School of Health Sciences

Shaun is an early-mid career academic in the discipline of Exercise and Sport Science, Sydney School of Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health. His research focuses on athlete development, performance physiology and analysis across multiple sport contexts, but with expertise in Swimming. Shaun is an accredited exercise physiologist with a background in sporting and clinical practice.

Dania Abu Awwad is a lecturer and researcher within the Discipline of Medical Imaging Sciences at the University of Sydney. She completed her Bachelor of Applied Science (Diagnostic Radiography) (Hons) degree in 2018 and her PhD in 2021 at the University of Sydney. Dania has been teaching at the University of Sydney since 2019 and continues to work clinically as a diagnostic radiographer.

Dania's research revolves around breast cancer, overimaging, and patient care. 

Associate Professor Bronwen Ackermann is a world-renowned musicians' physiotherapist, musculoskeletal anatomist, physiotherapy educator and musicians' health researcher at the University of Sydney. Her interest in musicians' health grew as a result of working with performing artists since the early 1990s, focussin on working with musicians since her first international tour physiotherapy role with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in 1995.  She has worked on improving occupational health and best-practice injury prevention and management strategies with all the major Australian Orchestras, as well as the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. She received a Churchill fellowship in 2002 from which time she has successfully spent over 20 years collaborating with international colleagues involved in both research and clinical work in the field of music medicine. She completed her PhD in 2003 on physiotherapy mangement of performance-related musculoskeletal injuries in violinists, and joined academia in 2006, where she has since lectured in both physiotherapy and functional musculoskeletal anatomy. She continues to conduct research into musicians' health focussing on: improving performance-related injury prevention, assessment and management; optimising performance through the anatomical, physiological, 

and biomechanical mechanisms underpinning musical performance; , incorporating psychosocial and environmental consideration; interdisciplinary collaborative projects such as developing health education resources for musicians; and creating educational initiatives to develop musician-specific clinical skills in health professionals. She was supported by an Alexander von Humboldt Experienced Researcher Fellowship from 2019-2021, working with neurologist Prof.Dr Med. Eckart Altenmüller in Hannover, Germany, on creating and testing two retraining protocols for musicians with focal dystonia affecting (i) the embouchure(orofacial structures) and (ii) the hand. She leads projects investigating improving health literacy in musicians and improving performing arts literacy in health professionals. She is an associate of the Sydney Music, Mind and Body lab at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, and the Vice-President of the European Network of Physiotherapy for Performing Arts (ENPPA). She was awarded an Honorary Professorship of Performing Arts Physiotherapy in January 2026 at the UNiversity of Applied Sciences in Osnabrück, Germany, in recognisition of her pioneering work in developing this field, and is working with her German colleagues on developing a Masters of Performing Arts Physiotherapy curriculum.

She has run several large prestigious national musicians health projects including an ARC linkage grant investigation developing evidence-based guidelines for best management of occupational injuries occurring in musicians('Sound Practice'), and an ALTC national music health curriculum initiative in collaboration with colleague Associate Professor Suzanne Wijsman from the University of Western Australia ('Sound Performers'). She served as the High Performance Consultant at the Australian National Academy of Music from 2012 - 2019, guiding the education and implementation of their innovative and ground-breaking Musicians' Health program. She was the inaugural president of the Australian Society for Performing Arts healthcare and has acted as the Chair of the International Liaison Committee and the Education Committee of the USA based Performing Arts Medicine Association (PAMA). She was editor of Medical Problems of Performing Artists for 5 years, from 2016-2020. She designed and authored the first intensive training course in Performing Arts Medicine ('The Essentials of Performing Arts Medicine') in collaboration with PAMA and the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM). She has been invited to present extensively both nationally and internationally to orchestras, health professionals, scientific research organisations (e.g. International Society of Biomechanics) and music organisations about musicians' health research and evidence-based musicians' health management. She is the Director of the research group Sound Practice: Australian Musicians Health in Performance working with associate directors Professor Tim Driscoll, Professor Mark Halaki on testing and implementing evidence-based solutions for musicians' health issues. She is also a senior member of an international consortium researching and implementing strategies aimed at improve health literacy in musicians across their lifespan.

