Presenter Biographies
Associate Professor Mike Starr
Mike’s a General Paediatrician, Infectious Diseases Physician and Consultant in Emergency Medicine at the Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne and Clinical Associate Professor at Melbourne University. He chairs the national Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPG) Development Group. He’s actively involved in APLS in Australia and the Asia Pacific and chairs the APLS International Programs Committee.
Professor Stuart Dalziel
Stuart is the Cure Kids Chair of Child Health Research at the University of Auckland, where he is also a Professor of Paediatrics and Emergency Medicine. Clinically he works as a Paediatric Emergency Medicine Physician in the Children’s Emergency Department at Starship Children’s Hospital, where he is also the Director of Research. Stuart’s research is strongly aligned to his everyday clinical practice as a Paediatric Emergency Medicine Physician with over 250 peer-reviewed publications. It focuses on both medical emergencies and common paediatric conditions. Stuart has been extensively involved in the leadership of local and international emergency medicine research networks.
Dr Mercedes Burnside
Mercedes is a paediatric endocrinologist based in Christchurch. She completed her medical and paediatric training in Christchurch, followed by a PhD at the University of Otago focused on diabetes technology. She then undertook subspecialty training in paediatric endocrinology at Perth Children’s Hospital before returning to Christchurch in early 2025. Her clinical and research interests include type 1 diabetes and diabetes technology.
Frances Soutter
In December 2015, Frances was appointed to the role of CEO at Cure Kids after 25 years in the pharmaceutical Industry. Prior to this role, Frances led the start up of the Pfizer patented brand business across nine markets in South East Asia, Hong Kong and India. She has worked in a marketing capacity as a Portfolio Manager on Pfizer’s major brands as the Business Unit Manager and in 2009 was appointed Managing Director for Pfizer New Zealand. Frances has contributed to a number of board positions including Medicines New Zealand, Pfizer New Zealand and as the President and Chair of the American Chamber of Commerce Board in 2013. Currently Frances holds trustee roles on the Cure Kids New Zealand and Fiji boards, Cure Kids Ventures and the health research advocacy organisation, New Zealanders for Health Research. In 2002, Frances completed the Macquarie Graduate School of Management, Strategic Leadership Program and holds a Graduate Diploma in Business.
Dr Mary McLeod
Mary (MBChB), is currently the HealthPathways Portfolio Manager at Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora. She joined the team in 2015 to coordinate the development and implementation of the first instance of Hospital HealthPathways, and now manages the integrated Community, Hospital, and Allied HealthPathways programme in Waitaha | Canterbury and Te Tai o Poutini | West Coast. She is also a member of the Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora national Health Care Pathways team.
Professor Mike Ardagh
Mike (ONZM, PhD, MBChB, DCH, FACEM), is Professor of Emergency Medicine at the University of Otago, Christchurch, Specialist in Emergency Medicine and Clinical Lead for Hospital HealthPathways at Health New Zealand/Te Whatu Ora, Waitaha, clinical advisor to Streamliners New Zealand (HealthPathways) and clinical advisor to Health New Zealand/Te Whatu Ora (Health Care Pathways).
Dr Stanley Leong
Stanley is a paediatric fellow and clinical lecturer with a special interest in paediatric dermatology. Prior to his current role at Nelson Hospital, he has spent 6 years of his paediatrics training in Christchurch Hospital. In 2023, he worked full time as a dermatology registrar across both adult and paediatric services. This was followed by his role as the Paediatric Dermatology Consult Liaison in 2024 and 2025, alongside advanced training in general paediatrics. Stanley is also a clinical lecturer in Paediatric Dermatology for undergraduate and postgraduate programmes at the University of Otago. He has presented extensively at the national dermatology conferences and his work has been published in DermNet and other peer-reviewed journals. At this symposium, Stanley will share practical insights into the diagnosis, management and long term care of eczema in children, drawing on both clinical evidence and experience.
Angharad Hurley (Vernon-Roberts)
Angharad began her career as a Paediatric Nurse but changed direction and completed her PhD on the topic of self-management for children with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in 2019. For the first few years as a Post-doctoral Fellow and then Research Fellow, much of her research was focused on the development of a multi-faceted research programme for children with IBD related to; treatment strategies, cost analysis, international guideline development, and developing outcome measures. In addition, she has carried out research on multiple aspects of child health such as complementary medicine use, helicobacter pylori infections, coeliac disease, cystic fibrosis related diabetes, and functional gastrointestinal disorders, among others. Angharad’s most recent focus has included analysis of how socio-economic aspects can affect child health outcomes, culminating in most recent largescale study. Angharad is currently running a project looking at how socio-geographic factors are associated with outcomes for children presenting to the Emergency Department at Christchurch Hospital.
Dr Alex Binfield
Alex is a General Paediatrician with Matatiki Child Health, Christchurch Hospital. A hybrid of UK and New Zealand paediatric training, he lives in the Port Hills with his family. Areas of clinical interest include paediatric cardiology and lipid disorders in children.
Dr Sam Greig
Sam is a paediatric ORL surgeon in Christchurch. Having completed his paediatric ORL fellowship at the Evelina Childrens Hospital in London, he returned to Christchurch in 2016.
More to come...
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