Speaker Profiles - NMS 2023

Tegan is a respected ABC health and science reporter and co-host of the multi-award-winning Coronacast. She also co-hosts Radio National’s The Health Report and presents the live event series and radio program/podcast Ockham’s Razor and the podcast Quick Smart. Tegan is a Walkley Award winner, has been awarded the Eureka Prize for Science Journalism and her work has appeared in the Best of Australian Science Writing. 

Malarndirri McCarthy is Senator for the Northern Territory and Christmas and Cocos Keeling Islands and has served in this role since 2016. Malarndirri is the Assistant Minister for Indigenous Health. 

Senator Malarndirri McCarthy is a Yanyuwa Garrawa woman from the Gulf country in the Northern Territory.

Her experiences bring unique perspectives to the role of Assistant Minister for Indigenous Health, with a familiarity of challenges and opportunities facing Indigenous Australians and people living in rural, regional and remote areas.

Anne is Chief Executive Officer at the Commission and a highly respected gastroenterologist with significant leadership experience in a range of healthcare settings. She is also a Conjoint Professor at the School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Newcastle. Anne is passionate about improving health care services through sharing knowledge and collaborating across the health system. 

Professor Paul Kelly is a public health physician and epidemiologist with more than 30 years’ research experience. He has worked around the world in health system development and infectious disease epidemiology.

Nick is the Director of the Centre for Sustainable Medicine, leading NUS’s efforts to accelerate the transition to net zero and resilient healthcare systems, across the world. Prior to NUS, he worked as the Chief Sustainability Officer for the NHS in the UK, where he spearheaded their efforts to efforts to deliver low-carbon healthcare, leading the Greener NHS team with a budget of almost S$1 billion. He is a medical doctor, a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians’ Faculty of Public Health, and has worked as the Executive Director of the Lancet Countdown, and as the founder of the Global Climate and Health Alliance and the UK Health Alliance on Climate Change.

Elizabeth is the Chief Executive Officer of Consumers Health Forum and the current Chair of the Australian Digital Health Agency. She is an experienced and well-respected senior executive with a strong commitment to providing sustainable health outcomes for all Australians, and has a demonstrated ability to build and maintain positive, productive partnerships with key stakeholders and the broader community. ​ 

Paul is Professor of Evidence-Based Practice at Bond University and Director of the Institute for Evidence Based Healthcare. He was the Director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine in Oxford from 2003 – 2010. 

At the Commission, Liz provides strategic leadership on work related to primary and community health care. She guided the development of the Low Back Pain Clinical Care Standard and chaired the Topic Working Group. She led the development of the Stillbirth Clinical Care Standard and provides expert advice to the Commission’s work on aged care. As a GP, Liz has a special interest in chronic disease management, mental health and Aboriginal health, and a strong focus on holistic and preventative care.  

Kate is a public health physician in Sydney and leads the Climate Risk & Net Zero Unit at NSW Health. After working as a hospital doctor in Perth and Sydney, Kate completed much of her training in public health medicine in the UK. In England, she worked in the world-leading Greener NHS program, the leading healthcare decarbonisation program in the world. 

Alexandra is a Professor of Public Health at the University of Sydney. She is a lead investigator in Wiser Healthcare, a research collaboration to reduce overdiagnosis and overtreatment, and in the Healthy Environments and Lives national network, which supports research for sustainable and resilient health systems. Her research team is the academic partner for NSW Health’s Net Zero Leads program.  

Tim is a Consultant Pharmacist working in General Practices across western Sydney. He brings his skills and knowledge in pharmacology, health coaching, lifestyle medicine and person centred, holistic care to this team-based environment. This role was developed under the Western Sydney Primary Health Network's (Wentwest) General Practice Pharmacist program, which he has led since 2016.  

Brett is a general practitioner in Perth. He works academically at the University of Western Australia teaching medical students, and also clinically part-time. He has special interests in management and prevention of various chronic diseases, including cardiovascular disease, asthma and cancer screening. A recent focus for Brett has been how we may minimise the environmental effects of respiratory inhaler therapy while improving asthma care.

Alpana is Head of Effective Prescribing and Therapeutics for the Scottish Government, advising Ministers on Quality, Prescribing, safe and effective use of medicines and leads on the environmentally sustainable use of medicines. She is the principal investigator and coordinator of EU funded projects iSIMPATHY and SIMPATHY. She is responsible for development of Scottish National Polypharmacy guidance, and quality prescribing guidelines, for healthcare providers and patients with patient app and shared decision-making tools. Alpana leads work for WHO on Polypharmacy and an expert adviser and consultant for WHO Geneva and EMRO region on patient and medication safety and for the EU funded BEAMER project. For International Foundation of Integrated Care (IFIC), she coordinates the Special Interest Group on Appropriate polypharmacy & Adherence and is EU coordinator for work on Active and Healthy Aging on polypharmacy and adherence to treatment. She is Associate Professor at Edinburgh Napier University, Honorary Senior Clinical Fellow and affiliate of the Usher institute Edinburgh University and Honorary senior lecturer at Robert Gordons University. She’s the lead clinical pharmacist at the Homeless Practice, establishing pharmacy outreach services in Edinburgh.

