Directors
Professor Angela Webster
Angela is Professor of Clinical Epidemiology at the University of Sydney, and a senior Nephrologist and Transplant Physician at Westmead Hospital in Western Sydney. Working with people waiting for transplants and contributing as a special advisor to the organ donation services in NSW spurred her on to form CODE with her close colleague Kate Wyburn. In forming CODE, they established a collaborative network of people with interests in organ donation and transplantation, with the aim of delivering targetted research to improve service delivery. Angela is passionate about integrating patient values and preferences into health services research, and on supporting policy with relevant evidence. She prioritises research translation so that meaningful benefits are felt by patients and clinicians. Angela manages the CODE team.
Email: angela.webster@sydney.edu.au
Twitter: @angelacwebster
Professor Kate Wyburn
Kate is head of Kidney Transplantation at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney, and Clinical Professor at The University of Sydney. She has numerous national policy leadership roles. These include President-Elect of The Transplant Society of Australia and New Zealand (TSANZ), Chair of the National Renal Transplant Advisory Committee (RTAC), Chair of the National Renal Allocation Working Group, Chair of the Australian and New Zealand Kidney Exchange Oversight Committee, Chair of Solid Organ Transplant Working Group for the Immunoglobulin Governance Program of the National Blood Authority, and the immediate past Chair of the NSW Transplant Advisory Committee. Her research work combines basic science in transplant immunology, including antibody-mediated rejection and donor-specific antibodies, with translational work in organ donation suitability and allocation.
Email: kate.wyburn@sydney.edu.au
Senior Biostatistician
Associate Professor Patrick Kelly
Patrick is Associate Professor and Head of Biostatistics at the University of Sydney, and Chair of the teaching committee for the Biostatistics Collaboration of Australia. This collaboration oversees the curriculum and delivery of a Master of Biostatistics program across six Australian universities. Patrick has extensive research experience in both end-stage kidney disease and organ transplantation using health services, health registries and linked data and has been awarded more than $9 million in NHRMC and ARC funding as a chief investigator. Since 2018 he has been involved in the NSW Ministry of Health Biostatistics Trainee program including participating in the interview selection panel, supervising placements and assessing the competencies of trainees at the end of their traineeship. His academic profile can be found here: Since 2018 he has been involved in the NSW Ministry of Health Biostatistics Trainee program. The traineeships are for three years and typically six trainees are recruited per year. His involvement in the program includes being on the interview selection panel, supervising placements and assessing the competencies of trainees at the end of their traineeship.
Email: p.kelly@sydney.edu.au
Post Doctoral Researchers
Dr Nicole De La Mata
Nicole is an early career post-doctoral researcher and biostatistician working at The University of Sydney. She has extensive experience in managing and using large observational cohorts to evaluate patient outcomes and influence health policy. Her methodological interests include cohort studies, data linkage and survival analysis. Her research interests focus on equity in healthcare delivery and outcomes for people with end-stage kidney disease (ESKD), living kidney donors and organ transplant recipients. Nicole has a particular interest in statistical methods evaluating survival. This includes survival models using competing events as well as making comparisons of survival between populations, such as modelling relative survival or excess mortality.
Email: nicole.delamata@sydney.edu.au
Twitter: @Nickii_dlm
Dr Brenda Rosales
Brenda is a Post-doctoral Research Fellow at the University of Sydney with extensive experience in population health research. She completed her PhD at the Sydney School of Public Health, The University of Sydney, investigating cancer outcomes in people with kidney failure. With a background in medical science, Brenda has worked across industry, as a Transplantation Scientist at the NSW Transplantation and Immunogenetics Laboratory and coordinating cancer clinical trials at Imperial College London. In 2022, she was awarded the Sanofi Women in Transplantation Research Fellowship Grant for Research in Gender and Sex in Transplantation. Her current research uses linked health administrative and clinical data to investigate systemic bias, equity and, access to healthcare in organ donation and kidney transplantation..
Email: brenda.rosales@sydney.edu.au
Twitter: @brendamrosales
Dr Heather Baldwin
Heather is a postdoctoral research fellow in epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of Sydney. She has extensive experience in population health research and analysis of large administrative and linked datasets including hospital admissions, emergency, perinatal and mortality data. Her current research focuses on mental health in patients with kidney failure and equitable access to the transplantation waitlist. She is a graduate of the NSW Health Biostatistics Training Program, and holds a Master of Biostatistics and a PhD in biology.
Researchers
Mr James Hedley
James has received an NHMRC postgraduate scholarship to undertake his PhD with CODE. He will be investigating strategies to increase organ donation, focusing on the risk of cancer transmission. James has professional experience as a health economist in the pharmaceutical industry, as a research assistant at the University of Sydney, and as a data manager at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. He completed a Master of Biostatistics in 2018 and has published and presented his research on dialysis, organ transplantation, and organ donation.
