NHMRC-MRFF Interim Consumer Advisory Network

Ms Ainslie Cahill AM is a Consumer Lead with Monash Partners, an NHMRC-accredited partnership of 12 leading health service, teaching and research organisations located predominantly across south and south-east Melbourne. Monash Partners connects researchers, health professionals, consumers and the community to innovate for better health outcomes.

She is a well-respected and trusted member of the Australian health community, with a broad, non-partisan consumer network that includes national and state peak bodies as well as local community groups, and extensive contacts in universities, medical research institutes and local health districts. Ms Cahill is known and regarded for her inclusive and collaborative approach and focus on equity and better health outcomes for all.

Ms Cahill led the health consumer organisation Arthritis Australia for 12 years to 2018, building its reach and increasing its products and services. In 2018, Ainslie was made an Honorary Life Member of Arthritis Australia for her outstanding contribution in making a difference to the lives of tens of thousands of Australians and for fulfilling the mission of the organisation. She also served as Director of the Consumers Health Forum of Australia (CHF) Board for many years, receiving a CHF Honorary Life Membership in 2011 for leading the transition of CHF from an incorporated association to a company limited by guarantee.

Current board/advisory positions include NHMRC Community Observers Working Committee, providing independent community oversight of NHMRC peer review processes; Department of Health and Ageing Natural Therapies Review Expert Advisory Panel; Co-Chair, University of NSW Health Systems Research Executive Committee; and Australian Health Research Alliance (AHRA) Consumer and Community Advisory Group.

Previous board/advisory memberships include Member Council of the NHMRC (2022-24); Chair NHMRC Consumer and Community Advisory Group (2022-24); Member NSW Health COVID-19 Therapeutic Research Advisory Group (2021); Member Commonwealth Department of Health Life Saving Drugs Program Review Reference Group (2014-15); and Member Departments of Health and Industry Clinical Trials Advisory Committee (2014-15).  

In 2020 Ainslie was appointed a Member (AM) of the Order of Australia (General Division) for significant service to people with arthritis, and to community health groups.

Merryn is a breast cancer survivor, active since 2014 as a consumer advocate with the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute’s Breast Cancer Laboratory, and as a member of Breast Cancer Trials Australia New Zealand’s Consumer Advisory Panel since 2018. She has also served as a grant assessor for the Victorian Cancer Agency, and as a member of the MRFF Consumer Reference Panel and the MRFF Genomics Health Futures Mission's Evaluation Review and Expert Advisory Panels. In June 2024 she was awarded a scholarship to attend the American Society of Clinical Oncologists (ASCO) Annual Conference in Chicago for Breast Cancer Trials.

Ms Christine Gunson has over 30 years' professional experience as a human resource adviser at senior levels across the mining, manufacturing and higher education sectors. Since 2000, until her recent retirement, Ms Gunson held the position of Manager of Strategic Human Resources for Edith Cowan University with a focus on workforce planning, workforce metrics and performance measurement reporting and development.

From 2009, Ms Gunson worked on a select number of health sector strategic consultancy projects with Dr Norman Swan, which provided insight into the sector and its challenges as it responded to state and Commonwealth reform agendas. Subsequently, she was approached to be involved in consumer representation related in particular to government initiatives around hospital performance measurement, reporting and accountability. This involved two years with the National Hospital Performance Authority on two consecutive advisory groups.

Ms Gunson has served as a member of both the NHMRC's Research Committee (RC) and Consumer and Community Advisory Group (CCAG) since 2018. Since 2016, she has served as the consumer representative on a number of NHMRC Peer Review panels and 'Relative to Opportunity' working parties. She was also a member and consumer representative for Consumer Health Forum Australia and served as a member of their Research and Data special interest group.

Dr Yvonne Ho is a general radiologist who has extensive experience in both the public and private sectors.

As a medical doctor in her field of specialty, Dr Ho diagnoses and treats diseases via cutting-edge, non-invasive imaging techniques to ensure patient quality of life is maintained. She has international medical research experience, cartilage imaging in particular and was also pivotal in introducing PET-CT imaging to Singapore.

Dr Ho is the first Victorian and first Australian woman of Asian heritage to be dually qualified as a radiologist and nuclear medicine specialist, both male-dominated medical specialties. She is also the first female director of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Radiologists.

