Keynote speakers
Professor Elaine Mardis, PhD
Co-Executive Director, Institute for Genomic Medicine at Nationwide Children's Hospital
Elaine Mardis, PhD is co-Executive Director of the Steve and Cindy Rasmussen Institute for Genomic Medicine at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and holds the Rasmussen Nationwide Foundation Endowed Chair in Genomic Medicine. She also is Professor of Paediatrics at The Ohio State University College of Medicine.
Dr. Mardis was previously on faculty at Washington University School of Medicine for 22 years, where she was named the Robert E. and Louise F. Dunn Distinguished Professor of Medicine. Dr. Mardis serves on the Supervisory Board of Qiagen N.V. and on the Board of Directors of Singular Genomics Systems, Inc.
She is an internationally recognized expert in cancer genomics and immunogenomics, with over 430 published manuscripts. Her ongoing research interests lie in the integrated characterization of cancer genomes, defining DNA-based somatic and germline interactions and RNA-based pathways and immune microenvironments that lead to cancer onset and progression, with a focus on paediatric cancers and precision oncology.
Dr. Mardis is the former President of the American Association for Cancer Research. In 2019 she was elected a Fellow of the American Association for Cancer Research and a member of the U.S. National Academy of Medicine.
Professor Neil Sebire
Professor of Pathology GOSH UCL and Chief Research Information Officer (CRIO), Director of the GOSH Clinical Informatics Research Programme
Neil Sebire is Professor of pathology at Great Ormond Street Hospital Institute of child health. He is an active clinical academic, having co-authored >1000 publications (h-index 108), with a particular interest over recent years in clinical informatics and making secondary use of routine health data.
He is the chief research information officer at Great Ormond Street Hospital and was the inaugural national chief clinical data officer for health data research UK (HDRUK). He runs the GOSH clinical informatics research program which currently has more than 20 PhD students working in this area.
Professor Gary L. Freed MD, MPH
Percy and Mary Murphy Professor of Pediatrics, Professor of Health Management and Policy, Director, Program on Equity for Adolescent and Child Health (PEACH), Director, Michigan Child Health Equity Collaborative (MI-CHEC)
Gary L. Freed MD, MPH is the Percy and Mary Murphy Professor of Pediatrics in the School of Medicine and Professor of Health Management and Policy in the School of Public Health at the University of Michigan. He serves as Associate Chair for Government Relations in the Department of Pediatrics and the Directory of Research for the Office for Health Equity and Inclusion in the Medical School.
Dr. Freed has more than 30 years of experience in children's health services research. He founded the first pediatric health services research center in the US and directed the first NIH-funded pediatric health services research fellowship in the nation. He has been the principal investigator of numerous grants on child health policy and health economics, immunizations, health care quality measurement, health inequities, physician behavior and the medical workforce.
He is a past president of the Society for Pediatric Research, the largest research society in child health. He is past chair of the Department of Health and Human Services National Vaccine Advisory Committee and a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics. He recently completed his term as the President of the International Pediatric Research Foundation, an organization comprised of the leading pediatric research societies in the US and Europe. His research outside of the US has included health policy and economic studies in both western and eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, Israel, Japan and Australia. He just completed work as a 2021-22 Fulbright Scholar to The Netherlands where he conducted foundational research into the health care delivery for children and worked to develop the field of pediatric HSR in that country.
He spent 3 years in Australia as a visiting scholar at the Royal Children’s Hospital and as a Professor in the School of Population and Global Health. While at the RCH he started the health services research program.
In 2023 he founded the Program for Equity and Child Health (PEACH) and the Michigan Child Health Equity Collaborative (Mi-CHEC), the first quality collaborative in the US focused on child health equity.
Dr Kim Sutherland
Executive Director, Office for Health and Medical Research, NSW Health
Kim Sutherland leads the Office for Health and Medical Research. Prior to her appointment to OHMR, she held Director roles at the Agency for Clinical Innovation and the Bureau of Health Information. Kim is a health services researcher with experience in performance measurement and reporting, evaluation and assessment of quality, and change management in healthcare organisations.
She played a central role in the development of performance measurement frameworks in NSW and the UK and co-authored a series of reports on the English NHS quality agenda. Kim holds a Master of Science from London Hospital Medical College, a Master of Business Administration from Imperial College London and a PhD from the University of Cambridge.
In 2022, Kim received the Public Service Medal for outstanding public service to NSW Health.