Nossal Institute for Global Health, University of Melbourne

The Nossal Institute for Global Health, University of Melbourne, is the consortium co-lead. A hub of global health expertise for more than 20 years, the Institute works to improve the public health and future of vulnerable communities through global health research, education and inclusive development. The Institute establishes the evidence base for strengthening health systems and extending universal health coverage to promote health and wellbeing across the region’s diverse communities. The Nossal Institute supports regional and global partners by supporting future leaders, health workers, building evidence and translating evidence and innovative methods into sustainable changes.

Dr. Alex Robinson

Dr. Alex Robinson is the Head of the Disability Inclusion in Health and Development Unit at the Nossal Institute for Global Health. Alex’s work experience crosses applied development research, policy and practice. He has extensive experience of disability inclusive practice from inclusive education to livelihoods and social protection and from emergency preparedness to humanitarian response.

Alex is engaged in disability inclusion in disaster risk reduction (DRR) at the regional and international policy level. He was co-founder of the Disability-inclusive Disaster Risk Reduction Network that played a lead role in ensuring disability inclusion in the Sendai Framework for DRR 2015-2030. Alex has a PhD in development studies and is particularly concerned with issues of inclusion, risk and resilience within sustainable human development.

Clare Strachan

Clare Strachan is a Principal Advisor at the Nossal Institute for Global Health. Clare is cross-sectoral in her approach to global health and has a broad range of experience and interests including health and community systems strengthening, health financing and governance, epidemic preparedness and response, and communicable and non-communicable disease control.

Her technical work has focused on operational research, large scale evaluations and strategic reviews, and evidence-based program design and implementation. Some of her recent projects have included an evaluation of Gavi’s co-financing and sustainability and transition policies, a thematic review of the Global Fund’s health and community systems strengthening investments, the external review of the Partnership for Maternal Newborn and Child Health, a review of the Welcome Trust’s epidemic investments portfolio, and an evaluation of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons’ Pacific Island Program.

Clare holds a postgraduate degree in Public Health in Developing Countries from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, as well as an undergraduate degree in Development Studies from the University of Liverpool.

Dr. Daniel Strachan

Dr. Daniel Strachan is a social scientist whose research aims to support more equitable and effective health system development (and ultimately healthier communities) through engagement with community perspectives and approaches to health.

His research has primarily focused on the development and evaluation of interventions that can be implemented in real life settings, often by community health workers (CHWs). These interventions have typically aimed to improve maternal and child health, child development and disease control outcomes through strengthened health and community systems. He has a particular interest in the performance priorities of CHWs and how these are formed and shaped by the communities they work within.

Recently, through the Health Worker Voices Project, Daniel has sought to capture the perspectives of health workers around the world as they and their health system’s contend with the challenges of COVID-19. He has also, with colleagues at University College London (UCL) and the University of Ghana just been awarded a UK Medical Research Council grant to explore contextual awareness, health system responses and preparedness for a diabetes intervention in Ghana.

Daniel co-coordinates the Global Child Health and Primary Health Care and Global Health modules within the University of Melbourne’s MPH program. Previously (to 2019) Daniel was a Lecturer in Global Health and co-Director of the MSc in Global Health and Development at UCL’s Institute for Global Health. He has led and worked within research projects in urban and rural Australia, the UK, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Southern Sudan and Uganda where he was based between 2007 and 2013.

He has a PhD from UCL’s Institute for Global Health, an MSc in Social Psychology from the London School of Economics and a BA from the University of Melbourne.

Fleur Smith

Fleur Smith brings together clinical and global public health experience to provide practical, innovative applications of disability inclusion and rehabilitation concepts and practices to research and development projects. Fleur’s interest areas include childhood disability and promoting systems and supports for the inclusion and wellbeing of children with disabilities and their families.

She’s recently worked on developing a Toolkit for Disability Inclusive Healthcare for the World Health Organization (WHO) and completed a study for Wateraid Cambodia on the accessibility of WASH in health care facilities. Fleur contributed to research on inclusive eye health care practices in Indonesia and she provides technical advice on disability inclusion to DFAT via the CBM-Nossal Institute Partnership Help Desk.

