Consumer Advisory Group 2024–2027

Ms Ainslie Cahill AM is a Consumer Lead with Monash Partners, an NHMRC-accredited partnership of 12 leading health service, teaching, and research organisations in Melbourne. She is a respected member of the Australian health community with a broad, non-partisan consumer network, including national and state peak bodies and local community groups. Ms Cahill is known for her inclusive and collaborative approach, focusing on equity and better health outcomes for all.

Current board/advisory positions include Chair, NHMRC-MRFF Interim Consumer Advisory Network, NHMRC Community Observers Working Committee, Department of Health and Aged Care Natural Therapies Review expert advisory panel, Co-Chair, University of NSW Health Systems Research Executive Committee, Consumer Advisor, UNSW-Cancer Council NSW Australian Research Centre for Cancer Survivorship and Australian Health Research Alliance Consumer and Community Advisory Group.

Ms Cahill led Arthritis Australia for 12 years, significantly expanding its reach and services. In 2018, she was made an Honorary Life Member for her outstanding contributions. She also served as Director of the Consumers Health Forum of Australia board. In 2020, Ainslie was appointed a Member (AM) of the Order of Australia for her significant service to people with arthritis and community health groups.

Member-in-Common with Indigenous Advisory Group

Cheryl Bridge is a proud Gija woman from the East Kimberley in Western Australia. She is the Head of Kulunga Aboriginal Unit at The Kids Research Institute Australia (The Kids). Cheryl plays a senior role in the full integration of Aboriginal health & wellbeing research as a core focus of The Kids.  She leads her team in providing support to research teams, cultural awareness and Aboriginal Standards training.  Making sure Aboriginal ways of knowing, being and doing are applied to research is a focus of her role along with building responsiveness and understanding of The Kids’ research involving Aboriginal communities across the nation. Cheryl has been at the Institute since 2020. Prior to that she had a long standing 24-year career in the public sector in vocational training.

Peter Button is a retired senior executive manager of local government and lives in Brisbane North. Since his retirement in 2014, Peter has committed himself to working in both a voluntary and sometimes fee for service capacity in a range of projects including overseas aid assignments in Vietnam, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. Peter is also an Ambassador and Blue Voices member of Beyond Blue.

Peter participates as consumer representative on a wide range of boards and committees including the Doherty Institute in Melbourne, The QIMR Clive Berghofer Institute in Brisbane, the Macquarie Institute for Health Innovation in Sydney, and the Australian Teletrial Program.

Peter is also a consumer representative on the Brisbane Metropolitan North Hospital and Health Service Executive Safety and Quality Committee, the Older Persons Emergency Network, as well as the Community and Oral Health Compassionate Care, Comprehensive Care, Skin Health and Home Hospital, and Community Engagement Committees.

Peter has also participated in over 15 different medical and clinical trials as another way to contribute to the broader community wellbeing.

Merryn has been committed to advocating for cancer patients since her own experience with HER2-positive breast cancer in 2010. Following her successful treatment and recovery, in 2012 she trained with Cancer Council Victoria as a Peer Support provider, supporting patients in their treatment journeys.

In 2014 she joined the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute (WEHI) as a ‘basic science research’ consumer advocate working in their Breast Cancer lab. She has also supported the work of other researchers at WEHI, most recently Naiyang Fu and his team working on liver cancer. WEHI provides extensive training, including lab tours, to help ‘lay’ consumers understand how basic science research works. 

Merryn has worked with Prof Geoff Lindeman and Prof Jane Visvader at WEHI continuously since 2014, providing insights from her lived experience as a breast cancer survivor in regular meetings about the team’s research progress and in reviewing grant applications and providing advice on lay language and the consumer perspective. This work has resulted in many successful grant applications for Prof Lindeman and Prof Visvader and their team.

Since 2018, Merryn has been working with Breast Cancer Trials Australia New Zealand (BCT) as a member of their Consumer Advisory Panel (CAP), attending their Annual Scientific Meetings 2018–2023 and the American Society of Clinical Oncologists (ASCO) 2024 Conference in Chicago. As a BCT CAP member, Merryn reviews research concepts, proposals, protocols and patient information and consent forms and videos. She is also a member of several BCT Trial Steering Committees.

Merryn has also contributed to the development of the Victorian Cancer Agency’s involvement of consumers on its grant assessment panels, participating as an assessor in 2018 and 2020–2022 grant rounds.

In 2019 she served as a member of the Victorian Department of Health Optimal Care Pathways Implementation Strategic Advisory Committee.

