Meet the Team
Senior Research Fellow
Team Details
Professor Chris Reid
Director
Chris is a cardiovascular epidemiologist with appointments as Research Professor in both the School of Population Health at Curtin University in Perth and the School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University in Melbourne. He is Director of the Monash Centre of Cardiovascular Research and Education in Therapeutics and the NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence in Cardiovascular Outcomes Improvement (2016-2020). He holds a National Health and Medical Research Council Senior Research Fellowship in addition to being the Chief Investigator on an NHMRC Program Grant (2016-2020) focusing on cardiovascular disease prevention. His major research interests include clinical outcome registries, randomised controlled trials, and epidemiological cohort studies.
He has been Study Director for the 2nd Australian National Blood Pressure (ANBP2) Study and currently a Chief Investigator for the Aspirin in Reducing Events in the Elderly (ASPREE) Study, the Statins in Reducing Events in the elderly Trial and the Australian arms of the HOPE-3, REACH and CLARIFY Registries. He is a Principal Investigator for the Victorian Cardiac Procedures Registry Project, the Melbourne Interventional Group (MIG) registry, and the ANZSCTS National Cardiac Surgical Registry. He has over 300 peer-reviewed publications, many of which are in leading journals including the New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, JACC and the BMJ. He participates as a WHO consultant for prevention of cardiovascular disease in Mongolia, Vietnam and the West Pacific region.
Clinical Trial Project Manager
Sue is a registered nurse who has extensive experience in the conduct and management of clinical trials across a variety of settings and therapeutic areas. Her experience includes all phase trials, with a particular focus on cardiovascular outcomes trials in general practice.
Sue’s role includes oversight and/or management of all clinical trials being conducted by the centre with an emphasis on engagement with external stakeholders including industry, government and health practitioners. The role also includes management of the ethical and governance requirements for all projects within the team.
Julia Fallon-Ferguson
Executive Officer
Julia has worked in the health sector, in diverse government, non-government and corporate roles. She is a Registered Nurse with a degree in Health Science (Health Promotion). Her previous roles include Regional Manager, Perth North East for the WA Primary Health Alliance, National Manager for PC4, the Primary Care Collaborative Cancer Clinical Trials Group (cancer research in primary care) and Senior Development Officer in the Department of Health.
Role: CRE-COI: monitoring funded projects and scholarships, and the budget; drafting a business plan and communications strategy. ANZACT: setting up the ANZ Alliance for Cardiovascular Trials – recruiting members, organising workshops, drafting policies and procedures. WACOR – the WA Cardiac Outcomes Registry, which will collect a minimised, standard set of information from all patients undergoing specific cardiac treatments or procedures at participating hospital sites.
Christine Robins
Clinical Trial Project Coordinator
Christine Robins is the Clinical Trials Project Coordinator and Clinical Trial Monitor and Auditor for the Clinical Trials Enabling Platform – Western Australia (CTEP-WA). At Curtin University she contributes to the Clinical Research Support Service (CRSS), which supports health care professionals to develop investigator-initiated clinical trials in WA hospitals and was the Clinical Trial Coordinator for two international clinical trials.
Christine now leads the Monitoring and Auditing Service for CTEP-WA, which has twelve active projects in its portfolio. Previous roles include Surveillance Unit Manager for the Vaccine Trials Group at Telethon Kids Institute, and Practice Manager in general practice.
Dr Daniel Xu
Senior Research Fellow
Dr Daniel Xu MBBS, PhD, FRACGP, is a general practitioner and senior research fellow with particular interests in cardiovascular, musculoskeletal, men’s and women’s population health and epidemiology.
Role: As medical liaison officer and researcher, Dan identifies and recruits GPs and community participants for clinical trial projects. He is also principal investigator on the Concussion Recovery (CREST) cohort study in the Curtin School of Population Health, and associate investigator on a number of NHMRC funded studies and provides medical oversight for clinical trial participant visits within the Healthy Living Clinic of CCRE.
Dr Hui Jun Chih
Research Fellow
Dr Jun Chih is a senior lecturer and research fellow at Curtin School of Population Health and Clinical Trials Enabling Platform (CTEP-WA). She was the 2020 Western Australia Heath Translation Network (WAHTN) Clinical Trials Biostatistics Fellow mentored by John Curtin Distinguished Professor Christopher Reid. Dr Chih provides her expertise in the design of clinical trials and longitudinal epidemiological, public health and clinical research studies (including protocol development, sample size and power calculations, randomisation process) as well as analyses of cross-sectional and longitudinal data using both commonly used and complex modelling and machine learning techniques, interpreting the findings in a sensible approach for clinicians and consumers of research evidence, and drafting research publications.
