Organising Committee

Andrew is Head of Research at The Alfred ICU, and Deputy Director, Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Research Centre - Monash University. His research interests include traumatic brain injury, sepsis, and ECMO. 

He is passionate about supporting trainees/early-career clinician-scientists, and increasing diversity in clinical research. He is a proud product of Aotearoa New Zealand.

Chris is an Intensivist and ECMO specialist and Deputy Director (Education) at the Alfred ICU in Melbourne, and a Clinical Adjunct Associate Professor at Monash University. He is the Lead for the  Clinician Educator Incubator , a Director of the Australia and New Zealand  Intensive Care Foundation, and is a First Part Examiner for the College of Intensive Care Medicine. He is an internationally recognised Clinician Educator with a passion for helping clinicians learn and for improving the clinical performance of individuals and collectives.   

Chris leads the Alfred ICU’s education and simulation programmes and runs the unit’s education website  INTENSIVE. He created the ‘Critically Ill Airway’ course and teaches on numerous courses around the world. He is one of the founders of the FOAM movement (Free Open-Access Medical education) and is co-creator of litfl.com, the RAGE podcast, the Resuscitology course, and SMACC. He has been recognised for his contributions to education with awards from ANCICS, ANZAHPE, and ACEM.

His one great achievement is being the father of three amazing children.   

Twitter:  @precordialthump. 

Professor Carol Hodgson is Head of the Division of Clinical Trials and Cohort Studies in the School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, and Deputy Director of the Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Research Centre, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. She has held NHMRC funding throughout her career, as PhD scholarship, Early Career Fellowship and currently with an Investigator Grant (2020-2024). She is a Specialist Physiotherapist in Intensive Care at The Alfred Hospital, Melbourne, Australia.

She sits on the Executive and Scientific Committee of the International ECMO Network (ECMONet), the Guidelines Leadership Group for National COVID-19 Clinical Evidence Taskforce and is a Council Member of the International Forum of Acute Care Trialists (InFACT). She leads international multicentre trials for the Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Society Clinical Trials Group, with expertise in long-term functional recovery after critical illness. She has contributed to international guidelines for the management of patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome, sepsis and COVID-19, including recommendations for the use of mechanical ventilation, high-flow nasal therapy, oxygen, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, and early rehabilitation.

Twitter:  @chodgsonANZICRC

Celia Bradford is a Senior Intensive Care Specialist at Royal North Shore Hospital and Director of the Sydney Adventist Hospital ICU. She has an interest in Neurointensive Care and Renal Medicine. Her research has been in these areas. In addition, she is an editor for ‘The Bottom Line’, an online blog that reviews and critiques critical care literature and is interested in converting research findings into clinical practice. She is an advocate for women in Intensive Care and provides mentorship for aspiring Intensivists.

Twitter: @celiabradford

Melita is an intensive care specialist at Townsville University Hospital in tropical north Queensland. Her critical care interests include resuscitation, organ donation and end-of-life care, achieving equitable health outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and psychological safety in the workplace.  She has a strong educational focus, having created an end-of-life communication and a simulation-based intro to ICU course for junior doctors, in addition to organising the biennial Tropical Intensive care Network meeting, along with contributing to CICM examinations and courses. After swearing on stage at a previous scientific meeting, her role in research these days is encouraging and supporting others, as well as reading Critical Care Reviews of course! In her spare time, she enjoys travel, accumulating post-graduate qualifications, chasing greyhounds and dreams of one day returning to a quiet farm life.

Rachael Parke is the Nurse Senior Research Fellow in the Cardiothoracic and Vascular Intensive Care Unit, Auckland City Hospital, New Zealand and Associate Head – Postgraduate Research in the School of Nursing, University of Auckland.

Rachael’s research is embedded in clinical practice and addresses areas of importance to clinicians, patients and families worldwide. She designs novel interventions to improve patient-centred outcomes for cardiothoracic surgical and intensive care patients, including programmes of research into oxygen therapy, acute kidney injury and fluid management.
Rachael has published over 160 articles (h-index Scopus = 38) in high impact journals and received grants exceeding NZ$20 million.

