Researcher biography

I was awarded my PhD in biomedical engineeering in January 2011; and since then I have been employed at the University of Queensland as a lecturer in Electrical & Biomedical Engineering a within the school of IT and Electrical Engineering. I am trained as a biomedical engineer, and my overarching interest is the development of novel medical diagnostic tools and therapies with the goal improving the health outcomes of people in Australia and globally. My current research is focussed on the application of electronic instrumentation, mathematical modelling and signal's processing to pediatric and adult respiratroy and sleep medicine medicine, and I regard my research strength to be the ability to bridge the gap between clinical physiology and biomedical engineering. In particular:

  • The development of novel instrumentation and mathematical modelling to better understand the physiology underlying disease; and
  • The application of engineering and mathematics to translate recent advances in the understanding of physiology to the clinical environment

My current research themes include:

  • Quantifying ("phenoyping") the contribution of ventilatory control "loop gain" to obstructive sleep apnoea in the clinical environment
  • Development of novel instrumentation to quantify head and torso posuture during sleep, and it's influence on obstructive sleep apnoea severity
  • Developing novel actigraphy systems (using high temporal resolution accelerometry) to quantify sleep disturbance in children
  • Quantifying cardio-respiratory stability in pre-term neonates

Since 2019, I am also the Deputy Associate Dean Academic (First Year) in the Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology.