TRW Workshop Speakers

RADIATION ONCOLOGY PRINCESS ALEXANDRA HOSPITAL

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Dr Elizabeth Brown is the Assistant Director for Radiation Therapy – Treatment at Radiation Oncology Princess Alexandra Hospital.  She completed her PhD at the Queensland University of Technology in 2016 on adaptive radiation therapy for head and neck cancer.  She has a keen interest in promoting research amongst Radiation Therapists and is the current chair of the ASMIRT Research Committee.  Her research interests include head and neck cancer, image guided radiation therapy and improving patient experiences of treatment.  In her spare time, Elizabeth loves baking, especially anything involving chocolate!

CHRISTCHURCH HOSPITAL

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Dr Andrew (Andy) Cousins is the Clinical Manager of Medical Physics and Bioengineering team in Christchurch Hospital, New Zealand. After a PhD involving electron gun design and post-doc work x-raying explosives as they detonated, he accidently ended up in Medical Physics. Since moving to New Zealand in 2012 he has sat on a number of national committees and currently is on the board of directors for the ACPSEM.

OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN CANCER CENTRE

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Jenna is the Senior Research Radiation Therapist at the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Centre in Melbourne. Her interests include person centered care, research, breast radiotherapy techniques, imaging – particularly MR in RT, particle therapy, CrossFit, travel and photography. She holds a Breast Cancer Trials Clinical Fellowship position for her PhD study OPRAH MRL, which is exploring the optimisation of patient positioning for accelerated partial breast irradiation to be delivered on the MR Linac. Jenna is an active member of the RANZCR Targeting Cancer reference panel and is passionate about raising the profile of Radiotherapy as a cancer treatment, the need for access to clinical trials to improve practice and outcomes and making sure that patients that would benefit from this treatment have the option to receive it.

CSIRO AUSTRALIAN E-HEALTH RESEARCH CENTRE

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Dr. Jason Dowling is a Principal Research Scientist at the CSIRO Australian e-Health Research Centre, where he leads a multidisciplinary team focused on advancing AI-driven medical imaging, multi-modal diagnostics, and wearable healthcare technologies. With over 15 years of experience, his research spans a broad range of imaging modalities, including MRI, CT, ultrasound , PET, SPECT, and X-ray with applications in wearable systems, advanced image analysis, and the clinical translation of AI solutions into practice. He has recent experience developing software as a medical device (SaMD) within an ISO13485-certified quality management system.

Dr. Dowling is an Adjunct Professor at the Queensland University of Technology and has a number of honorary academic positions. He actively engages with industry partners, including Siemens Healthcare, and collaborates across academia, clinical settings, and the private sector to foster innovation and facilitate the real-world implementation of AI technologies.

 A dedicated mentor, Dr. Dowling has supervised more than 15 PhD and master’s students in medical physics, computer science, and medical imaging, fostering interdisciplinary research and talent development.  He is involved in international standards development, serving as a committee member for ISO/IEC WG12 and is an editor for ISO/IEC standards on medical image-based modelling. 

ST GEORGE CANCER CARE CENTRE

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Kendell is a level 3 Radiation Therapist with 7 years’ experience. Kendell graduated from the University of Newcastle and is currently working at St George Cancer Care Centre. She is the Principal Investigator of a current multi-institutional research project on Mid-Ventilation in Lung Stereotactic Ablative Body Radiotherapy, and she represents the peak national organisation for medical radiation practitioners in Australia being the ASMIRT NSW Branch Chair.

PETER MACCALLUM CANCER

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A/Prof Susan Harden is Radiation Oncology Lead for Research at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, specialising in thoracic malignancies/CUP. She is CIA for the single visit single fraction SABR lung study and the Victorian Mesothelioma Outcomes Registry (at Monash University Cancer Research Programme). She trained in the UK, obtained a Doctorate in Medicine from Oxford University for translational research undertaken at The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, USA and worked as a Consultant Clinical Oncologist in Cambridge 2006-2019. During this time she was chief/principal investigator for 15 phase 2/3 translational and radiation dose escalation lung cancer studies and member of NCRN CTRAD and NCRN lung study groups 2012-2019. She was appointed as clinical lead for Public Health England’s National Radiotherapy Dataset 2017-2019 and the UK Lung Cancer and Mesothelioma Audits from 2016-2020 with publications highlighting underutilisation of SABR and multimodality curative intent treatments. Following moving to Australia in 2019, she is RO lead investigator for AURORA, a member of LUCAP reference group, TOGA SCLC/meso subcommittee, a PI for TROG CHEST-RT and was elected to the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer’s Global Multidisciplinary Practice Standards committee (2023) and to their Staging and Prognostic Factors Group (2024).

