Meet the Team
Team Details
Professor Chris Reid
Head
Chris is a cardiovascular epidemiologist with appointments as Research Professor in both the School of Public 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.
Dr Helen Atkinson
Executive Officer
Executive Officer CTDC, WA Health Translation Network (WAHTN)
Dr Helen Atkinson is Executive Officer of the Clinical Trials and Data Centre (CTDC), WA Health Translation Network. She has worked in endocrine research for over 20 years in both academic and public health organisations in Australia and the UK. Helen’s experience includes various research environments as well as ethics and governance in WA health.
Role: Helen’s role is to engage with the partners of the WAHTN (including hospitals, universities and research institutes) to promote and support the activities of the centre.
Dr Hui Jun Chih
Research Fellow
Curtin Health Research and Data Analytics Hub – WAHTN Clinical Trials and Data Centre
Dr Jun Chih is a teaching-research academic in the School of Public Health. Since completing her PhD in 2010, she has been teaching quantitative research methods and supervising Honours, Masters and PhD students to completion. Jun’s research interest is in lifestyle interventions, psychosocial factors, general health, mental health, cancer and effective education practices.
Jun is a teaching-research academic in the School of Public Health. Since completing her PhD in 2010, she has been teaching quantitative research methods and supervising 2 Honours, 11 Masters and 2 PhD students to completion. Jun’s research interest is in lifestyle interventions, psychosocial factors, general health, mental health, cancer and effective education practices.
Role: Jun assists clinicians with study designs and data analyses.
Clinical Trials 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 current role includes oversight and/or management of the conduct of all clinical trials being conducted by the centre with an emphasis on engagement with general practitioners and practices.
Jenny Prince
Clinical Trials Project Officer
Jenny is a Registered Nurse with 50 years of experience in the UK, USA, Victoria and WA, including critical and palliative care, and nursing and managerial experience in primary and Aboriginal health care.
Role: Recruit general practitioners as co-investigators, and assist them to identify, recruit and manage study participants. Jenny also works as a field officer for the STAREE study conducting participants visits in general practice.
Christine Robins
Clinical Trials Project Coordinator
Clinical Trials Project Coordinator, CTDC, WA Health Translation Network (WAHTN)
Christine has held the position of Surveillance Unit Manager with the Vaccine Trials Group at Telethon Kids Institute, where she trained and managed a team recruiting participants to surveillance studies and clinical trials. She also has worked in primary health care clinical trials as well extensive experience in general practice as both a practice nurse and practice manager.
Role – Clinical Trials Project Coordinator with the WA Health Translation Network (WAHTN), Clinical Trials and Data Centre (CTDC). Support persons involved in investigator-initiated clinical trials across WA hospitals, research institutes, universities and primary health care.
John Barrett
Software Developer / REDCap Administrator
John is an experienced Software Developer and enjoys developing custom solutions in a ever-evolving technological space. John also ensures best practices and technolgies are used to help keep CCRE systems agile and adaptive to change.
John is the Administrator of CCRE REDCap systems, web site architect and software developer across the team.
Clinical Trials Project Officer
Alison is a Registered Nurse with over 25 years of experience in Australia and the UK as well as volunteer experience in Zimbabwe and more recently Indonesia. Previous research roles have been as a Clinical Research Nurse and Research Study Coordinator in the areas of oncology, diabetes and endocrinology.
Role: Field Officer for the STAREE study conducting patient visits in GP practices. Additionally, Alison supports the Healthy Living Clinic as a Research Nurse assisting the QUARTET study, BIOBANK and other projects.
Dr Jacquita Affandi
Health Living Clinic Head
Dr Jacquita Affandi, is a research academic focusing on premature immune ageing related to cardiovascular disease research and clinical trials.
Role: She currently manages The Healthy Living Clinic where she oversees clinical trials and clinical research projects associated with the CCRE, as well as mentoring PhD candidates. She is also the study co-ordinator for the QUARTET Clinical trial which is currently recruiting participants
Suzanne Gilbey
Doctor of Philosophy Candidate
Suzanne is a sessional academic in the School of Public Health. She is a tutor and unit coordinator of health risk assessment units at Curtin and is completing a PhD in Public Health which investigates relationships between indoor air pollutants and selected cardiometabolic risk factors.
She is also a PhD candidate supervised by Professor Chris Reid.
Dr Daniel Xu
Senior Research Fellow
Dr Daniel Xu MBBS, PhD, FRACGP, is a general practitioner and researcher with particular interests in cardiovascular, men’s and women’s population health and epidemiology.
Role: As medical liaison officer, Dan identifies and recruits GPs and community participants for STAREE, QUARTET and the Microbiome pilot project. He is also an investigator on the INTEGRATE study and provides medical oversight for clinical trial participant visits within the Healthy Living Clinic
Annie Syred
Clinical Trials Project Officer
Annie is a registered nurse with 40 years’ experience in general, rural, accident & emergency and ambulance nursing.
Role: Field Officer for the STAREE study conducting patient visits in GP practices. Annie also supports the Healthy Living Clinic as a research nurse assisting the QUARTET study, BIOBANK and other projects. Annie also works in the Healthy Living Clinic as a Research Nurse assisting the QUARTET study, BIOBANK and other projects.
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.
Dr Natalie Ward
Senior Research Fellow
Dr Natalie Ward is a scientist with research experience in coordinating human observational and interventional trials, animal studies and laboratory based analysis. She also has experience teaching in anatomy and physiology and human structure and function.
Role: Coordinating several large human intervention trials within the CCRE including:
- Strategies to prevent cardiovascular ageing
- Nutraceuticals in the management of statin associated muscle symptoms
- Effect of statins on the microbiome
Rachael Rapanaro
Clinical Trial Project Officer
Senior Clinical Trial Project Officer
Rachael is a Registered Nurse with 15 years nursing experience in various fields including, Palliative Care, Orthopaedics. For the past 8 years, she has worked as a Clinical Research Nurse and Research Study Coordinator in Phase 1 through to Phase 4 clinical trials.
Role: Field Officer for the STAREE Study – conducting patient visits in GP practices in WA.
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Address: School of Public Health, Curtin University, Bentley WA 6102