Dr Ho serves on many boards, councils and committees and is co-founder of an international marketing firm. Some of Dr Ho's passions include inspiring our next generation, particularly women and minority groups and equal workforce participation. Her accolades include induction to the Victorian Honour Roll of Women for her ground-breaking accomplishments.

Dr Ho was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for significant service to radiology and nuclear medicine, as a practitioner and educator and through professional organisations.

Harry Iles-Mann has been living with complex chronic physical and mental ill health since early childhood. He had his first major surgery at 16, and has undergone three more to date – including 2 full liver transplants in 2020 and 2021 (spending more than 30 weeks admitted to hospital in 2021 alone).

As a professional he is a health consumer advocate, lived-experience engagement and co-design consultant, youth mental health ambassador, speaker, and committee member. He pairs his lived-experience of the Australian health and medical sector with professional expertise in advocacy and health strategy to provide insight into lived-experience driven reform and innovation of health care system and service design and delivery in strategy, policy, and decision-making.

Mr Iles-Mann holds membership, and some chairing responsibilities, of multiple state, territory and Commonwealth health advisory steering and consumer committees. He draws on his skills in communication, co-design and health consumer engagement to develop and apply effective strategic and policy reform in health and facilitates dialogue and co-design between stakeholders in health administration, service provision and consumers.

Healthcare management, health strategy and policy reform, digital transformation, mental health and youth mental health advocacy, chronic and disability health advocacy, and applying patient experience to reform service provision, policy, and strategic decision making in multiple care environments.

Adam Johnston is a solicitor, holding a Masters of Laws from the University of New England, Armidale, and a Graduate Diploma from the Australian Institute of Company Directors. During his studies, he was a Senate Intern, and a delegate to both the 1998 Constitutional Convention on a Republic and the 2001 Corowa People's Conference. He is a former long-term Member of the Government Solicitors Committee of the Law Society of NSW and has worked in various complaint handling roles for the NSW Ombudsman and the Energy and Water Ombudsman NSW (EWON). He serves on a number of advisory and governance committees as a Consumer Advisor to Northern Sydney Local Health Service, is a member of Health Consumers NSW and CHF. He is also currently the Deputy Chair of the RACP Ethics Committee, a member of the NSW Ministry of Health’s Ethics Advisory Panel, and a member of the Northern Sydney LHD Board.

Deb has worked in the public health and prevention space at all levels of government – Federal, State and Local – and not for profit sectors to contribute to the health and well-being of communities. She has worked to capture the voices of all parts of community including access and inclusion, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, culturally and linguistically diverse communities, children and young people, those with mental health challenges, and those connected with health and community services. Deb has been the Chair of Advisory Groups in both NSW and WA and led project teams focussing on including the voices of those who are impacted by services, programs and research. She has always worked connecting institutions, organisations, government, and community with a well-being focus, and was a representative on the WA Sustainable Health Review with this in mind.  

Deb’s current role leading the Western Australian Health Translation Network’s Consumer and Community Involvement Program (CCIProgram) is to connect researchers in WA Universities, Medical Research Institutes, Government, Health Service Providers and Funders with people with lived experience to support and encourage best practice research. She is the current Chair of the Australian Health Research Alliance (AHRA) Consumer and Community Involvement Committee and liaises closely with WA Health’s Office of Medical Research and Innovation who oversee WA Future Health Research and Innovation Fund initiatives.

Deb has a personal lived experience of multiple disease conditions, is passionate about ensuring research translation can impact policy, practice and the wellbeing of communities, and enjoys bringing people together to make a difference.

Lillian is an Australian lawyer with professional experience in social justice and financial dispute resolution, and she has lived with a cancer diagnosis for over a decade. Currently, she is a non-executive director of Cancer Institute NSW and the Thoracic Oncology Group of Australasia, executive officer of Cancer Voices NSW, and Legal Counsel of the Australian Financial Complaints Authority. Formerly an appointed member of the Australian Health Ethics Committee and Cancer Australia's Advisory Council, Lillian has had 15 years of experience as a consumer advocate on a variety of government, industry, and not-for-profit advisory boards spanning the financial services, dispute resolution, and health and medical research sectors. She contributes to global advocacy as a member of the IASLC's Global Policy and Partnerships Committee and a mentor of the IASLC’s Supportive Training for Advocates in Research and Science (STARS) program. In 2023 and 2024, she co-chaired the patient advocacy track of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer’s (IASLC) World Conference on Lung Cancer.