INSTITUTE OF MEDICAL PHYSICS, THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY

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Prof Haworth is the Director of the Institute of Medical Physics at the University of Sydney, as well as the Director of the Radiation Oncology Medical Physics service at Westmead and Blacktown Hospitals. Annette is a Life Member of TROG and a member of the Board of Directors. She was a member of the Scientific Committee for 10 years and has led the QA program for several trials.  Her goal is to ensure physicists and radiation therapist interests and expertise are represented and acknowledged, and provide technical advice and support, in particular to the RTQA team, to ensure trials meet international standards for QA review, and are able to support and promote the use of contemporary and novel radiotherapy methods.

GENESISCARE

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Dr Michael Jameson is the Operations Manager for GenesisCare NSW. Previously he was Chief Physicist for GenesisCare in NSW where he led a team of over 20 clinical physicists working to improve the science and practice of radiation oncology. He is an adjunct associate professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of New South Wales. Dr Jameson has over 100 peer reviewed abstracts and publications, a h-index of 20 and over 1800 citations. His work has focused on the accuracy and precision of radiation therapy and magnetic resonance guided adaptive radiation therapy (MRgART). His work in MRgART has resulted in $2.36M in competitive grant funding and several national and international invited presentations. He led the commissioning and implementation of the first MR Linac in NSW and second in Australia. This system was the first to treat fully adaptive MRgART in Australia and he contributed to building a busy successful service. Dr Jameson chaired the ACPSEM MR Linac working group which is supporting the safe implementation of MR Linacs in ANZ. He also chaired the TROG Adaptive Radiotherapy subcommittee developing guidelines for MRgART clinical trials. Currently he is a member of the Radiation Oncology Alliance working group on Adaptive Radiation Therapy.

IMAGE X INSTITUTE

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Professor Paul Keall is an NHMRC Leadership Fellow and Director of the Image X Institute, a centre for innovation in radiation therapy and cancer imaging technologies at the University of Sydney. Technologies developed at the Image X Institute have been assessed in clinical trials such as the TROG 15.01 Stereotactic Prostate Adaptive Radiotherapy utilising KIM (Kilovoltage Intrafraction Monitoring) SPARK and TROG 17.03 Liver Ablative Radiotherapy utilizing Kilovoltage intrafraction monitoring (KIM) trials. Professor Keall works closely with industry partners to broadly apply research discoveries to have a real-world impact on the lives and livelihoods of cancer patients.

PETER MACCALLUM CANCER

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After completing his PhD in Germany, he migrated to Australia in 1989 where he commenced his career in radiotherapy physics. From 2001 to 2005 he moved to Canada where he worked at the London Regional Cancer Centre on the commissioning of one of the first tomotherapy units. In 2005, Tomas became principal research physicist at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne, Australia where he now is Director of Physical Sciences. He holds academic appointments at Wollongong, RMIT and Melbourne Universities. Tomas has an interest in education of medical physicists, dosimetry of ionising radiation, image guidance and clinical trials demonstrated by more than 350 papers in refereed journals and 110 invited conference presentations. He has been Principal and Co-Principal investigator in 3 TROG trials and has been honoured with an Order of Australia Medal for services to science and medicine.

ROYAL ADELAIDE HOSPITAL & ICON CANCER CENTRE

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Associate Professor Hien Le currently serves as the Chair of the TROG Scientific Committee. He is a Radiation Oncology Staff Specialist and Head of Research at both the Royal Adelaide Hospital and ICON Cancer Centre. A key collaborator with TROG on numerous trials, A/Prof. Le’s clinical interests focus on the application of innovative and emerging cancer technologies. He is also an Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of South Australia and a Fellow of the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute. A/Prof. Le has secured significant grant funding, including support from the NHMRC and MRFF, to conduct vital clinical research on the management and treatment of rare cancers.

CANCER VOICES

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Lee was diagnosed with Grade 3 breast cancer in 2005 and faced a recurrence 13 years later. After a 40-year career in education, she joined Cancer Voices, leading the Consumers Involved in Research program. She contributes to MSAC applications, MBS submissions, and Cancer Council guidelines. Lee has supported regional radiation campaigns and was the consumer member on the Faculty of Radiation Oncology Council at RANZCR. Passionate about research, she collaborates with Professor Paul Keall at ACRF Image X Institute and has co-authored publications. She has presented at major conferences, including COSA, RANZCR, and Cure Cancer, advocating for patient-centered cancer care and research.

STANFORD UNIVERSITY

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Quynh-Thu Le, MD is the Katharine Dexter McCormick & Stanley McCormick Memorial Professor and Chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology at Stanford University. She co-directs the Radiation Biology Program of the Stanford Cancer Institute. Her clinical focus is on radiation management of head and neck cancer (HNC). She has led multicenter phase II and III clinical trials, testing the addition of novel drugs as well as radiosensitizer or radioprotector with chemoradiotherapy in HNC. Her lab works on approaches to regenerate salivary glands after radiation damage, identification of biomarkers of prognosis and treatment resistance in HNC, and development of novel treatment strategies for HNC with a focus on the tumor microenvironment and Galectin-1.