Prof Ada has over 160 peer-reviewed articles in both international and national journals. She has published her theoretical work in international journals with high impact such as Brain and Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry, her rehabilitation studies in the leading rehabilitation journals such as Clinical Rehabilitation and Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, and her work of relevance to a physiotherapy audience in the Journal of Physiotherapy, now the leading international physiotherapy research journal. She has also edited 2 books and authored 14 book chapters.

As an ECR, Melissa's research endeavours to transform mental health services to be recovery and participation focused; as well as co-designed with individuals, families and communities who access services, to best meet their needs. Melissa’s PhD research investigated supporting young people experiencing psychosis to achieve their goals for employment and future careers. 

Melissa is an experienced Lecturer in Occupational Therapy. Melissa was awarded a Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy and holds a Graduate Certificate in Higher Education. Melissa is passionate about educating future occupational therapists, health leaders and researchers.

Melissa has extensive experience working as an occupational therapist in mental health services in Queensland, NSW and the UK. Melissa has worked in leadership and interprofessional roles including rehabilitation coordinator and Recovery College clinical educator.  Melissa has worked with age groups from adolescents to older adults and in settings ranging from mental health intensive care to community mental health.

Professor Jennifer Alison is a Professor of Respiratory Physiotherapy, Discipline of Physiotherapy, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Sydney and Professor Allied Health (Chronic Diseases) Sydney Local Health District (SLHD) and Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Sydney. Her role in SLHD is to enhance the research capacity of allied health clinicians. At the University, Prof Alison has taught into the cardiopulmonary physiotherapy units of study in the BAppSc (Physiotherapy) and Master of Physiotherapy programs and led the development of the clinical simulation unit in the Faculty of Health Sciences. Prof Alison was a clinical specialist physiotherapist (Level 6) in Pulmonary Rehabilitation, Department of Physiotherapy, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital until 2015. She leads the Living Well with Chronic Disease and Disability Research Group (https://www.sydney.edu.au/medicine-health/our-research/research-centres/living-well-with-chronic-disease-research-group.html) and the Respiratory and Cardiac Rehabilitation and Management (ResCaRM) Research Group, Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney.

As part of her keen interest in health care, and particularly lung health, she is on the executive committee of NSW Agency for Clinical Innovation Respiratory Network (co-chair 2009-2015) and is Chair of the Australian Pulmonary Rehabilitation Network of the Lung Foundation Australia (LFA). Through this latter committee Prof Alison led the development of the web-based Pulmonary Rehabilitation Toolkit for clinicians and the writing of the Australian and New Zealand Guidelines for Pulmonary Rehabilitation. She is Co-chair of the Respiratory Stream in Sydney Health Partners (an NHMRC Advanced Health and Research Translation Centre) and is Chair of the American Thoracic Society Pulmonary Rehabilitation Assembly Planning Committee.

Prof Alison has published 165 peer-reviewed journal articles in top ranked journals in her field (70 in the last 5 years); 1 book and 9 book chapters and over 195 peer-reviewed abstracts. She has been awarded 62 research grants as Chief Investigator, including 7 NHMRC Grants (3 as CIA). Professor Alison has supervised 22 PhD and Masters completions (18 as primary supervisor), 19 honours students (4 with University Medals) and currently supervises 8 PhD students and 2 honours students. Her PhD and Masters students have received many prestigious awards at national and international conferences.