Anne McKenzie has held professional and voluntary roles as a consumer advocate for almost three decades. She has worked in research organisations to increase community involvement in research since 2004, when she commenced at The University of Western Australia and Telethon Kids Institute.

Anne currently provides consultant services to a range of organisations including universities, health and research organisations, government and non-government agencies and consumer organisations.

Anne is a member of Health Consumers Council WA and the Consumers Health Forum of Australia. She serves on key national health and research committees and is regularly invited to present at national conferences and seminars. In 2015 Anne was appointed to the Order of Australia for her advocacy work. She received the NHMRC’s 2021 Biennial Award for Consumer Engagement and the Advocacy Achievement Award from Australasian Academy of Cerebral Palsy and Developmental Medicine in 2022.

Associate Professor Monica Moran is a registered occupational therapist and Associate Professor with the Western Australian Centre for Rural Health.

In her current role, she works directly to support the development of rural health workforce through the creation of authentic student learning experiences, the development of support strategies for rural health teams, and research and evaluation of integrated team programs for some of Australia's most vulnerable communities.

Associate Professor Moran holds Adjunct Professorial appointments at Queensland University of Technology, Central Queensland University and the University of Derby in the United Kingdom.

Associate Professor Moran is Immediate Past President of the Australia and New Zealand Association for Health Professional Educators, a peak organisation providing mentorship and professional development to health professional educators in academic or clinical settings.

She was a contributor to the WHO Framework for Interprofessional Education and Collaborative Practice (WHO, 2010) and participates in interprofessional projects and research activities at local, national and international levels including longitudinal evaluation studies. She is currently a member of a nationally funded project team tasked with developing a national governance structure to secure the development and sustainability of interprofessional education and collaborative practice across Australia.

Over the past 10 years she has been a director of the HealthFusion Team Challenge in Australia, growing the project from a local event involving one university to an international event involving students and staff from many universities across Australia and internationally.

Andrew is the Head of Government Relations and Policy at the Leukaemia Foundation and actively participates in several consumer health groups.

His advocacy work builds on nearly two decades of experience across the Australian and Victorian governments, charities, not-for-profit health organisations, and consulting. Andrew has contributed to initiatives in mental health education, pandemic disease management, clinical trials advocacy, and medical and food policy research.

Andrew’s diverse background in the health sector includes serving as Advocacy Manager (Victoria/Tasmania) at the Heart Foundation and collaborating with Beyond Blue on mental health services. As a former Director of Policy at AusBiotech, a life sciences industry organisation, he deepened his expertise in consumer-centric research translation and commercialisation.

A passionate health consumer advocate, Andrew draws on his lived experiences with mental health, autism, and his ongoing journey with Crohn’s disease. His family's rural background and role as a cancer carer further fuel his dedication to patient-centred care.

Dr Shyamsundar Muthuramalingam (Shyam) has a PhD in chemistry and is a renal transplant recipient with lived experience of Haemodialysis (HD) and kidney disease. Shyam discovered a passion for consumer advocacy and research implementation as a person with lived experience and research training and is now a leader in developing, implementing and evaluating consumer and community engagement strategies across a range of policy-setting bodies including Australia and New Zealand Dialysis and Transplant Registry (ANZDATA), South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI), The George Institute for Global Health and Kidney Health Australia (KHA).

Shyam coordinates and leads the 'The Network' of ~ 120 passionate kidney patients across Australia and New Zealand. Shyam is advancing 'The Network' by bringing together consumers with lived experience to be involved in kidney disease research.

Shyam is creating lasting connections between researchers and consumers and provides pathways for consumers to be involved in setting research agendas, 'doing’ research, communicating results and translating them into practice to improve patient care and outcomes. Shyam also represents the community voice as a consumer member of the National Clinical Advisory committee at KHA and the Australian Medical Council, appointed by the directors to represent the community voice in the accreditation of medical degrees by Australian Universities.