Forbes is an anaesthetist and intensive care physician at Western Health, Melbourne, and Associate Dean, Sustainable Healthcare, University of Melbourne. During COVID-19 he received the Clunies Ross Award for co-creating the McMonty isolation hood to protect healthcare workers. Collaboratively, Forbes is now embarking upon further innovative solutions to make healthcare more sustainable. He is a co-lead on the Lancet Commission for Sustainable Healthcare. 

Val and Celia have been the recipients of several grants to advance their quality improvement work on climate-conscious prescribing and clinical practices, with a focus on inhalers. In collaboration with CASCADES Canada and the Government of Canada (Environment and Climate Change Canada), they supported the development of guides for health care professionals and leaders to implement more sustainable inhaler practices in both primary care and inpatient settings. Drs Stoynova and Culley have also sat on the CASCADES National Advisory Committee for inhaler sustainability and are frequent guest speakers on sustainable healthcare at local and national conferences. Passionate cyclists and climate advocates, Drs Stoynova and Culley believe we can provide better care at a lower carbon cost.

Eugenie is the Enterprise Professor in Sustainable HealthCare at the Melbourne Medical School and a consultant anaesthetist at the Austin and Alfred Health. She has worked for the Doctors for the Environment Australia addressing the health impacts of climate change and environmental degradation. 

Grace is a Senior Pharmacist for Western Health, leading the Medicines Information and Adverse Drug Reactions services. In 2015 she founded Pharmacists for the Environment Australia (PEA) Australia’s first and possibly the world’s first registered pharmacy environmental group. Since 2016, Grace has been the first Green Champion for the Western Health Pharmacy Department, engaging her peers locally and internationally to think, see and do green. She continues to promote carbon reduction activities in pharmacy.

Darlene is an Executive Director of Health Care Consumer’s Association. She has been involved in the consumer movement since the late 1990s and has a strong interest in improving healthcare quality and safety. She is an eminent advocate for health consumers with an excellent health system knowledge and practical understanding of community engagement principles. Darlene is a board member of the Capital Health Network and Meridian, and a member of the ACT Health and Wellbeing Partnership Board.  

Paul oversees multiple work programs and projects that focus on national digital health infrastructure, including the My Health Record system, as well as the intersection between digital health and medication safety. He leads the Commission’s transition of care work program that aims to achieve fully optimised, functional, and interoperable digitally-enabled care. Paul has a keen interest in safety and quality motivated his doctoral thesis: ‘Does providing short-cycle feedback produce organisational learning?’ He has been a Senior Lecturer for Flinders University’s post-graduate health care administration program and has a background in health administration, having previously worked in executive management roles across several Sydney metropolitan hospitals. 

Faye is a Wiradjuri yinaa (woman) from Trangie, New South Wales. She is a community pharmacist, recognised as the first indigenous Australian to hold a western degree in pharmacy in this country. Faye is currently one of two Deputy National Rural Health Commissioners. She is a Professor in Indigenous Health in the UTS School of Public Health, as well as a board member of The Australian Pharmacy Council (APC) and is also the chair of the APC Indigenous health strategy group.​ 

Emma is a Medical Advisor to the Sustainable Development Unit in the Western Australia Department of Health and a Consultant Physician in Rehabilitation Medicine specialising in Spinal Cord injury. She is the WA Chair for Doctors for the Environment Australia, and a course facilitator of the Sustainable Healthcare in Practice micro-credential offered through the Monash Sustainable Development Institute, Melbourne.​ 

Branwen is the Minimising Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Mission Lead at CSIRO.  In her previous role, at the University of Technology Sydney, she co-founded and managed the OUTBREAK project - a big data and AI approach for tracking, tracing, and tackling One Health AMR, which received over $1.5M in grant and industry funding. Branwen has spent a large part of her career in corporate affairs, strategic planning, and communication. She's held consultancy and management roles in the pharmaceutical industry, non-profit and government sectors in the UK and Australia and has also worked as a journalist in mainstream media and science publishing. 

Pharmacist and Program Director of Return Unwanted Medicines project.

Villis is the Board Chair for the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care and is one of Australia’s most distinguished and respected healthcare leaders. He brings his experience in providing healthcare services, managing public hospitals, and improving safety and quality. Professor Marshall has had significant clinical experience as a urologist, and as Clinical Director (Surgical Specialties Service) at the Royal Adelaide Hospital and Clinical Professor of Surgery at the University of Adelaide.