Dr Karen Waller
Karen is undertaking a PhD investigating blood-borne viruses in solid organ transplantation. She is the recipient of an NHMRC postgraduate research scholarship (2019). Her research has been published in high impact journals (Transplantation, Medical Journal of Australia) and presented at national and international conferences (Young Investigator Awards at the Transplantation Society, Madrid, 2018 and the International Society for Organ Donation and Procurement, Dubai 2019). Karen is also a medical doctor who is completing specialist training in Gastroenterology and Hepatology.
A short video about her PhD work can be found here
Email: kwal0672@uni.sydney.edu.au
Twitter: @karenmjwaller
Dr Melanie Wyld
Melanie is a renal and transplant physician at Westmead Hospital. Her research explores cost, quality of life and clinical outcomes in kidney transplantation. She has presented her research nationally and internationally and has been the recipient of awards including early career research awards as well as the KHA prize for best presentation in clinical research. She has a number of policy leadership roles including membership of the AIHW Chronic Kidney Disease Expert Advisory Group, the NSW Agency for Clinical Innovation (ACI) renal executive committee and the Australia and New Zealand Dialysis and Transplant Registry (ANZDATA) transplant working group. She has a PhD, MPH, MBBS, and B.Economics (Hons 1 and University Medal) from the University of Sydney, Australia and an MBA from Stanford University, USA.
Rachel Cutting
Rachel is a Registered Nurse having spent eight years nursing in various clinical settings in both New South Wales and Queensland, before completing her Master’s of Public Health at the University of Queensland in 2017. Subsequently, Rachel commenced employment as a Clinics & Research Administration Officer at the Brain and Mind Centre, University of Sydney, where her health background and administrative skills were central in supporting the research and clinical teams. In February 2021 Rachel proudly joined the CODE team in the position of Research Officer where she continues to enjoy broadening her health knowledge and research skills.
Email: rachel.cutting@sydney.edu.au
Dr Pinika Patel
Pinika completed her PhD in 2022 at the University of Sydney which looked at developing improved methods to facilitate active patient involvement and communication for refugees/asylum seekers in a primary health care setting. Pinika has a background in Medical Science and completed her Masters of Public Health in 2016 at the University of Sydney. Subsequently, she worked as a research assistant with the NHMRC funded Centre for Research Excellence, Ask, Share, Know: Rapid Evidence for General Practice Decisions where she has helped to conduct rapid reviews of the evidence and create resources for general practice. She is currently working with the CODE team as Research Assistant to bring her knowledge of decision support tools to a different health context.
Email: pinika.patel@sydney.edu.au
Dr Johanna Birrell
Johanna is a medical doctor and Master of Philosophy student researching treatment access and equity for people with kidney failure in Aotearoa New Zealand. Johanna is undertaking specialist training in general and acute care medicine / public health medicine. She has a diversity of medical experience from working in South Australia, the Northern Territory and New Zealand. Johanna is the current Ross Bailey Fellow at the Nephrology Department at Christchurch Hospital, a position that allows her to combine her passion for clinical medicine and public health research.
Email: johanna.m.birrell@gmail.com
Affiliates
Dr Victor Khou
Victor is a newly qualified medical doctor and an MPhil candidate at the Sydney School of Public Health. He completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Sydney, where he developed an interest in statistical analysis while completing a Bachelor of Science (Advanced). While studying a Doctor of Medicine at Sydney Medical School, he was able to apply his mathematical background to several research projects, which he has continued to be involved in following his graduation. Victor’s current research focuses on causes of death in patients with end-stage kidney disease, particularly while on the waiting list for a transplant, and when withdrawing from treatment. His research interests include cohort studies, data linkage and survival analysis techniques.
Email: vkho2921@uni.sydney.edu.au
Dr Zoe Campbell
Zoe is a medical doctor working at St Vincent’s Hospital Sydney and a Master of Philosophy student at the Sydney School of Public Health. She completed an undergraduate in psychology and continues to have an interest in behavioural and health sciences. Therefore, it fits that her research has been largely focused on communication and behaviour within healthcare. Her current research project focuses on health literacy in people with chronic kidney disease, specifically: What instruments there are in practice to assist those with chronic kidney disease and low health literacy improve their health outcomes? And how can we improve these instruments in the future?
Email: zcam1018@uni.sydney.edu.au
Dr Imogen Thomson
Imogen is a medical doctor and Master of Philosophy student researching opportunities to increase organ donation rates and improve our organ donation system. Her projects include evaluation of potential donor referrals’ comorbidities and consideration of referrals with primary brain tumours. She has presented research at numerous national and international conferences, and in 2017 received The Transplantation Society Mentee-Mentor Award in partnership with Angela, her primary supervisor. Imogen is also interested in the policy applications of the CODE team’s research and has previous experience in policy through working with the World Health Organization, Centre for Policy Development and McKinsey & Company. Alongside her research, Imogen works as a junior doctor in the Hunter New England Local Health District and has a career interest in surgery and rural medicine.
Email: itho4440@uni.sydney.edu.au
Dr Laia Oliveras-Pages
Laia is a Nephrology Trainee at Hospital Universitari de Bellvitge, in Barcelona, Spain. She is interested in glomerular diseases, kidney transplant and clinical epidemiology. She is currently visiting and collaborating with CODE at the University of Sydney.