Our Team

Sérgio Brodsky is a leading brand and foresight strategist, founder of Surge Advisory. He is also the inaugural Chair at The Marketing Academy Australia, alumni, and an Agenda Collaborator at the World Economic Forum. Sérgio began his career as an IP lawyer in his native Brazil and transitioned as a strategic consultant for a high-tech military company in Israel before pivoting towards the marketing communications industry in the UK and Australia, to then finally land on the discipline of Strategic Foresight.

Sérgio is a widely recognised thought-leader having been published and featured on high-profile stages worldwide. He is a co-author of The Routledge Companion to Marketing Research, where he wrote the Foresight in Marketing and Marketing Research chapter, and the creator of the radically innovative Urban Brand-Utility model, reframing brand communications from conspicuous consumption into a regenerative force in the economy of cities.

Professor Paul Colditz is the foundation Professor of Perinatal Medicine at the University of Queensland and Director of the Perinatal Research Centre. He is a practicing clinician in neonatology as well as holding a Masters in Biomedical Engineering from the University of NSW and a Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Oxford, UK.

Paul leads a multidisciplinary research team from diverse backgrounds including medicine, science, nursing, psychology, physiotherapy, other allied health, signal processing and biomedical engineering to focus on improving health outcomes for mothers and babies through clinical and translational research. He is a member of the Qld Health’s Maternal and Perinatal Quality Council and a panel member of the Qld Child Death Case Review Panel (DeptCommunities, Child Safety and Disability Services).

Paul is a Board member of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians and Chair, College Research Committee. He is President-elect of the Paediatrics and Child Health Division, RACP.

Professor Roger Byard AO PSM, FAHMS holds the Marks Chair of Pathology at The University of Adelaide and is a Senior Specialist Forensic Pathologist at Forensic Science SA in Adelaide, Australia. He has been associated with Red Nose (formerly SIDS and Kids) at state and national levels for 34 years as a researcher, pathologist, advisor and counsellor to families. He helped to set up the National Scientific Advisory Group in 2004 and has been a member for the past 20 years.

In 2000 he received the SIDS International Global Strategy Task Force Award in recognition of an outstanding contribution and support for global strategies to reduce infant mortality and in 2006 a National SIDS and Kids Award for his tireless commitment to reducing infant mortality in Australia and overseas and for his compassion and care to bereaved families. In 2016 he was the recipient of the Distinguished Researcher Award from the International Society for the Study and Prevention of Perinatal and Infant Death (ISPID).

In addition, he was awarded the Australian Public Service Medal (PSM) in 2004 for outstanding service to paediatric pathology and became an Officer in the Order of Australia (AO) in 2013 for distinguished service to medicine in the field of forensic pathology. In 2016 he was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences (FAHMS) for distinguished professional achievements and outstanding leadership in a field related to health and medicine. Two years later he received the John Harbor Phillips Award from ANZPAA/NIFS (National Institute of Forensic Sciences) for outstanding achievement and excellence in the advancement of the forensic sciences in Australia and New Zealand. He was registered as an Expert with the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague in 2009.

He has a specific interest in sudden infant and childhood death and has published over 1,000 papers/short communications/letters in peer-reviewed journals and chapters. In addition, he coedited/wrote the following paediatric forensic texts:

1994 - Sudden Death in Infancy, Childhood and Adolescence (Cambridge University Press);

2001 - Sudden Infant Death Syndrome - Problems, Progress and Possibilities (Arnold publishers);

2010 - Sudden Death in the Young (3rd ed, Cambridge University Press, Japanese language edition 2015);

2014 - Forensic Pathology of Infancy and Childhood (Springer publishers - two volumes);

2018 - SIDS and Sudden Infant Death: the Past, the Present and the Future (University of Adelaide Press).

His research into substance P deficiency may explain why certain babies are at increased risk when sleeping facedown.

He was made a Professorial Fellow at The Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health in Melbourne, Australia, in 2013, and received Distinguished Alumni Awards from The University of Adelaide in 2013 and the University of Tasmania in 2016. He became a Distinguished Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia in 2018 and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of NSW in 2021.

He was ranked in the top 2% of scientists worldwide and #2 in legal and forensic medicine by Stanford University (US) in 2020, and in 2021 was named in the Australian Newspaper’s Annual Research Magazine a world leader in forensic science and one of the 13 Australian “Global Leaders” in research across all disciplines. He was also the recipient of the 2021 University of Adelaide Award for Outstanding Achievement and Excellence in Research and was listed in the top 3 (0.06%) of 5,022 published authors internationally on infant death (2011-2021). He is an alumnus of the University of Tasmania, The University of Adelaide, the University of South Australia (Australia) and McMaster University, the University of Toronto and the University of Ottawa (Canada).