Prof Alison’s research interests are in the area of exercise responses and exercise training in people with lung disease. Specifically, she has evaluated the impact of lung diseases, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), cystic fibrosis and interstitial lung diseases, on exercise performance and the effects of interventions such as pulmonary rehabilitation, to improve exercise capacity and quality of life in people with these conditions. Her recent research interests have been to make the benefits of pulmonary rehabilitation available to a larger cohort of people with COPD by evaluating the effectiveness of walk training, water-based exercise, Tai Chi and telerehabilitation. The current NHMRC grant that she leads is evaluating the implementation of pulmonary rehabilitation within Aboriginal Medical Services to improve equity of access of Aboriginal people to culturally safe, best-practice management of chronic lung disease.

BAppScPhysiotherapy(First Class Hons)(Syd), PhD (Syd)

A/Prof Natalie Allen is an Associate Professor in the Neurological Physiotherapy team within the Discipline of Physiotherapy. Natalie is recognised internationally as an expert on physiotherapy interventions for people with Parkinson's disease. Natalie leads a research team in three key areas: 1) development of interventionsto improve safe mobility and reduce falls; 2) exploring the potential for exercise to assist in the management of pain; 3) investigation of models of service delivery, including the use of technology and exercise self-management.

Natalie's research expertiseincludes clinical research of a variety of methodologies including randomised controlled trials (RCTs), uncontrolled trials, observational, translational and qualitative studies, and systematic reviews. She regularly presents her work nationally and internationally and has been invited to present at prestigious international Parkinson's disease conferences.Her work is published in in top journals in the fields of rehabilitation and clinical neurology.

Petra Avramovi? is a lecturer, clinical educator, an early career researcher, and certified practicing speech pathologist. Petra completed a Bachelor of Applied Science (Speech Pathology) with First Class Honours and completed her PhD within the Acquired Brain Injury Communication Lab at The University of Sydney.

She has held a number of roles in clinical and research settings with a variety of populations, with particular focus in working with people with acquired brain injury (ABI). Petra has worked across the public health sector as well as NGOs.

Her thesis, entitled "The development and evaluation of convers-ABI-lity: an online communication partner training platform for people with traumatic brain injury", aimed to collaboratively develop a novel digital health communication partner training program with people with TBI and others involved in their care, and to evaluate its feasibility for improving conversation skills following acquired brain injury (ABI). Her research in co-designing cognitive-communication interventions with key interest-holders, has laid the groundwork for the development of the Social Brain Toolkit, a suite of tools to support people with ABI and their communication partners have positive and successful conversations and social media experiences.

Petra is involved in academic, clinical education, and research supervision for speech pathology students within the university.

Dale Bailey is a physicist working in the field of nuclear medicine. He currently has appointments at Royal North Shore Hospital (RNSH) in the Department of Nuclear Medicine and at the University of Sydney in the Faculty of Medicine & Health. Dale was previously the Director of the Sydney Vital Northern Translational Cancer Research Centre (Cancer Institute NSW). His area of research interest is in quantitative functional imaging using radionuclide tracers - SPECT (Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography) and PET (Positron Emission Tomography). He has been a pioneer of hybrid imaging of structure (morphology) and function (physiology) combining multiple modalities into a single imaging session. With the increasing utilisation of radionuclide therapies in cancer management in recent years, Dale has turned his attention to the biological effects of radiation and quantifying radiation dosimetry to tissues to personalise individual treatments and improve patient outcomes.

BSc(Hons) UNSW, MPsychol(Clin) UNSW, PhD Macq, FCCLP

I am a clinical psychologist, Professor of Allied Health with Sydney Local Health District, and Senior Advisor with Sydney Health Partners. I work in SLHD to build Allied Health Research Capacity and with Sydney Health Partners on their Implementation Science Academy and Clinical Academic Groups. My research collaborates with the Matilda Centre for Research in Substance use and Mental Health, the Edith Collins Centre (Translational Research in Alcohol Drugs and Toxicology. I also work with Drug Health Services at RPA and the Psychology Team at SydneyVirtual.