Fleur is a practising paediatric occupational therapist who has worked in a variety of health settings in Australia and overseas. She spent a year in Samoa where she focused on capacity development with local fieldworkers in an early childhood intervention program, and on the promotion of disability inclusion within the community.

Fleur’s occupational therapy background with inclusion, participation, health and wellbeing as core concepts, provides a solid foundation for her work.

She has a Bachelor of Occupational Therapy from La Trobe University and a Master of Public Health (International Health) from Monash University. Fleur completed an internship at WhO Western Pacific Regional Office., Fleur Smith brings together clinical and global public health experience to provide practical, innovative applications of disability inclusion and rehabilitation concepts and practices to research and development projects. Fleur’s interest areas include childhood disability and promoting systems and supports for the inclusion and wellbeing of children with disabilities and their families.

Fleur is a practicing paediatric occupational therapist who has worked in a variety of health settings in Australia and overseas. She spent a year in Samoa where she focused on capacity development with local fieldworkers in an early childhood intervention program, and on the promotion of disability inclusion within the community.

Fleur’s occupational therapy background with inclusion, participation, health and wellbeing as core concepts, provides a solid foundation for her work.

Katherine Dobson

Katherine Dobson is a mixed-methods evaluator and applied researcher with ten years’ experience advising international and community development programs in Timor-Leste, Cambodia and Australia.

She has primarily worked in the fields of gender-based violence, education and vocational training, sustainable livelihoods, agriculture, resilience and sanitation. Most recently, Katherine worked as Monitoring, Evaluation, Research and Learning Director for Mercy Corps in Timor-Leste, leading those components across a US$16m portfolio, comprised of USAID, USDA, EU, DFAT, KOICA and private foundation grants.

Katherine has a Master of Evaluation degree, which underpins her practical research and evaluation experience. Katherine is passionate about using evaluation process and findings to facilitate learning, shape strategy and improve programming – and using participatory approaches that draw on the strengths of participants and partners.

Katherine Gilbert

Katherine Gilbert is the Head of the Health Systems, Governance and Financing Unit at the Nossal Institute for Global Health.

She is a qualitative researcher with a background in human rights, and strong interest in gender and universal health coverage. Katherine has undertaken a number of applied research projects with the World Health Organization (WHO), other UN organisations, Ministries of Health and civil society organisations in these areas. Prior to her appointment at the Nossal Institute, Katherine was a Research Fellow at the Centre for Health Economics, Monash University (2013 – 2015) where she managed two applied research programs, including a large health financing study in Solomon Islands for the Ministry of Health and Medical Services funded by the World Bank.

Katherine has considerable experience working with multilateral agencies having previously worked with the UN in Fiji, Haiti and Solomon Islands (2005 – 2013), including as an Aid Policy Advisor to the UN Special Envoy to Haiti, former US President Bill Clinton. She is course coordinator for Comparative Health Systems as part of the Masters in Public Health at the University of Melbourne.

Kirsty Teague

Kirsty Teague has a wealth of experience in paediatric therapy, community development and public health. Kirsty’s key interests are in child development and disability, early intervention, community and family level enablers for health, evidence–based contextualised program design and implementation, and health system strengthening.

Kirsty has been involved with developing services and support for children with disabilities in Azerbaijan and rural Tamil Nadu, India, and several community level family, youth and child development, health and wellbeing initiatives within Australia and the UK.

She has worked on a collaboration with the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute and Ministry of Health, Fiji, exploring ongoing development of services for children with disabilities and their families. Kirsty was involved in multi-sectorial stakeholder engagement, leading to collaborative adaptation and implementation of an evidence-based intervention of caregiver support for children with disabilities.

Kirsty holds a Master of Public Health from University of Melbourne and Bachelor in Occupational Therapy.

