Speakers
Professor Anup Katheria
Prof. Anup Katheria is the Director of the Neonatal Research Institute at Sharp Mary Birch Hospital for Women & Newborns. He is an adjunct Associate Professor of Pediatrics at UCSD where he teaches POCUS and echocardiography for their trainees. He is a content expert for the International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation.
Most of his work has been focused on delivery room interventions including several multicenter, multinational trials in umbilical cord management including, cord milking and intact cord resuscitation in term and preterm infants, and less invasive surfactant administration. He is a center PI for the Sharp Hospitals, the first stand-alone community hospital to ever join the Neonatal Research Network.
Professor Neena Modi
Professor of Neonatal Medicine; Vice-Dean (International), Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London
Professor Neena Modi is a clinician scientist and Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences. She has authored over 400 research papers, chapters in textbooks, and other publications. She is the current president of the European Association of Perinatal Medicine, and a past-president of the British Medical Association, Medical Women’s Federation, Neonatal Society, Academic Paediatrics Association of Great Britain and Ireland, and Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health.
Neena’s contributions have been recognised by a number of awards including the US Critical-Path Institute, Pioneer Award for “contributions to health data research” (2022); Medical Women International Association award “to a woman physician who has made outstanding contributions to the cause of women in medicine” (2022); Joint European Neonatal Societies “outstanding neonatologist” award (2023); and Honorary Fellowship of Girton College, Cambridge (2025).
Neena also holds senior leadership roles in Singapore with the Institute for Human Development and Potential, Agency for Science, Technology and Research, and as Honorary Professor at the Lee Kong Chian Medical School. Neena is a longstanding advocate for equity and the right of infants to benefit from biomedical and public health research.
Dr Stacey Peart
Dr Stacey Peart is a Consultant Neonatologist at Monash Newborn and the Paediatric Infant Perinatal Emergency Retrieval Service (PIPER), having completed her training in Melbourne. She is also a research fellow in the Royal Women’s Hospital Newborn Research Department, where she is completing a PhD with the University of Melbourne addressing under-represented cohorts in neonatal clinical trials. Stacey has a keen interest in improving the care of the most preterm infants and their families. When she’s not juggling clinical work and research, she’s a mum to three young children.
Professor Tobias Strunk
Tobias Strunk is a neonatal clinician-scientist with long-standing interest in neonatal infections and immunity. The collaborative research he leads is focused on the diagnosis and prevention of neonatal sepsis as well as preterm infant skin.
Professor Richard Martin
Prof. Richard J. Martin is the inaugural Drusinsky/Fanaroff Chair in Neonatology at Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital and Professor of Pediatrics, Reproductive Biology, and Physiology & Biophysics at Case Western Reserve University. Born and educated in Australia, he earned his medical degree from the University of Sydney in 1970. He has spent his entire academic career at Rainbow, where he previously served as Division Chief of Neonatology and currently leads as Director of Research.
An internationally recognized expert in developmental respiratory neurobiology, Prof. Martin’s NIH-funded research for over 40 years has advanced understanding of neonatal breathing control and lung injury. He has played a key role in numerous multicenter trials and trained many leaders in academic neonatology worldwide.
He is the senior editor of Fanaroff and Martin’s Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine, now in its 12th edition, and has authored over 200 peer-reviewed articles. Prof. Martin has received multiple prestigious honors, including the Virginia Apgar Award, the Mary Ellen Avery Award, and the Legends of Neonatology Award.
Prof. Martin has two children, both psychiatrists, and four grandchildren. He enjoys travel, exercise, and an active lifestyle.
Dr Nat Duffy
Dr Nat Duffy is a neonatologist based in Melbourne, working at both the Mercy Hospital for Women and PIPER (Paediatric Infant and Perinatal Emergency Retrieval). Within the NICU, she serves as the medical lead for the Infant and Family-Centred Neurodevelopmental Care Special Interest Group and has co-authored the statewide guidelines in this area.
Nat is also a certified trainer with NBO Australasia, delivering education on the Newborn Behavioral Observation (NBO) system across Oceania and beyond. She is a co-author of the Newborn Traffic Light Tool©, a clinician resource designed to support infants during episodes of pain and stress.
Her clinical and academic interests lie in infant mental health, with a focus on enhancing not only the physical, but also the cognitive, emotional, and social wellbeing of hospitalised infants. Nat is currently completing her PhD at the University of Melbourne, using qualitative methods to investigate the lived experience of infants during NICU hospitalisation.
Dr Rosemary Boland
Dr Rose Boland is a perinatal epidemiologist, neonatal nurse researcher and perinatal educator based in Melbourne, Australia. Her research and clinical interests are perinatal epidemiology and neonatal transport, with a focus on improving outcomes of babies born extremely preterm in non-tertiary hospitals and paramedic practice.
Rose led the inaugural development of statewide guidance for management of extremely preterm births at 22-25 weeks’ gestation in Victoria, published in December 2020. She is currently appointed as Senior Project Officer at Safer Care, Data Lead in the Preterm Birth Prevention Jurisdiction Program and Clinical Councils Unit.
Dr Thomas Forbes
Dr Tom Forbes is a Consultant Paediatric Nephrologist at the Royal Children's Hospital and a Clinician Scientist at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Melbourne. His research interests include genetic kidney disease, functional genomics and neonatal nephrology. He is a Co-Lead of the Kidney Research Flagship at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute and the inaugural Nephrology Co-Lead of the Australian and New Zealand Neonatal Kidney Collaborative having served on the Education Committee of the US-based Neonatal Kidney Collaborative since 2021.
He is the co-founder of the NEOKID Working Group for Quality Improvement and Service Delivery in antenatal and neonatal nephrology at RCH.
Dr Eveline Staub
Dr Eveline Staub is the Head of Neonatology at Royal North Shore Hospital, where she leads clinical care, research, teaching, and quality improvement. Trained in Switzerland and Australia, she holds specialist qualifications in Neonatology, General Paediatrics, and Paediatric Intensive Care. Dr Staub is a PhD candidate at the University of Sydney, investigating kidney development in preterm infants using novel Doppler techniques (DIVALI study). Her research also explores long-term outcomes of preterm birth and the incidence of acute kidney injury (NeoKANZ study). She is the academic research lead at RNSH Neonatology and a principal investigator in several multi-centre trials.
Dr Prue Pereira-Fantini
Dr. Prue Pereira-Fantini is a leading researcher and Team Leader of Discovery & Diagnostics within the Neonatal Research Group at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute (MCRI) in Melbourne, Australia. With a PhD from the University of Melbourne, her work focuses on understanding and mitigating the origins of preterm lung disease.
To do this, she pioneered the world's first neonatal proteomic program, aiming to define the mechanisms of preterm lung injury and develop early detection tests. Her innovative use of mass spectrometry identifies protein "fingerprints" to predict BPD sooner, allowing for targeted treatments and improved outcomes for vulnerable infants. She is also an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne and holds an honorary position at The Royal Women's Hospital.
Professor Caroline Homer AO
Professor Caroline Homer AO is Deputy Director, Gender Equity, Diversity and Inclusion at the Burnet Institute and Emeritus Professor of Midwifery at the University of Technology Sydney. Caroline has led research and development in midwifery, especially strengthening midwifery education for more than 25 years in Australia and across the Asia-Pacific region.
Dr Julee Oei
Speaker Bio still to come