She currently co-chairs the NRG Oncology Group of the NCI-sponsored National Clinical Trial Network (NCTN), which conducts practice-changing phase II-III trials in many cancers. Before that, she chaired the HNC Committee of NRG Oncology for ten years. She has received grant support from ASCO, ASTRO as well as P01, R01 and R21 grants from the NIH. She has served as a reviewer for several journals and NIH study sections. She has been actively involved in many national and international organizations such as ASTRO, ASCO and AARC and ARS. She was inducted into the Fellowship of the American College of Radiology (FACR), the American Society of Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology (FASTRO) and the Institute of Medicine / National Academy of Medicine (IOM/NAM). She was also honored with the Caltech Distinguished Alumni Award.

CALVARY MATER NEWCASTLE

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Professor Joerg Lehmann is an accredited Radiation Oncology Medical Physicist. He works at Calvary Mater Newcastle as Lead Medical Physicist for Research. His research interests include dosimetry, quality assurance, image guidance for radiotherapy treatments and data mining.

Joerg is a member of the several international working groups, including a joint task group of the American Association of Medical Physics (AAPM) and the European Society for Radiotherapy and Oncology (ESTRO) on “Performance validation of surrogate assessment systems in the context of medical physics applications (TG 360)”. He is member of the AAPM Global Research and Scientific Innovation Committee and Vice Chair of the Global Clinical Trials Subcommittee.

Joerg is active in radiotherapy dosimetry audits, he works as quality assurance (QA) physicist for TROG and he has served as chair of the Global Quality Assurance of Radiation Therapy Clinical Trials Harmonisation Group (GHG), a collaborative group of international Radiation Therapy Quality Assurance (RTQA) Groups harmonizing and improving RTQA for multi-institutional clinical trials.

As an acknowledged expert in clinical dosimetry in Australia, Joerg serves on the Radiation Dosimetry Advisory Group of the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) and the Australasian College of Physical Sciences and Engineering in Medicine (ACPSEM).

KATHLEEN KILGOUR CENTRE

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Dr Suzanne (Suzy) Lydiard is a Radiation Oncology Medical Physicist at the Kathleen Kilgour Centre, NZ. After the completion of her PhD within the ImageX Institute at the University of Sydney she took on a clinical research and development role at the Kathleen Kilgour Centre and has a particular interest in motion management, cardiac treatments and adaptive radiotherapy.

PRINCESS ALEXANDRA HOSPITAL

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Dr Nicholls is a Radiation Oncologist based at the Princess Alexandra Hospital, Raymond Terrace (ROPART) campus. He subspecialises in prostate and urogenital cancers, head and neck cancers and has a special interest in stereotactic radiotherapy. After completing Radiation Oncology training in Queensland, he completed a prostate cancer fellowship at the Royal Marsden Hospital, London. Dr Nicholls has several peer reviewed publications on topics including lung cancer, prostate cancer, stereotactic radiotherapy and medical education. He is an examiner with Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Radiologists (RANZCR) and a reviewer for the Journal of Medical Imaging and Radiation Oncology (JMIRO).

TOWNSVILLE CANCER CENTRE

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Professor Sabe Sabesan BMBS PhD FRACP is a senior Medical Oncologist at the Townsville Cancer Centre and the Clinical Director of the Australian Teletrial Program, Office of Research and Innovation, Queensland Health. He led the development of state and national  guidelines for various teleoncology models including Queensland Remote Chemotherapy supervision model and the Australasian Teletrial model to improve access to high quality care closer to home for RRR communities. As the President of the Clinical Oncology Society of Australia, he plans to advocate for equitable health systems and healthy workplace culture as the foundation for workforce wellbeing using the COSA workplace culture framework.

ST GEORGE CANCER CARE CENTRE

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Laurel is a Research RT at St George who has been focussing on Image Registration in the past few years. Her work involves supporting clinical trials and investigator led research.

LIVERPOOL/CAMPBELTOWN CANCER THERAPY CENTRES

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Fahim Siddiqi is a Radiation Therapist at the Liverpool/Campbeltown Cancer Therapy Centres in Southwest Sydney. He graduated from the University of Newcastle in 2010 and has been awarded a Master in Advance Radiation Therapy practice from Monash University in 2020. He is a keen advocate for implementation of advance radiation therapy techniques and equity and quality in Radiotherapy delivery.   Fahim loves cycling and running at the cool and covered gym space.  

HEALTH NEW ZEALAND CANTERBURY

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Mary is a Radiation Therapist at Health New Zealand Canterbury, with 20 years of experience in the field. Her current role is the Quality, Research, and Development RT specialist, where she has focused on supporting staff in project and research management and facilitating grassroots and collaborative group research. Passionate about radiation oncology, Mary is dedicated to collaborating with other centres to enhance the quality and equity of care for tūroro and whanau across Aotearoa.