Presenter Biographies

Professor Laurie McLay

Delivery of Psychosocial Sleep Interventions for Neurodiverse Children and their Caregivers

Laurie McLay is a Senior Research Fellow at the Child Wellbeing Research Institute at the University of Canterbury. Over the past 10 years she has developed a systematic programme of research into the effectiveness of psychosocial sleep interventions for autistic children and those with rare genetic developmental disorders, including evaluating the impact of poor sleep on child and family wellbeing. Most recently, her research has focused on developing and evaluating telehealth-delivered supports for sleep difficulties. She has received numerous research grants to support her sleep research and is actively involved in projects in New Zealand and the United States.

Professor Brian Darlow

Bronchopulmonary dysplasia: an ongoing problem

Brian Darlow is Emeritus Professor of Paediatrics at the University of Otago, Christchurch. His clinical work has been predominantly as a neonatologist and main research interests have focussed on free-radical disease in the newborn including bronchopulmonary dysplasia and retinopathy of prematurity (ROP), neonatal networking and unit variations in outcome, and longer-term outcome following preterm birth including the longitudinal NZ 1986 VLBW Study. He is the author of over 250 original publications.

Dr Jennifer Knopp

Insights from model-based respiratory monitoring during mechanical ventilation

Jennifer is a research fellow with the University of Canterbury Mechanical Engineering department. Her work focuses on the application of physiological models and engineering concepts to clinical problems, with particular applications in mechanical ventilation, glucose monitoring and insulin dosing. This work is in collaboration with the Christchurch Women’s hospital neonatal intensive care unit, as well as national and international research partnerships with units in Auckland, Hungary, Belgium, Malaysia and Germany. In particular, she was instrumental in the development of the STAR and STAR-GRYPHON computerised glycaemic control protocols for adult and neonatal intensive care, which are currently used in units in Europe, Malaysia, and New Zealand, and which is currently being brought to market as a medical product.

Dr Sam Dalton

20,000 leagues under the seas…or at least into the trachea and bronchi

Sam Dalton is a Respiratory & Sleep Paediatrician working in Christchurch after completing fellowships in Paediatric Respiratory Medicine, Paediatric Sleep Medicine, and Paediatric Cystic Fibrosis at the Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne and Monash Children’s Hospital, with all of his earlier training in Christchurch. Areas of specific interest include Paediatric flexible bronchoscopy, diagnostic sleep services, and quality improvement initiatives utilising practical applications of technology.

Professor Janet Hoek

Clearing the clouds: How can we respond to youth vaping?

Janet Hoek is a professor of public health at the University of Otago, Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand. She co-directs ASPIRE Aotearoa, a University of Otago Research Centre, and a Health Research Council of New Zealand programme supporting the Smokefree 2025 goal. She has explored on-pack warnings and plain packaging, and the uptake and use of e-cigarettes; she is now examining endgame measures including denicotinisation, reducing tobacco availability, and the smokefree generation policy. Professor Hoek serves on national and international advisory groups and editorial boards; she has received several awards for her research, including the Universities New Zealand 2022 Critic and Conscience of Society Award.

Ms Frances Soutter

The State of Child Health Report 2023

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.

Professor Don Hine

Climate Change and Youth Mental Health

Don Hine is a professor of psychology at the University of Canterbury, specialising in environmental psychology. Don’s work focuses on understanding the factors that underlie environmental problems such as resource over-consumption, climate change, air pollution, and invasive species. His research group designs and evaluates behaviour change strategies to help solve these problems.

Associate Professor Diane Gray

Early determinants of lifelong health – what should we target?

Associate Professor Diane Gray is a paediatric pulmonologist and clinical researcher in the Department of Paediatrics, Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital (RCH), University of Cape Town, South Africa. She has a special connection with Christchurch as this is where she trained as a paediatrician before returning with her family to South Africa. Her work focuses on improving paediatric respiratory health of African children through better understanding the drivers of lung disease in early childhood and how this can be prevented. Her research has focussed on high burden paediatric diseases including TB and HIV associated lung disease; and in the development of lung function as a diagnostic and management tool in childhood. She setup infant and preschool lung function testing in Africa, including training of technicians and paediatricians in its use and contributes to international collaborations developing tools for preschool lung function testing with a focus on strengthening long-term health.