Dr Jack Nunn is the founder and Director of the charity 'Science for All', working to involve people in doing research by building partnerships between the public and researchers. He is also the Public Involvement Strategic Lead for La Trobe University, a member of the Australian Government committee MSAC-ESC, Co-Chair of the UNESCO Citizen Science & Open Science Community of Practice and a member of the Cochrane Council. Recent projects include leading the co-design of Standardised Data on Initiatives (STARDIT).

Adjunct Professor Darryl O’Donnell is a seasoned health leader has more than 30 years’ experience in government, research and not-for-profit roles. As Principal and Director of Praxis Insights, he provides consultancy services to health and social services organisations, with specialisations in leadership, planning, policy, advocacy and management.  

He has spearheaded transformative initiatives in HIV and mental health across government and community sectors. As CEO of Health Equity Matters, he led Australia’s HIV response, brokering reforms that have halved incidence and put Australia on track to end HIV transmission. In this role he also secured and directed multi-country programs to strengthen partnerships between governments and civil society in Asia and the Pacific.

At the Mental Health Commission of NSW, he established a new public sector agency, driving major mental health reforms. His experience includes appointments to Ministerial committees and directorships with not-for-profit organisations.

He serves on the Board of the Consumers Health Forum of Australia, is a Fellow of the Governance Institute of Australia and a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

His academic contributions and research partnerships in public administration and health policy have earned him an adjunct professorship at the University of NSW.

Ms Yvonne Parnell is the CEO of Future Living, a not-for-profit entity in the disability sector providing education, advocacy, planning and trustee services to people with developmental disability and their families.

She serves as the Consumer Representative Board Member of the South Metropolitan Health Service in Western Australia and more recently appointed as a Member to the WA Health Sustainable Health Review Recommendation 4 Steering Group. Ms Parnell also served as the Consumer Member on the National Goals of Care Collaborative Steering Committee for WA Health and the Thoracic Surgery Committee for the Medicare Benefits Schedule Review Taskforce.

Prior to this she was a Consumer Representative Member on the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency WA Dental Committee and sat as a Member on the North Metropolitan Health Service Governing Council. Ms Parnell holds a post graduate qualification in disability.

John is a board member of the Cancer institute NSW. John is a survivor of Leukaemia and a strong advocate for people with cancer and chronic disease. John is the Australian Consumer Representative on the International Colon Cancer Familial Register funded through the National Institute of Health in the United States. John has contributed to more than 40 research papers and has previous involvement in MRFF, NHMRC and Cancer Australia grant assessment processes.

Dr Sean Taylor is descendent of the Dauareb Tribe, one of the 8 tribes of Mer Island in the Eastern Torres Strait region.  

Sean has over 25 years of clinical experience in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health working at different levels across Australia in range of academic and research interest, as well as clinical practice. Sean currently holds a Bachelor of Nursing Science, Graduate Certificate in Health: Diabetes Management & Education, Bachelor of Health Sciences (Honours) and a Doctor of Public Health.  

Sean currently holds joint appointments as NT Health Executive Director Aboriginal Health and Diversity and Menzies School of Health Research Deputy Director Indigenous Leadership and Engagement based in Darwin and an Adjunct Associate Professor, Public Health and Tropical Medicine with James Cook University.  

Sean was a member of the NHMRC Principal Committee Indigenous Caucus for the 2021-24 triennium, and is also a member of the National Partnering with Consumers Committee.  Sean is the current Chair of NT Health, Top End, Big River and East Arnhem Partnering with Consumers Committee, Communicating for Safety Committee, Aboriginal Health Committee, Aboriginal Health Partnership Committee, LGBTQIA+ Health Committee, Multicultural Committee and Chair of the Reconciliation Action Plan Committee with Menzies School of Health Research and NT Health, Top End, Big River and East Arnhem. Sean is also the chair Top End Pride, President Elect Rotary Darwin Sunrise and a co-investigator on multiple successful nationally competitive grants.

Robina is currently a member of the Planet Puberty Stakeholder Advisory Committee of Family Planning Australia. She is also a trained peer mentor for the Diversity and Disability Alliance, a volunteer committee member for Immigrant Women's SpeakOut, and an advisory member for SSI in a project called The Rights Path Project, supporting NDIS participant with a disability from CALD backgrounds. Robina is an anthropologist with many years’ experience working in public health programs. Robina is also the mother of 6 children. She has extensive experience accessing services and support for her son with cerebral palsy.