Our team

Professor Paul Glasziou, Director

Paul’s key interests include identifying and removing the barriers to using high quality research in everyday clinical practice. He is a leader within the Reward Alliance, investigating research waste and promoting better prioritisation, design, conduct, regulation, management and reporting of health research.  Other interests include overdiagnosis and overtreatment, general practice, uptake of evidence for non-drug interventions, and automation of systematic review processes.

Email: [email protected]

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Professor Chris Del Mar

Chris is an academic GP. He teaches evidence-based practice and shared decision making, and research on synthesising evidence, using systematic review and meta-analysis methods, as well as primary research, using randomised trials, and observational study designs. He has a national and international reputation in antibiotic overprescribing in acute respiratory infections, evidence-based medicine and systematic review, and randomised controlled trials, in both clinical medicine and health services research.His research focuses on evidence-based practice and shared decision making, acute respiratory infections, any self-limiting disease including infections, skin cancer, and antibiotic resistance, in primary care.

Email: [email protected]

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Professor Tammy Hoffmann

Tammy's research spans many aspects of evidence-based practice, shared decision making, knowledge translation, and minimising waste in research. Tammy has been involved in the development of a number of reporting guidelines. As part of her interest in improving the reporting, useability, and uptake of effective non-pharmacological interventions, she led the development of the TIDieR (Template for Intervention Description and Replication) checklist and guide.

Email: [email protected]

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Professor Jenny Doust

Jenny is Professor of Clinical Epidemiology and also works as a general practitioner in Brisbane. Her research areas of interest are the use of diagnosis, screening and monitoring tests in general practice and the problem of overdiagnosis.  She was a member of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee (2008-2012), the Economic Sub-Committee of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee (2005-2013), and Therapeutic Guidelines (Cardiovascular) advisory group (2011-12) and is a RACGP representative for the Choosing Wisely campaign.

Email: [email protected]

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Professor David Henry

David is Professor of Evidence-Based Practice as well as Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto and holds a Conjoint Chair at the University of Newcastle, Australia.  He has a long standing interest in evidence-based practice and has been a member of the Cochrane Collaboration for many years. He has been active in the field of drug safety and was executive co-lead of CNODES (www.cnodes.ca) a distributed network of Canadian data centres and scientists using administrative data to evaluate adverse drug effects. He led efforts to introduce comparative effectiveness and cost-effectiveness evaluation methods as a basis for national drug coverage decisions in Australia in the early 1990s. He practiced as an internal medicine specialist and clinical pharmacologist for many years in Australia.

Email: [email protected]

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Associate Professor Rae Thomas

She is a Psychologist with over 20 years’ clinical experience providing psychological interventions to children and families. Her program of research includes developing, implementing, and evaluating randomised controlled trials, embedding public voices in health guidelines and policy,  exploring processes in health decision making particularly in relation to overdiagnosis, and translating research evidence to practice and policy.

She has taught evidence-based practice to students and health practitioners, conducted systematic reviews, used randomised controlled experimental designs, and explored innovative methodologies to facilitate public deliberation in health policy.

Email: [email protected]

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Associate Professor Claudia Dobler

Claudia is an Assoc Prof of Evidence-Based Medicine. She is also a consultant respiratory physician at Liverpool Hospital in Sydney. Her research focuses on epidemiology and large database analysis, evidence-based medicine, knowledge synthesis and translation, and medical decision-making at a system and patient encounter level (using the tools of decision analysis and decision aids for shared decision-making). 

She spent two years as a visiting research scholar at the Mayo Clinic’s Evidence-Based Practice Center in Rochester, Minnesota, USA. She is the Editor-in-Chief of Breathe, the educational journal of the European Respiratory Society.

Email: [email protected]

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Associate Professor Mark Jones

Mark is Associate Professor of Biostatistics. He has more than 20 years of experience in medical and health science research; previously working at clinical trials centres, government departments and academic institutions in Australia and New Zealand.  His areas of expertise and interest include clinical trials, systematic review and meta-analysis, reporting bias, and drug safety. Mark is deputy coordinating editor for the Cochrane Acute Respiratory Infections group and consultant statistician for the RIAT (restoring invisible and abandoned trials) Support Center.

Email: [email protected]

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Associate Professor Magnolia Cardona

Magnolia is a health services researcher with a passion for ensuring high quality care of disadvantaged populations. Her work over the past few years has focused on the identification and reduction of overtreatment of older patients near the end of life in Australia, Europe and USA. 

