiative, on the editorial board of the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology and Australian and New Zealand Continence Journal, and a reviewer for several other journals. He has held committee positions with the International Urogynecological Association, RANZCOG and UGSA.

A/Prof Lisa Hui

                                                           Lisa Hui is an obstetrician and                                                                             FRANZCOG subspecialist in                                                                               maternal fetal medicine at Northern                                                               Health and the Mercy Hospital for Women. She is an NHMRC Early Career Fellow and a research fellow with the Public Health Genetics Group at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute. She completed her PhD on cell-free fetal nucleic acids in 2013 following a fellowship in the laboratory of Professor Diana Bianchi at Tufts Medical Centre, Boston, USA. Her current interests include genomic advances in prenatal screening and diagnosis, congenital infections, fetal growth restriction, prenatal ultrasound, and obstetric haematology. She is an editorial board member of the journals Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology and Prenatal Diagnosis.  

Dr Stefan Kane

                                                           Stefan is a maternal fetal medicine                                                                   subspecialist obstetrician based                                                                       primarily at the Royal Women's                                                                         Hospital, Melbourne. His clinical                                                                       engagements cover the spectrum of high-risk pregnancy care, and include preterm birth prevention, multiple pregnancy, fetal medicine and maternal medical disorders in pregnancy. He also performs tertiary-level fetal and gynaecological ultrasound.

Stefan's primary research focus is on the maternal neurological effects of pre-eclampsia. His PhD research project aims to evaluate the potential utility of maternal ophthalmic ultrasound in assessing changes in the cerebrovasculature and intracranial pressure of pre-eclamptic women. Other research interests include structural and genetic fetal anomalies, red blood cell alloimmunisation, preterm birth prevention, and early pregnancy prediction of later complications, and he has acted as site co-ordinator for a number of international randomised controlled trials.

Stefan is actively engaged in teaching at all levels, from medical students to advanced specialist trainees, and holds an honorary position as a Clinical Senior Lecturer in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. He has a longstanding interest in prevocational medical education, and serves as an accreditation team leader for the intern accreditation authorities in Victoria and Queensland. He also serves on the Council of the Society of Obstetric Medicine of Australia and New Zealand, and is a member of the steering committees for the Interdisciplinary Maternal Perinatal Australasian Collaborative Trials (IMPACT) Network of the Perinatal Society of Australia and New Zealand. 

A/Prof Jeanie Cheong

                                                            A/Prof Jeanie Cheong is a Neonatal                                                                   Paediatrician with expertise in neonatal                                                             neurology, neuroimaging and long term                                                             follow up.

She is based at the Royal Women's Hospital and is the lead clinician in the Growth and Development clinic. She has several affiliations; as the medical/neurological Team Leader of the Victorian Infant Brain studies group within Murdoch Children's, the Convenor of the Victorian Infant Collaborative Study group, and Associate Professor with the Department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology at the University of Melbourne. She is the lead investigator on a National Health and Medical Research Council funded study looking at long term neurodevelopmental outcomes and brain structural changes following late preterm birth.

Prof Martha Hickey

                                                       Martha Hickey is Professor of Obstetrics                                                         and Gynaecology and Head of the                                                                         Gynaecology Research Centre at the                                                                 University of Melbourne and the Royal                                                             Women’s Hospital, Victoria, Australia.

                                                       She is also an NHMRC Practitioner Fellow. In her clinical practice she runs the largest public menopause service in Australia and in 2002 established the first multidisciplinary service for managing menopausal symptoms after cancer (MSAC). This service has now been replicated across Australia. She is a Senior Editor for the Cochrane Collaboration Gynaecology and Infertility Group and leads the international COMMA (Core Outcomes in Menopause) initiative as part of the COMET (Core Outcomes in Effectiveness) program. 

Prof Della Forster

                                                      Professor Della is a leading international                                                          researcher in maternal and infant care.                                                              She has a joint appointment as the                                                                        Professor of Midwifery and Maternity                                                                Services Research with the Judith Lumley Centre, La Trobe University and the Royal Women’s Hospital, and extensive experience as a clinical midwife.

Since completion of her PhD in 2005 she has built up her research program and skills and developed extensive research networks with academic, community and clinical collaborations including the Australian Breastfeeding Association (ABA), the Post and Antenatal Depression Association (PANDA) and prominent Victorian Maternity Services.  

She has broad experience in a range of methodologies and large projects including RCTs, descriptive studies, cohort studies, focus groups and evaluation projects. Her research interests include models of maternity care, perinatal mental health, breastfeeding and maternal, foetal and infant health. 

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Professor Della holds the following offices leading reform in maternity and perinatal care: 

• Judith Lumley Centre , School of Nursing and Midwifery

• Professor of Midwifery and Maternity Services Research, Royal Women's Hospital 2011 -

• Professor of Midwifery and Maternity Services Research, Judith Lumley Centre , (La Trobe University) 2011 -

A/Prof Joanne Said

                                                            Associate Professor Joanne Said is a                                                                    Royal Australian and New Zealand                                                                        College of Obstetricians and                                                                                    Gynaecologists (RANZCOG) certified 

                                                            Maternal Fetal Medicine (MFM)                                                               subspecialist obstetrician.

She has many years’ experience in general obstetrics and MFM having worked in the Maternal Fetal Medicine Department of The Royal Women’s Hospital for many years. A/Prof Said is currently the Head of the Maternal Fetal Medicine Unit at Sunshine Hospital, Western Health where she is heavily involved in the diagnosis and management of a wide range of MFM conditions including fetal abnormalities, multiple pregnancies and ultrasound monitoring of complex pregnancies. She performs diagnostic ultrasound based procedures (e.g. amniocentesis) and is qualified to counsel patients regarding the range of testing options available.

A/Prof Said is well respected both nationally and internationally for both her clinical and research work and has established close relationships with many of the GPs, Obstetricians and midwives around the western suburbs. She is an accredited RANZCOG MFM and Ultrasound examiner and is a member of the Stillbirth Subcommittee of the Consultative Council on Obstetric and Paediatric Mortality and Morbidity