Cerebral Palsy Alliance Workshop

Professor Nadia Badawi AM

Professor Badawi AM has devoted her professional life to the care and wellbeing of babies in newborn intensive care as well as people with cerebral palsy and their families. She is an internationally recognised expert on newborn encephalopathy and cerebral palsy. She is the Chair of Cerebral Palsy Research at the Cerebral Palsy Alliance Research Institute. In this role, Professor Badawi has helped found the Australian National CP Register, the International CP Genomics Consortium and ANZ CP Strategy. She is involved in the X-cellerate stem-cell consortium and has extensive international collaborations. Professor Badawi is a member of the steering group of IMPACT for CP (International Multidisciplinary Prevention and Cure Team for Cerebral Palsy), the Scientific Advisory Board of Cerebral Palsy Alliance Research Foundation, and has co-chaired 10 International Cerebral Palsy Prevention and Cure Summits. She has also supported the establishment of both the Cerebral Palsy Alliance Research Foundation in the USA and CP registers in low-to-middle income countries such as Bangladesh and Vietnam. Professor Badawi is also a neonatologist and Medical Director and co-Head of the Grace Centre for Newborn Intensive Care. She is a founding member of the Australian and NZ Neonatal surgery network working on developmental follow-up standards.

Dr Catherine Morgan

Dr Cathy Morgan is a Physiotherapist with PhD in Biomedical Science and >30 years clinical and research experience in the field of Cerebral Palsy. As Senior Research Fellow at the Cerebral Palsy Alliance Research Institute, at the University of Sydney she leads the Early Detection and Early Intervention Programme. Dr Morgan is part of an internationally recognised team of researchers conducting clinical trials of novel interventions geared to preventing, curing and treating cerebral palsy, early diagnosis of CP, and knowledge translation across the pipeline from bench-to-bedside-to-policy.

Ms Lynda Mcnamara

Lynda is a clinician-researcher, Advanced Paediatric Physiotherapist with Queensland Health and PhD candidate with the University of Sydney (NHMRC Post Graduate Scholarship). Lynda has over 25 years of clinical experience in managing children with cerebral palsy and is passionate about consumer partnerships and equitable and evidence-informed practice to improve outcomes for children with cerebral palsy and their families. She provides paediatric clinical services for culturally diverse clients with cerebral palsy within the Cairns and Hinterland, Cape York and Torres-Strait Northern Peninsula regions. Lynda has previous experience as a cerebral palsy Knowledge Translation Fellow (NHMRC MCRI Centre of Research Excellence in Cerebral Palsy). Her PhD thesis explores the implementation of early diagnosis of cerebral palsy guidelines in the Australian context and the impact of online educational interventions on physician behaviour and patient outcomes.

Dr Esther Tantsis

Esther graduated from the University of Sydney in 1998 with a Bachelor of Medical Science majoring in neuroscience and topographical anatomy. She then attended the University of Sydney medical school and completed an MBBS in 2002. Esther worked as an intern at Westmead Hospital before completing paediatric training at the Children’s Hospital Westmead for three years. She then trained for a further 6 years (whilst completing a PhD) and was admitted as a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians as a paediatric neurologist. Her paediatric neurology training was undertaken through fellowships in general neurology and neuroimmunology. She completed an additional year as the academic fellow at which time she broadened her experience in paediatric epilepsy and neurophysiology. Currently Esther works with the neuromuscular team in the Sydney Children’s hospital Network helping to use the latest advanced therapies for children with neuromuscular conditions. In addition to this Esther became the medical lead of the cerebral palsy early diagnosis (CP EDC) in 2018. This multidisciplinary clinic was formed as a partnership between the Cerebral Palsy Alliance and the Children’s Hospital Westmead and serves to assess and diagnose children with cerebral palsy using the latest evidence-based guidelines for early diagnosis, recruitment to clinical trials and CP early intervention. Research: Esther has a strong and proven interest in clinical research. She completed a PhD with the University of Sydney on Multiple Sclerosis and related conditions in children. She has published several papers in peer-reviewed journals as both the primary author and as a co-author. More recently Esther has been awarded a CP Research Grant for a ‘Gene-CP project’ which aims improve identification and testing of children likely to have a genetic contribution to their diagnosis of cerebral palsy.

Professor Michael Fahey

Professor Michael Fahey is a clinician-researcher with a dedicated focus on the Genomics of Cerebral Palsy for which he was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship. His broader research focuses on using neurogenetics to understand the causes of movement disorders and diseases of the brain, muscle and nerve. He has undertaken research and training with Monash University, Melbourne University, The Royal Australasian College of Physicians, the Alfred Hospital, Sydney Children's Hospital and the Murdoch Children's Research Institute. He is trained in Paediatrics, Child Neurology and Clinical Genetics. He is head of Child Neurology and Director of Neurogenetics at Monash Health. He was a foundation member and the Neurologist for the Monash hub of the Victorian Paediatric Rehabilitation Service, a multidisciplinary diagnostic and treatment team that reviews over 700 children with cerebral palsy in southeast Melbourne. He has more than 130 publications and has received grant funding of more than $20M