She is co-principal investigator of the Paediatric and Adult African Spirometry (PAAS) project, providing appropriate lung function reference data for African adults and children and Co-investigator of the collaborative multisite BACPAC (Bronchiectasis in African Children: prevalence, aetiology and clinical outcome) Study. She currently holds a Wellcome Trust intermediate fellowship for research investigating the impact of early life exposures on chronic respiratory illness in African children.

Professor Anne Chang

Approach to chronic cough in children and why it is important.
Recurrent respiratory infections: their investigation and treatment.

Professor Anne Chang is a Senior Staff Specialist at the Queensland Children’s Hospital, Brisbane. She leads the Cough and Airways Group at the Queensland University of Technology and is the Child Health Division’s leader at Menzies in Darwin. She is a clinician recognised for her research contributions to evidence based management and clinical care in the areas of paediatric cough, asthma, bronchiectasis and Indigenous child lung health. Her original works include the world’s first description of protracted bacterial bronchitis and international multicentre trials involving children with bronchiectasis. She has been a NHMRC practitioner fellow since 2004 and has published over 580 articles. Her major interests are in undertaking clinical research that improves the management of Indigenous health, cough and suppurative lung disease in children.

Professor Stuart Dalziel

Bronchiolitis: an update.
COVID-19 in children: an overview.

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.

Stuart’s research is strongly aligned to his everyday clinical practice as a Paediatric Emergency Medicine Physician with over 200 peer-reviewed publications. It focuses on both medical emergencies, such as status epilepticus, and common paediatric conditions, such as asthma, bronchiolitis, and the use of paracetamol and ibuprofen.

Dr David McNamara

Looking back to look forward. The future of asthma

Dr. David McNamara is a Paediatric Respiratory and Sleep medicine specialist employed at Starship Children’s Hospital in Auckland. He is a graduate of Auckland Medical School and completed paediatric respiratory training in 2006. He underwent sleep medicine training at Sydney Children’s Hospital. His clinical interests include asthma and obstructive sleep apnoea in children. His wife is a GP and they are both keen skiers.

Professor Tony Kettle

Neutrophil oxidants in cystic fibrosis: From chlorine bleach to toxic warfare gases

Professor Philip Pattemore

Acknowledgement of Service

Philip Pattemore has lent a helping hand to our research into neutrophils for at least 20 years. He kick started our efforts when he introduced us to Jeff Wagner who was on sabbatical in Christchurch from Denver. Then he hooked us up with Peter Sly’s CF team in Australia.

Philip has readily helped out with access to patients’ blood, which was crucial for us to show that the CFTR has a role in oxidant production within neutrophils phagosomes. In his latest act of mahitahi, he helped us show that peptides formed by activated neutrophils are promising biomarkers of inflammation in the CF airways.

Mātai Hāora Centre for Redox Biology and Medicine is much indebted to Philip’s generosity and willingness to help further our research.

Ms Mellanie Isitt

Cystic Fibrosis Nutrition – How new drug developments are changing our focus

Mellanie has worked as a dietitian within the CDHB for over twenty years, eighteen years of which have been in paediatrics. She has held positions across a variety of areas and has covered cystic fibrosis adults for a couple of years and worked with the paediatric population on and off for around five years.

Taliah Su’a

Acute rheumatic fever in Canterbury: epidemiology, clinical care and the impact on patients and whānau

Taliah Su’a is a young Pacific medical student at the University of Otago, Christchurch currently taking a year out from her studies to complete a Bachelor of Medical Sciences with Honours degree. Growing up in Whanganui, the eldest of five children, paediatrics has been on Taliah’s radar since seeing and hearing about the doctors who cared for her little sister whilst in hospital. When the opportunity arose to gain some research experience in the paediatric department, she seized it. As a Pacific person and someone with family members who are affected by rheumatic heart disease, Taliah has seen the toll it has taken on her aiga. Her research project looks at acute rheumatic fever in the Canterbury region over the past 10 years. In addition to describing the epidemiology in the region, she has conducted interviews with patients and their whānau to explore their experience having rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease in Canterbury. Alongside her research she works part-time as a health care assistant at Etu Pasifika, whose support has been vital to the running of the study.