In addition to his basic medical and other post-graduate qualifications, Professor Byard is a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), a Doctor of Medicine (MD) and a Doctor of Science (DSc).

• Professor of International Maternal and Child Health (Hon), Sydney School of Public Health and until recently
  
• Paediatrician - Neonatologist at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney
  
• Gates Foundation Clinical Trials Manager, Faculty of Engineering, University of Sydney.
  

Heather Jeffery AO, MB BS, PhD, MPH, FRACP, MRCP (UK)

Heather has extensive experience in Maternal and Child Health/ Neonatology in low/middle income countries.

Educational interests have focused on capacity building in perinatal care in Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Mongolia, The Balkans (Macedonia, Croatia, Serbia) working with governments, the World Bank, UNICEF, UNFPA, UNDP and the Hok Mai Medical Foundation, University of Sydney.

Research interests are currently focused in 4 areas

• A multidisciplinary nutritional body composition research program to identify newborns and young children at risk of mortality and morbidity from low fat stores using near infrared technology (Bill & Melinda GATES Foundation Funding)
  
• Prevention of neonatal infection and neonatal mortality and morbidity in four South East Asian countries (Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia) – the SEA URCHIN project - (Funded by NHMRC in collaboration with Cochrane Centre at Monash University)
  
• Educational methods to translate best evidence into practice (SCORPIO*) This has been trialed in NSW and applied to capacity building in Macedonia, Vietnam and the SEA URCHIN project (*SCORPIO: a medium for teaching that is Structured, Clinical, Objective Referenced, Integrated and Organised).
  
• Sudden Unexpected Death in Infancy. Future directions for prevention and research.
  

Since her PhD many years ago on SIDS she has maintained a research and community interest in the prevention of SIDS and Sudden Unexpected Death in Infants. She currently is a member of the National Scientific Advisory Group of Red Nose, Australia; Child Death Review Team, Ombudsman’s Office NSW, the Sudden Infant Death Advisory Committee NSW Health.

Awards

AO Officer Order of Australia, bestowed by the Governor General of Australia

“Professor Heather Elizabeth Jeffery – For distinguished service to medicine and tertiary education in the field of paediatrics, and to improved maternal and child health in rural and remote Australia and in developing countries”.

Sir Edward ‘Weary’ Dunlop Asialink Medal, bestowed by the Board of Asialink

Associate Professor Jane Freemantle OAM holds a Master of Public Health from the University of Adelaide and a PhD (Paediatrics) from the University of Western Australia. Professor Freemantle’s main career focus is as a paediatric epidemiologist working with total population linked data describing Indigenous infants, children and young people and communities, nationally and internationally.

She argues that unless we have complete and accurate data describing Indigenous populations, we will be unable to identify whether indeed we have successfully ‘closed the gap’ on Indigenous disadvantage. To this end, her particular focus is on ensuring that data that informs policies, strategies and initiatives aimed at reducing the disparities and improving outcomes of the social determinants of health and wellbeing experienced by Indigenous populations are complete and accurate. She has recently completed a program of research funded by the Australian Research Council the Lowitja Institute, Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, the Aboriginal Health Branch of the Department of Health Victoria and the Ross Institute. The research has developed a more accurate and complete total population mortality profile of Victoria’s Aboriginal (and non-Aboriginal) children born between 1998-2008, using population data linkage and an innovative method and research process. This research has enabled for the first time a more accurate baseline from which to measure the success of state and national initiatives aimed at reducing the current disparities in mortality and maternal and infant outcomes experienced by Indigenous populations.

Professor Freemantle holds a position as Principal Research Fellow (hon) within the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health at the University of Melbourne, position as Principal research fellow within the Department of Rural health (Shepparton) has been an Australian Research Council Australian Research Fellow. Jane also holds an Associate Professor position at the Department of Paediatrics and Child Health at the University Of Western Australia, an honorary Senior Research Fellow at the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine, Monash University, Victoria, and is an Honorary Research Fellow, Telethon Institute for Child Health Research, University of Western Australia. She is a Chief Investigator on an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant (Monash University) and an Associate investigator on an NHMRC Program Grant.

Lyndy is a Lactation Consultant working closely with the Aboriginal community of Tasmania, and holds several other roles including with PSANZ (Perinatal Society of Australia & New Zealand) Consumer Advisory Panel and the PSANZ Perinatal Palliative Care Special Interest Group.

Lyndy joined the Red Nose Board in November 2020 following the merger of Red Nose and Sands.

Based in Hobart, Lyndy has a long history with Sands and the bereaved parent community. After her son Thomas’ death in 1997, Lyndy became involved as a peer supporter and held a number of governance roles within Sands Tasmania. In 2014 she was appointed Chair of Sands Australia until its national unification in 2018.