Email: [email protected]

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Assistant Professor Chrissy Erueti

Chrissy is an Assistant Professor and the Manager at the Institute. She took up this role in 2010, after spending a number of years as an Educationalist and Academic Team Leader at the Western Institute of Technology in Taranaki (New Zealand). Prior to moving into education Chrissy trained and worked as a nurse so brings with her to the manager position a great diversity in knowledge across clinical, educational and management areas.  As manager she is responsible for four functional areas: 1) Financial Management 2) Human Resource Management 3) Operational Management and 4) The Educational Program Management.

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Assistant Professor Ray Moynihan

Ray recently won a prestigious NHMRC Early Career Fellowship and is a chief investigator within the NHMRC-funded Wiser Healthcare research collaboration for reducing overdiagnosis. A former award-winning journalist, Ray’s worked at ABC’s Four Corners, 7.30 Report, and Australian Financial Review, and written 4 books on the business of medicine, including “Selling Sickness”, translated into 12 languages. A one-time Harkness fellow at Harvard University, Ray’s published in the NEJM, Lancet and BMJ, and currently presents The Recommended Dose podcast, produced by Cochrane Australia.

Email: [email protected]

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Assistant Professor Sharon Sanders

Sharon has expertise in evidence synthesis and systematic reviews of all study types. Her research interests are in overdiagnosis, including the methods of estimating overdiagnosis, the widening of disease definitions and in minimising research waste. 

Email: [email protected]

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Assistant Professor Anna Scott

Anna's background is in Philosophy, Epidemiology and Health Technology Assessment.  Her research primarily focuses on evidence generation and methodological development in two aspects of robust health policy decision-making: evidence syntheses (e.g. systematic reviews) needed to make sound, evidence-informed decisions; and the involvement of community members in those decisions. She also works on issues in waste in research (in particular, research governance).

Email: [email protected]

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Dr Loai Albarqouni

Loai is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute. His research expertise includes evidence synthesis, evidence-based practice, shared decision making, and overdiagnosis and overtreatment. He is a medical doctor (MD) from Palestine and completed an MSc degree in clinical epidemiology at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. 

Email: [email protected]

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Dr Mina Bakhit

Mina is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Research in Minimising Antibiotic Resistance in the Community (CRE-MARC).  His key interests include evidence synthesis, shared decision making, and improving quality of reporting. His research focuses on patient-clinician communication and decision making about antibiotic use in primary care. He has a special interest in antibiotic resistance development and decay.

Email: [email protected]

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Dr Oyuka Byambasuren

Oyuka is a Postdoctoral research Fellow working on overdiagnosis, under-utilised non-drug interventions and closing evidence-practice gap in general practice. She completed her PhD research on effectiveness of smartphone health apps and their usability in general practice.   She is also passionate about science communication and has won multiple awards. Oyuka holds Medical Doctor degree from Mongolian National University of Medical Sciences and Master of Medical Research degree from Griffith university, Australia. 

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Dr Matt Carter

Matt is a Software Developer who specialises in the area of systematic reviews and other tooling within the automation team.  Email: [email protected] Show less

Dr Natalia Krzyzaniak

Natalia is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Centre for Research in Minimising Antibiotic Resistance in the Community (CRE-MARC). Her work is focussed on investigating the problem of very high antibiotic use in residential aged care facilities in Australia and designing tailored interventions that improve the appropriateness of antibiotic prescribing.  Natalia’s academic background is in the field of pharmacy, and she has a strong interest in research dedicated to improving the quality of pharmaceutical care, the quality use of medicines and the rational use of resources. 

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Dr Zoe Michaleff

Zoe is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute. She has a strong interest in research methods and the evidence-based diagnosis, prognosis and sustainable management of musculoskeletal conditions across the life course.  Email: [email protected]

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Dr Paulina Stehlik

Paulie is a Senior Research Fellow and Evidence Based Practice Professorial Unit Coordinator, part-time in community pharmacist, and president of the Gold Coast Skeptics.  She works with Gold Coast Health staff in Evidence Based Practice and Research development through teaching, strategic input, research consultation and mentorship. Her areas of interests include clinician research engagement and development, reducing research waste, using real-world data for research, regulation of health products, over prescribing, pharmacy practice and pharmacy services.

Email: [email protected]

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Liz Dooley

Liz is the Managing Editor of the Cochrane Acute Respiratory Infections Group, with 20 years’ experience in the editorial processing of Cochrane systematic reviews. Liz is also a member of the Managing Editor Support team, providing induction and ongoing training, and support to Managing Editors in all aspects of their role within a Cochrane Review Group.   Liz is the Co-convenor of the Managing Editor’s Executive, and Managing Editor representative on the Cochrane Council.