Shane completed his PhD in 2020 in the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Sydney. His thesis investigated movement demands and injury characteristics in university rugby union players. Shane's research focus is on athlete performance, training load and university athletes. Shane has experience working as a strength and conditioning coach with athletes from developing to elite level in a range of sports.

Shane is currently a lecturer in the Discipline of Exercise and Sport Science and leads the teaching for the Strength and Conditioning units (EXSS1040 and EXSS2037).

Shane was the Health Professions Education Lead for Exercise and Sport Science between 2022-2024.

BSpThy University of Queensland 1983 MA Northwestern University, USA 1994 PhD Northwestern University, USA 1997

Professor Ballard completed her undergraduate degree at University of Queensland in 1983 and worked primarily as a paediatric speech pathologist in Queensland and New South Wales until moving to the USA in 1992. She completed a Master of Arts in Speech-Language Pathology (1994) and PhD (1997) at Northwestern University in Illinois and went on to a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Center for Voice and Speech at University of Iowa. Professor Ballard has held academic positions in the Speech Pathology departments of Indiana University and the University of Iowa. Since 2006, she has been at the University of Sydney where she served as Head of Speech Pathology and Director of the Graduate Entry Masters program until July 2012. She was awarded an ARC Future Fellowship (2012-17) and since then has returned to a teaching and research position.

Professor Ballard has published on diagnostic approaches and procedures for acquired and childhood speech and language disorders (particularly apraxia of speech) and on application of the principles of motor learning framework to treatment of motor speech disorders in adults and children. Her work is currently focusing on the use of real-time MRI to better understand speech articulation in healthy and apraxia speakers. She is al Co-founder of a digital tech start-up designing engaging apps for screening and high intensity treatment of speech sound disorders that incorporate automated speech analysis designed for Australians.

Professor Ballard's research has attracted funding from the National Institutes of Health in the USA, the NH&MRC and ARC in Australia, Qatar National Research Foundation in Qatar, as well as professional groups such as the American Speech Language and Hearing Association and the Motor Neurone Disease Research Institute of Australia.

Professor Richard Banati is an internationally recognized scientist with interdisciplinary research interests in the brains innate immune system and the development of advanced medical imaging for the non-invasive study of brain function. Since 2008, Professor Banati holds an ANSTO Distinguished Researcher Fellowship in a cross-institutional life sciences team that has unique access to a range of methodologies, including life cell imaging, impedance spectrometry, quartz crystal microbalance measures, and protein structure analysis by x-ray and neutron-based techniques.

Richard Banati is Professor and Foundation Chair of Medical Radiation Sciences at the University of Sydney, Director of the Ramaciotti Centre for Brain Imaging at the Brain & Mind Research Institute (BMRI) and Director University of Sydney node of the National Imaging Facility. His early scientific career commenced at the Max-Planck-Institute for Psychiatry (Neurobiology) in Munich, Germany. Prior to taking up his current post at the University of Sydney in January 2004, he was Principal Fellow in the Department of Neuropathology, Imperial College and MRC-Cyclotron Unit, Royal Postgraduate Medical School, Hammersmith Hospital, London.

His work is highly cited and published in specialist journals as well as high-impact multi-disciplinary journals, such as The Lancet, Annals of Neurology and Brain. The research of Professor Banati and his colleagues has received recognition through the bi-annual Award of the German league for Research into Alzheimer's Disease, Award for Interdisciplinary Research of Society for Radiation Research (Gesellschaft fur Strahlenforschung GSF, Munich), The New Frontiers in Science Presentation 1998 at The Royal Society (London), and the 2003 JSPS Professorial Award by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.

Since 2008 Professor Banati has had an ANSTO Distinguished Researcher Fellowship. Professor Richard Banati has a long-standing interest in the role of non-neuronal (glial) cells in the progression of neurodegenerative and neoplastic brain disease, particularly the role of glia in overtly normal brain tissue. More recently, his research has focused on the development of new in vivo imaging probes for non-neuronal cells and the methodological issues that arise from it. Ultimate goal of this research to improve our understanding of how glial cells regulate brain function and how glial pathways can furnish biomarkers of brain disease and therapeutic efficacy

As a senior lecturer for the Faculty of Medicine and Health (FMH) located at the University Centre for Rural Health (UCRH), I lead the development and implementation of an interprofessional education program (IPL) supporting undergraduate and postgraduate students from up to 15 Australian universities.