She is passionate about establishing the next generation of clinician researchers and leads two research courses (BASIC Clinical Research and BASIC Research Coordination). She also established a podcast series for nurses, academics and allied health professionals working in ICU or establishing their own academic careers - Critical 2 Your Success.

Twitter:  @RachaelParke

Prof Young is a member of the highly successful Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Society Clinical Trials Group (ANZICS CTG) and leading member of the New Zealand ICU research community. His expertise in the design and conduct of large-scale multicentre RCTs in the field of Intensive Care Medicine and in clinical trial science methodology is internationally recognised. In the past 10 years he has established himself as a highly recognised figure in the field of clinical ICU research internationally. He has published more than 250 papers in peer-reviewed journals including 13 manuscripts in the NEJM and 8 in JAMA. In 2020, he was an author of two of the top 10 most-viewed non-COVID related JAMA papers.  These two papers were viewed more than 220,000 times in 2020.  In 2020, the manuscript for the ICU-ROX trial (on which Prof Young was the Chief Investigator) was selected by the editors of the NEJM as one of the top 14 most notable NEJM papers of 2020.  He is the Associate Editor for Critical Care and Resuscitation (the highest impact journal in the field of Intensive Care Medicine outside the US and Europe). He is involved in research collaborations with scientists from Australia, the UK, Canada, the USA, Italy, France, Ireland, Scandinavia, and Brazil.

Twitter:  @DogICUma

Professor John Fraser is Founder and Director of the Critical Care Research Group; Director of the Intensive Care Unit at St Andrew’s War Memorial Hospital; Founder and Chief Medical Officer of De Motu Cordis Pty Ltd; and Immediate Past President of the Asia Pacific ELSO Chapter. John has five professorships across major Australian universities; has published over 650 peer-reviewed publications; and has received more than AUD91million in competitive grants. In 2018, John was awarded the Australian Society of Medical Research Clinical Research Award. He is the proud father of five great children: Ben, Dominic, Nicholas, Lucy, and Tommy.

Associate Professor David Gattas is a senior staff intensivist at Royal Prince Alfred (RPA) Hospital in Sydney. RPA is a major teaching hospital of the University of Sydney, and RPA ICU is one of the busiest units in the country. David maintains a full time clinical workload with more than twenty years of clinical, research and teaching experience. David's multiple areas of professional interest and achievement include multicentric randomised controlled clinical trials in intensive care medicine, and institutional and District-level leadership roles in Rapid Response Systems. He has extensive experience in Human Research Ethics Committee participation, and not-for-profit board directorship and leadership of the Australian & New Zealand Intensive Care Foundation. The Foundation's annual grant program is an important source of pilot project and small project funding for early career intensive care researchers and educators in both countries. His appetite for new, high impact clinical science in intensive care is difficult to satisfy, and collaborating with friends and colleagues to help organise the first CCR Down Under meeting is only making it worse.

Twitter: @dgattas

Stephanie has been the Conference and Event Manager at the Alfred Intensive Care Academic Centre for the past 18 months. In this role, she plays a pivotal part in organising and managing various academic and clinical events, contributing significantly to the center's mission of advancing intensive care medicine through education and collaboration.

Stephanie began her career with the College of Intensive Care Medicine (CICM) at its inception, dedicating 11 years to her role. During her time at CICM, she was instrumental in coordinating the Annual Scientific Meeting, the Management Skills Workshop and many educational events, enhancing the professional development of intensivists across Australia and beyond.

Her commitment to excellence and her ability to execute complex events seamlessly have earned her recognition and respect within the meeting and healthcare industry. In addition to her current role, Stephanie is privileged to be a part of the CCR Down Under Committee, where she continues to contribute her expertise to the critical care field.

Rob is an intensivist at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast; Honorary Professor of Practice at Queen's University Belfast; and leads Critical Care Reviews.