In 2022 Merryn was appointed to the Australian federal government’s inaugural national Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) Consumer Reference Panel, which delivered the first Principles for consumer Involvement in research funded by the Medical Research Future Fund in 2023.The principles outline best practice for consumer involvement in MRFF-funded health and medical research. Merryn presented the Consumer Perspective in a national webinar launching these principles in 2023.

In 2023 she was asked to join the MRFF Genomic Health Futures Mission Evaluation Review Panel, and accepted an invitation to become a member of the MRFF Genomic Health Futures Mission Expert Advisory Panel in 2024.

She has also been a member of the NHMRC-MRFF Interim Consumer Network, through which she is providing advice as a consumer advocate to the NHMRC’s Health and Medical Research Funding Landscape Review.

Professionally, Merryn is a self-employed arts management consultant and has a Bachelor of Music (UniMelb) and a Master of Business Administration (Melbourne Business School).

Christine is an experienced CEO, Board Director, and community and consumer representative. She has led 2 health services in Victoria and has led community-based health services across public and primary health care in Western Australia, Victoria and Tasmania. She also led the philanthropic investments of one of Australia’s largest philanthropic families.

Currently Christine holds board appointments in health and philanthropy, and community appointments on committees for the Australian Medical Council and the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine.

Christine has special interests in the effects of isolation on services and communities, access to quality emergency care, health literacy, the medical and allied health workforce, and the interface between health services and the consumer.

Christine has post-graduate qualifications in public sector management, health administration, and publishing and editing. She is also a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Imelda is an experienced Dementia Advocate, a voluntary role she has fulfilled since caring for her husband during his journey with young onset Alzheimer’s disease, which culminated in his death aged 68 in 2016. Over the past 12 years, Imelda has spoken up for carers and for those living with dementia in all forms of media, including television, radio, speaking at conferences, forums, seminars and workshops, guest lecturing, printed articles, and she has been published, both in her own right and as a co-author, in research journals.

Imelda is passionate about the need to provide the very best in palliative care and end-of-life care for everyone, and especially for those living with dementia. In this context she is involved with researchers in a number of universities across Australia and overseas, and continues to make a significant ongoing contribution as a member of consumer advisory groups and committees, as well as sitting on a medical research ethics committee.

Over the past 3 years, Imelda has been active as a member of the Australian Digital Health Agency Consumer Advisory Group, as well as sitting on sitting on a Clinical Governance Committee.

Amongst her other voluntary work, Imelda facilitates a support group for carers of people living with dementia. She is also active as a pastoral care volunteer in 2 nursing homes, offering spiritual support to people living with dementia in the late stage of their lives, as well as to those who are dying.

Member-in-Common with Australian Health Ethics Committee

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

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

Her current research is in Bioethics of AI with an international consortium headed by the Australian Institute of Machine Learning.

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

In organisational governance, Dr Ho represents the Australian Government at the OECD’s International Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Health. She has also served on NHMRCs Consumer and Community Advisory Group (CCAG) since 2022.

In her non-medical life, she co-founded an international IT marketing firm.

Her accolades include induction to the Victorian Honour Roll of Women and appointment as a Member of the Order of Australia. 

Adam Johnston is a solicitor, holding a Master 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 District (LHD), is a member of Health Consumers NSW and CHF. He is also the former Deputy Chair of the RACP Ethics Committee (term expired), a member of the NSW Ministry of Health’s Ethics Advisory Panel, and a member of the Northern Sydney LHD Board.

Member-in-Common with Public Health and Health Systems Committee

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.

Member-in-Common with Research Committee

Deb has served 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 led project teams focussing on including the voices of those who are impacted by services, programs, and research at all levels of government. 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) connects 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 served as a member of the NHMRC-CHF Consumer Statement Advisory Committee and is a member of the current NHMRC Research Committee. In WA, Deb brings those with a focus on consumer and community involvement (CCI) in the research and health services sector together by chairing the WA CCI Community of Practice.

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.

Mrs Lillian Leigh is an experienced consumer advocate, who draws on her personal experience and her training as a practicing lawyer with over a decade's experience providing legal services to disadvantaged people in Australia. She is currently a corporate legal counsel of the Australian Financial Complaints Authority.

She is a member of the Cancer Australia Advisory Council and a consumer member of Cancer Australia's Priority-driven Collaborative Cancer Research Scheme Grant Review Committee, Cancer Voices NSW's Executive Committee, and Rare Cancers Australia's Patient Advisory Board.

In 2016, Mrs Leigh received a Patient Advocacy Award at the 17th World Conference on Lung Cancer in Vienna.