Dr. Manjula Marella

Dr. Manjula Marella is a disability inclusion researcher with core research expertise in qualitative, quantitative and psychometric (Rasch analysis) methods for developing and validating client-reported outcome measures.

Manjula has a Bachelor of Science in Optometry from India and specializes in low vision rehabilitation. She completed her PhD from the Department of Ophthalmology, The University of Melbourne, in 2011. Her doctoral thesis involved developing an evaluation framework for community-based rehabilitation (CBR) programs. Her postdoctoral research primarily focused on developing and validating the Rapid Assessment of Disability (RAD) survey to measure disability and its impact on participation and inclusion of people with disabilities in the community.

Manjula has led major research projects involving large population-based surveys for informing various disability inclusive programs throughout Asia and the Pacific, including in public health, inclusive education and evaluating disability inclusion in post-disaster response and recovery. She has supported the development of systems for monitoring and evaluating community-based programs and disability inclusive education. She has also led and contributed to several qualitative research studies on exploring the level of participation of people with disabilities in education, rehabilitation and health.

Matt Blanks

Matt Blanks is an experienced program management professional with experience in global health and international development. He has worked in various program related roles across the not-for-profit and development sectors in Australia, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Most recently he worked as a program coordinator for an Australian organization delivering surgical intervention and capacity building activities to hospitals in 17 countries across the Asia Pacific region.

Matt is passionate about working with communities to build capacity and skills, leading to positive change. He enjoys working with stakeholders to incorporate learnings into processes, and striving for continuous improvement.

Matt possesses a Bachelor of Management (Human Resources) and a Master of Project Management.

Matt Ralston

Matt Ralston is an established, reliable, resourceful, collaborative and high performing executive with proven leadership experience in commercial, NGO and University sectors in Asia Pacific and Europe.

Matt has an undergraduate Arts degree with a focus on SE Asian politics and development, Indonesian and English literature. He has a Master of Marketing, a Graduate Certificate in Management and speaks Bahasa Indonesia.

Matt has a strong track record leading and managing large-scale, multi-disciplinary programs and operations targeted to the poor and disadvantaged with Health being a focus since 2011. He has a depth of experience building effective relationships with complex clients and stakeholders, including government and major donors coupled with business development and strategic marketing expertise, including tracking and analyzing client and sector trends to inform strategy and management decision-making.

Matt is highly-focused and has a reputation of effective and timely delivery and success driving and implementing organizational change and development initiative.

Dr. Matthew Reeve

Dr. Matthew Reeve is a medical doctor specialising in public health, focusing on the areas of health program and health systems analysis and evaluation, and technical consultancy in health information systems and training/capacity building of public health professionals.

Matthew has contributed to the design, field-work, analysis and report writing for mixed methods operational/implementation research across East Africa, South Asia and the Pacific, including programs focusing on disability-inclusive disaster risk reduction and inclusive education.

He has extensive experience in monitoring and evaluation, including several years as in-country technical advisor to a large BMGF-funded HIV prevention program in Northeast India. In 2015, he completed an endline evaluation of a 7 year, $56m WHO MCH project in DPR Korea. He currently works as technical lead for the Bloomberg Data4Health and University of Melbourne’s work in the Solomon Islands, building national capacity and systems for recording cause of death data.

Dr. Wesley Pryor

Dr. Wesley Pryor has 20 years professional experience in disability and global health with a specific focus in rehabilitation and assistive products, and disability inclusive development. He has worked in technical advisory and consultancy roles for more than 15 years, across project design, applied research and evaluation, working with agencies including WHO, USAID, UNDP, European Commission, CBM, DFAT, HI, the Nippon Foundation, and others.

Working widely across the Asia region, Wes has provided technical advice to establish or evaluate health-related rehabilitation services, supporting national counterparts to ensure national disability guidelines and standards are applied and accessible to service delivery partners in both emergency and development settings. Wes is an expert and thought leader on applications on standards of practice in rehabilitation and on the intersection between rehabilitation, disability and health systems.

Wesley has a Bachelor of Prosthetics and Orthotics and a PhD (Amputee Rehabilitation).