DrDion Candelaria

Dion is a National Heart Foundation of Australia Postdoctoral Fellow and aims to modernise cardiac rehabilitation programs through health system re-design, so more Australians with heart disease attend and complete rehabilitation, reduce ongoing cardiovascular risk, and maximise health outcomes. He also leads an Australian Government-funded (MRFF Grant) cluster randomised controlled trial that aims to improve the delivery of cardiac rehabilitation through collaborative quality improvement.

Dion is President-Elect of the Australian Cardiovascular Health and Rehabilitation Association (ACRA). He is the current Secretary of the International Council of Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation (ICCPR). He is a Science Committee member of the Euripean Society of Cardiology (ESC) Association of Cardiovascular Nursing & Allied Professions (ACNAP) and an International Committee member of the American Heart Association (AHA) Council on Cardiovascular and Stroke Nursing (CVSN). He is also an Executive Board Member of the Xi Omicron Chapter-At-Large of the Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing.

Dion has won highly prestigious and coveted awards and prizes for his research, including the 2023 Research Dissertation Award given by Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing and the 2022 Cardiovascular Nursing Council Rising Star Award (PhD student) and 2020 Cardiovascular Nursing Prize awarded by Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand (CSANZ).

He has extensive tertiary and clinical teaching experience and is passionate about supporting undergraduate nursing students, higher-degree research students, and fellow early-career researchers. He has co-supervised five Honours students to completion (all First Class and four University medal recipients).