Jun has worked with multi-disciplinary research teams across public and private hospitals, clinics, research centres and government. Jun has been awarded more than 10 research grants (total: >$1.3M), published over 50 peer-reviewed papers with over 275 citations, and supervised at least 3 Honours, 13 Masters and 2 PhD students to on-time completion. She has worked closely with research teams in the area of cardiovascular diseases, cancer (breast, lung), brain diseases (injury, Parkinson’s disease), mental wellbeing, psychosocial factors, patient outcomes and effective education practices, to name a few.
Dr Jacquita Affandi
Research Fellow
Jacquita is a Research Fellow undertaking research focusing on identifying pre-clinical markers of cardiovascular disease.
Role: She is the Project Manager of the Nasal High-Flow Oxygen Therapy After Cardiac Surgery (NOTACS) randomised clinical trial. This is a collaboration with the Royal Papworth Hospital, Cambridge, UK, and the Auckland City Hospital, New Zealand. This trial aims to seek equipoise in determining if prophylactic use of high-flow nasal oxygen therapy vs standard oxygen therapy after cardiac surgery increases days alive and at home in the first 90 days, in adult patients at high risk of postoperative pulmonary complications. This trial also aims to investigate the cost effectiveness of these two therapies for the cardiac patient at 90 days and for the Australian health system. Trial recruitment will begin in March 2022 and will aim for a total of 1,152 participants worldwide
Dr Chau Ho
Research Associate
Dr Chau Ho MBBS, PhD, is a medical researcher with interests in cardiovascular, chronic disease and primary care.
Role: Chau contributes to the analysis of INTEGRATE trial and VCOR registry. She also provides assistance with design, study ethics, data management, and dissemination of findings.
Clinical Trial Project Officer
Alison is a Registered Nurse with over 30 years’ experience in Australia and the UK as well as volunteer experience in Zimbabwe and Indonesia. Previous research roles have been as a Clinical Research Nurse and Research Study Coordinator in the specialties of oncology, diabetes and endocrinology.
Role: Field Officer for the STAREE study conducting participant visits in GP practices. Additionally Alison supports the Healthy Living Clinic as a Research Nurse assisting the GMRx2 study, BIOBANK and other projects.
Amy Ward
Clinical Trial Project Coordinator
Amy coordinates study related activities in our on-site clinic rooms, she performs participant recruitment, study visits and liaises with stakeholders. Currently Amy is lead study coordinator for the GMRx2 clinical trial and assists with STAREE Biobank and the PACIFIC study.
Amy has a degree in Science and a Graduate Certificate in Project Management. Her previous roles have included Cardiac Technician, Laboratory Technician and Research Officer.
Yvonne Stott
Clinical Trial Project Officer
After thirty years as a nurse, Yvonne tried a change of career to bank manager for the last 16 years. She is now very happy to be back in the medical field and enjoying her role as Clinical Trial Project Officer.
Role: As a GP liaison officer, Yvonne is responsible for recruiting general practitioners as co-investigators to the STAREE trial and assisting them to identify and recruit trial participants.
Role: As a GP liaison officer, Yvonne is responsible for recruiting general practitioners as co-investigators to the STAREE trial and assisting them to identify and recruit trial participants.
Annie Syred
Clinical Trial Project Officer
Annie is a registered nurse with 45 years’ experience in general, rural, accident & emergency and ambulance nursing.
Role: Field Officer for the STAREE study conducting participant visits in GP practices. Annie also supports the Healthy Living Clinic as a research nurse assisting the GMRx2 study, STAREE Heart, BIOBANK and other projects where necessary.
Role: Field Officer for the STAREE study conducting participant visits in GP practices. Annie also supports the Healthy Living Clinic as a research nurse assisting the GMRx2 study, STAREE Heart, BIOBANK and other projects where necessary.
Karen French
Clinical Trial Project Officer
Karen is a registered nurse with 20 years’ experience as a Critical Care Nurse working for the NHS in the UK. She moved to WA with her family 13 years ago. Since arriving in Perth, Karen has worked as a Clinical Trial Nurse in areas of Respiratory health, Alzheimer’s disease and Early Phase clinical trials.
Role: Full time Field Officer for the STAREE study conducting participant visits in GP practices.
John Barrett
Software Developer / REDCap Administrator
John is an experienced Software Developer and enjoys developing custom solutions in an ever-evolving technological space. John also ensures best practices and technologies are used to help keep CCRE systems agile and adaptive to change.
Role: John is the Administrator of CCRE REDCap systems, web site architect and software developer across the team.
Jo Boone
Administration Support
Jo has extensive experience as a PA and EA across a wide range of industries. She is enthusiastic about service delivery and believes that her desire to help people is a key requirement for delivering outstanding customer service. .
Role: Jo is primarily Administration support for Professor Reid and the wider CCRE team. She also plays a support role for NOTACS, ANZACT and CTEP-WA.
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Address: School of Population Health, Curtin University, Bentley WA 6102