My specialism relates to integrated care and my outputs are focused on influencing health care policy, practice and curriculum design.

My educational philosophy is based on enabling our current and future health and social care workforce to manage health and care (rather than disease and cure) and to work in teams across disciplines and service providers within both health and social care settings. This philosophy involves a different set of knowledge, skills and attitudes to those with which our health workforce has traditionally been equipped.

My role includes working with universities, curriculum developers, national and international organisations to implement similar programs and approaches to health workforce development. I am currently completing a PhD developing a global framework and key competencies for education and training in this area.

My strengths are leadership in initiating new and innovative placement models, interprofessional learning, workforce development, integrated care, mentoring others and building strong partnerships with a wide range of community-based organisations, health and social care providers, other UCRHs and universities from across Australia.

I contribute to university-wide curriculums, such as the USYD 'Interprofessional Learning Strategy' and the FMH Primary Health Care Network. In addition, I mentor and support senior academics, rural clinicians, clinical educators and industry partners to adopt an interprofessional and primary health care approach to their curriculum.

I have 30 years of experience living and working in rural settings as a nurse, educator and researcher.

Dr Amorim is a Senior Lecturer in the Physiotherapy Discipline at the Sydney School of Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health, with teaching, research, and leadership responsibilities. Dr Amorim completed her PhD in Health Sciences in 2018 and a one-year postdoctoral research fellowship in Public Health 2020 at the University of Sydney. Her research focuses on innovative and evidence-based management of chronic musculoskeletal pain across the implementation science spectrum, from the discovery of effective treatments to translation within the healthcare system to reduce unnecessary healthcare utilisation in people with musculoskeletal pain through behavioural change. Dr Amorim has conducted various research projects such as clinical trials, cross-sectional and longitudinal observational studies, and systematic reviews. Dr Amorim has several peer-reviewed journal publications, has contributed to multidisciplinary research collaborations, and has presented in plenary and poster sessions at several national and international conferences. She has developed and maintained international research networks and partnerships with numerous countries, particularly Norway, Spain and Brazil.

Rebecca has a professional background in occupational therapy and has worked in both clinical and research roles. Clinically, Rebecca worked as an occupational therapist with clients with multiple sclerosis in community settings. Her research is focused on disability service provision in a range of geographic and sociocultural contexts, with a particular interest in rural and remote service provision. She is also interested in approaches that support the engagement and belonging of students from marginalised backgrounds in health care education. Rebecca is currently a Senior Lecturer in Occupational Therapy in the Faculty of Medicine and Health.

Paula is a Senior Lecturer in Physiotherapy at the Sydney School of Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health at the University of Sydney. As an Early Career Researcher, Paula has an ascending track record of publications in high impact journals, with nearly 80% of her research published in Q1 journals. She has graduated as a Physiotherapist and obtained a PhD from Sydney Medical School, University of Sydney, in 2016.

Paula teaches across a variety of musculoskeletal physiotherapy units and supervises research students.

My current research focusses on students and staff working in partnership to enhance higher education, particularly to improve access and success for students from diverse backgrounds. In the past, my research has explored ways in which academics develop their educational practice, through methods such as peer observation, critical reflection and mentoring.

I joined the School of Health Sciences Work Integrated Learning (WIL) team in December 2019. Previously I was the Vice-Chancellors’ Fellow at the Innovative Research Universities, where I led a suite of projects exploring models of WIL that are responsive to the changing nature of work. My academic career began at the University of Sydney, where I collaborated on, designed and led informal and formal programs to support the professional learning of university educators.