Member-in-Common with Industry, Philanthropy and Commercialisation Committee

Dr Jeanette Pritchard is the CEO of The Garnett Passe and Rodney Williams Memorial Foundation; a charitable trust that supports excellence in Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery (the Ear, Nose and Throat medical specialty) through provision of grants, scholarships and fellowships to scientists and clinical practitioners in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand.

Dr Pritchard’s background is in health and medical research, development and translation. She has made a significant contribution in the medical diagnostic and devices landscape in Australia and overseas, through leadership positions in multi-sector and cross disciplinary consortia. Together with her lived experience of rheumatoid arthritis, Jeanette is uniquely placed to understand from multiple perspectives how best to engage consumers throughout the R&D journey.

Dr Pritchard's current advisory roles include membership of the Arthritis Australia Consumer Advisory Panel and Skilled Migrant Mentor through AMES Australia (Adult Multicultural Education Services). She was an Advisory Board Member for the ARC Centre of Excellence for Integrative Brain Function (2017–2022), a commercial assessor for the NH&MRC Development Grant scheme (2015–2021) and a member of the Victorian State Government’s Skills and Public Support Working Group towards the implementation of its five-year Biotechnology Strategic Development Plan (2009–2010).

Associate Professor Supriya Mathew is an environmental health researcher. She leads the climate change research program at Menzies School of Health Research. She has been based in central Australia for more than a decade and is passionate about improving climate health resilience in remote Australia. Her research is conducted in partnership with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and community-controlled organizations across remote Australia. She is currently leading several citizen science projects that are crowd-sourcing environmental data, and residents' lived experiences for the first time in some very remote Australian locations.

Anne has worked as a consumer advocate for over three decades. She held a joint role at The Kids Institute and UWA from 2004 to 2021 to increase consumer community involvement in health research. Since 2021, Anne has been a consultant for organisations across Australia, providing training and strategic advice on implementing involvement. She serves as a consumer advocate on key national health and research committees. Anne was appointed to the Order of Australia in 2015 for her advocacy work and, in 2021, received the NHMRC Biennial Award for Consumer Engagement. In 2022 she received the Advocacy Achievement Award from Australasian Academy of Cerebral Palsy and Developmental Medicine.

Dr Shyamsundar Muthuramalingam (Shyam), who holds a PhD in Chemistry and is a kidney transplant recipient, brings his extensive personal experience with hemodialysis and kidney disease to his advocacy for consumer involvement in health and medical research. He has played a pivotal role in shaping consumer engagement strategies at major organizations, including the Australia and New Zealand Dialysis and Transplant Registry (ANZDATA), the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI), The George Institute for Global Health, and Kidney Health Australia (KHA).

As a member of the National Clinical Advisory Committee at KHA and the Australian Medical Council, Shyam champions the integration of consumer insights into medical education and health policies. His leadership of 'The Network', a community of 120 kidney patients, underscores his commitment to enhancing consumer participation in research. Additionally, Shyam's significant contributions to the NHMRC’s Consumer Statement Advisory Committee highlight his role in integrating consumer voices into national health research agendas, thereby advancing patient-centered outcomes and enhancing research transparency.

Dr Jack Nunn is the Director of the charity ‘Science for All’. He has worked for over 15 years to create, report and evaluate equitable and ethical ways for people to get involved in all aspects of research and science across multiple disciplines.

He is Co-Chair of the Cochrane Consumer Executive; Co-Chair of Citizen Science and Open Science Community of Practice; a member of the 'Standardised Data on Initiatives (STARDIT)' Steering Committee; Strategy Liaison for the Wikimedia Foundation’s open access journals; a member of the working group for the Australian Genomics project ‘Involve Australia’; a member of the ‘Evidence Synthesis Taxonomy Initiative’ Advisory Board. From 2019 to 2024, Jack was a member of the Australian Federal Departments of Health's Medical Services Advisory Committee Evaluation Sub-committee and has been a member of multiple Australian Federal Department of Health committees.

Jack has been an investigator on multiple research projects, working to involve people in all stages of research. He completed a PhD in 2022 exploring ‘Genomics Research and Involving People’ and has worked for charities and universities in multiple countries and continues to work to support the public to shape future research.

Jonathan Ward is a health consumer advocate drawing on his own lived experience with neurodiversity, dysautonomia and mental health experience. He is also a member of the LGBTQIA+ community. Jonathan chairs the Consumer Engagement sub-committee with the Faculty of Health at the University of Canberra (UC) and worked with the Stepping Into Internship Program through the Australian Disability Network to create a Consumers in Research Framework for UC.

Jonathan is the Business Development Manager for the Health Research Institute at UC which puts an emphasis on health research with impact. He has worked in the University sector for 7 years, with 4 years focused on consumers and health research.