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Ann Jones

Ann Is the joint Managing Editor of Cochrane Acute Respiratory Infections. Ann has worked with Cochrane for the past decade, and the ARI team for 4 years. Ann's previous experience includes working in health technology assessment, development of healthcare classification systems, journal publication, and oncology support, care and research.   Email: [email protected] Show less

Justin Clark

Justin is the Senior Research Information Specialist. He is also the Cochrane Information Specialist for the Acute Respiratory Infections Group, a member of the Cochrane Information Specialists Executive and the Co-Lead of the search group of the Living Evidence Network. His work focuses on locating and retrieving information in a way that minimises workloads for research teams.  He has been working on developing tools and methods for the automation of systematic reviews. He has recently led a trial evaluating one of these tools by comparing human performance using them, to human performance not using them.

Justin is also completing his Masters of Science by Research under the supervision of Prof Paul Glasziou, Asst Prof Sharon Sanders and Assoc Prof Elaine Beller.  His research, titled “Improved systematic searching for improving systematic reviews”, aims to improve the speed and efficiency of conducting systematic reviews by creating an enhanced way of conducting a systematic searching workflow which will combine the most effective methods of searching with a range of Systematic Review Automation tools.

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Honorary Associate Professor Elaine Beller

Elaine is a biostatistician and clinical trialist with more than 25 years’ experience in research.  One of her research areas is focused on reducing the waste in research effort by improving the quality of published research reports, particularly in systematic reviews and randomised trials. Elaine led the PRISMA for Abstracts extension of the PRISMA Statement. 

Email: [email protected]

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Melanie Vermeulen

Melanie is the Research Administrative Officer for the Institute. She worked as an instructional developer for the University of Johannesburg before immigrating to Australia in 2008. She joined Bond University as a Laboratory Officer for the Faculty of Health Sciences and Medicine in 2009 and joined the Institute in 2013.   In her role she performs administrative duties, coordinates workshops, supports the research staff , the Manager of the Institute as well as the Director.

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Iris Gerke

Iris works as a Research Administrative Officer for the Evidence Based Practice Professorial Unit.  She has many years’ experience as a Research Officer for various university hospitals in Germany.  After moving to Australia, she followed her passion and became an Event Manager.   Her previous role entailed working for a small IT company overseeing their administrative duties as well as coordinating events and conferences.

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Amanda Murray

Amanda has worked as a Research Assistant since 2015 focusing on GP recruitment and coordinating studies.  Trials she has been involved in are the General Practice Antimicrobial Stewardship Programme (GAPS), Shared Decision Making and, more recently, the Community Pharmacist Referral to General Practice.  She has over 20 years’ experience in industries including, health, law and business, with her current focus being GP engagement in research.  Additionally, Amanda has a Master of Art Therapy, from the University of Western Sydney and is a professionally registered Art Psychotherapist.  Her speciality in this field is child and adolescent mental health where she develops and facilitates art therapy programmes to primary and secondary educational providers as well as working in private practice.

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Dr Eman Abukmail

Eman is a medical doctor (MD), holding Masters of Biochemistry and Genetics from University of Munich (LMU). Eman is working as a research assistant to support various research projects in the institute including both quantitative and qualitative research. Her research interests include shared decision making, overdiagnosis, and antibiotic resistance.   Eman is also completing her PhD on "Shared decision making for reducing unnecessary antibiotic use in uncomplicated urinary tract infections and skin and soft tissue infections." under the supervision of Prof Chris Del Mar and Prof Tammy Hoffmann Email: [email protected] Show less

Dr Ruwani Peiris

Ruwani is a Research Assistant involved in projects exploring the natural history of self-limiting conditions in general practice, and the quality of reporting of published systematic reviews. She holds a Bachelor of Biomedical Science (Honours) and a Doctor of Medicine from the University of Melbourne, and she is completing a Master of Public Health through the University of Sydney.   Email: [email protected] Show less

Hannah Larsen

Hannah is a Research Assistant at the Institute. Since graduating with First Class Honours in Psychology in 2014, she has been working in project management for private market and social research agencies in Australia and the UK. Her personal belief in quality research and ‘good’ science in healthcare lead her to the Institute, where she aims to further develop key evidence-based research skills.  Her areas of interest (primarily through a mental health lens), are non-drug interventions, over-diagnosis and labelling, and translating evidence-based research into public and clinical uptake. 

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Connor Forbes

Connor is the Software Support Officer currently completing a computer science degree majoring in data science and artificial intelligence. He works with the team to create automation tools to assist with systematic reviews.   Email: [email protected] Show less

Dr Thanya Pathirana

Thanya is completing her PhD on overdiagnosis of prostate cancer in Australia under the supervision of Prof Paul Glasziou, Dr Katy Bell (University of Sydney) and Prof Jenny Doust. She is a medical doctor from Sri Lanka and she completed her Masters in Public health at Griffith University Australia in 2014. Her other research interests include overtreatment, medical education and health promotion.   She’s currently working as a Senior lecturer in medical education and Associate lead in Doctor and Health in the Community theme in the School of Medicine, Griffith University, Sunshine Coast.

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Rebecca Sims

Rebecca Sims is a PhD candidate under the supervision of Prof Paul Glasziou and Assoc Prof Rae Thomas.  Her research focuses on public and professional perceptions of labelling of health conditions and involves exploration of why labelling of health conditions is influential.  She has experience in researching osteoporosis, antibiotic resistance, alternatives to antibiotics, overdiagnosis, and stigma of psychological conditions.  Rebecca is a Clinical Psychology Registrar, and completed her Master of Psychology (Clinical) at Bond University, Australia.

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Ann Bryant

Ann is completing her Masters of Science by Research under the supervision of Assoc Prof Rae Thomas and Asst Prof Anna Scott.  Her research aims to develop, pilot and evaluate a model for involving patients and the public in the development of Australian clinical guidelines;   and, from these findings embed acceptable and feasible patient and public involvement strategies in the development of clinical practice guidelines. She completed her Master of Applied Science (Agriculture) at Charles Sturt University, Australia and Graduate Diploma of Psychology at Central Queensland University, Australia.    

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Rhonda Morton

Rhonda’s professional background is in executive leadership of hospital and health services in Queensland and Western Australia.  She now works with the Bond University Faculty of Health Sciences and Medicine, and is engaged in a PhD part time under the supervision of Professor Paul Glasziou and Associate Professor Rae Thomas.  Her research interests include evidence-based non-drug treatments, reducing un-necessary side effects of healthcare, and evidence-informed decision making by patients for their own healthcare journey.  Other interests include innovation and excellence in health service delivery, leadership, organisational design, and she provides private coaching for personal development.

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Sujeewa Palagama

Sujeewa is a PhD candidate under the supervision of Professor Paul Glasziou, Professor Stacy Carter and Associate Professor Katy Bell. His research focuses on Artificial Intelligence and the possibility of bias incorporated on AI based applications in relation to medicine. .  

With a clinical background of general surgical training and rural general practice Sujeewa works as a senior lecturer  in medical education and completed his master of medical research at Griffith University, Australia.

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Dominique Jones

Dominique is a PhD candidate under the supervision of Associate Professor Rae Thomas, Dr Amy Bannatyne and Associate Professor Christian Moro. Her research focuses on the harms of overdiagnosis in children with autism spectrum disorders and other childhood mental illnesses.

She is a qualified and experienced primary school teacher and has experience in research from various postgraduate degrees. Dominique completed her Master of Educational Leadership and Master of Teaching (Primary) at the University of Melbourne and post-graduate studies in Autism at Griffith University.  

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Kwame Peprah Boaitey

Kwame is a PhD student at the Centre for Research in Minimising Antibiotic Resistance in the Community (CRE-MARC). His PhD focuses on optimizing antibiotic use in primary health care under the supervision of Professor Chris Del Mar, Tammy Hoffmann, and Dr Mina Bakhit. He is also a pharmacist and a global health professional from Ghana.

Before starting his PhD, he worked as a consultant at the department of Global Coordination and Partnership, Antimicrobial Stewardship and Awareness Unit at the World Health Organization Headquarters in Geneva where he supported the team in the implementation of antimicrobial stewardship programmes in priority WHO countries. Before joining the WHO, Kwame served as the Deputy Executive Secretary and the Strategic Plans Manager of the Pharmaceutical Society of Ghana (PSGH) responsible for ensuring the achievement of key deliverables in the PSGH 10-year strategic plan hinged on Ensuring Patient-Centered Care, Improving Efficiency and Effectiveness of Pharmacists, Improving Sustainable Access to Medicines, and Strengthening the Society to Influence National Health Policies. His role also included driving the Pharmaceutical Society’s global health and advocacy program on Antimicrobial Resistance, Access to Medicines, Rational Medicine Use, Adolescent Reproductive Health, and medicine utilization. He is a former intern at “ReAct in Uppsala and contributed to the creation of the ‘ReAct Toolbox. He has hands-on experience from address AMR issues in LMIC.Kwame is a graduate of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (Ghana) and has a Master’s degree in Global Health from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, and a graduate certificate in Pharmaceutical Policy Analysis from Utrecht University in the Netherlands.

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