Professor Tracey O’Brien

Professor Tracey O’Brien is a paediatric and adolescent haematologist and oncologist with more than 25 years of experience improving the outcomes of people with cancer in NSW, Australia and internationally.

Prior to her appointment in July 2022 as the NSW Chief Cancer Officer and Chief Executive Officer of the Cancer Institute NSW, Professor O’Brien was the Director of the Kids Cancer Centre at the Sydney Children’s Hospital for six years and Director of the Transplant and Cellular Therapies Program for 18 years, leading a team of more than 200 clinical and research staff. Professor O’Brien was instrumental in driving the vision for Australia's first Children's Comprehensive Cancer Centre at the Randwick Precinct and the Zero Childhood Cancer Precision Medicine Program.

Professor O’Brien has held numerous national and international executive and advisory board positions, including Chair of the Cancer Australia Advisory Board, Vice Chair (Asia, Africa and Australia) Advisory Committee of the Centre for International Bone Marrow Transplant Research, Vice Chair and Board Director, Australian and New Zealand Children’s Haematology and Oncology Group (ANZCHOG), Board Director, Australian & New Zealand Transplant and Cellular Therapies, and Board Director, Children’s Cancer Institute.

Professor O’Brien is a Conjoint Professor in Oncology within the School of Women’s and Children’s Health, Faculty of Medicine, UNSW, and has authored more than 110 publications on leukaemia, transplant, cellular therapies and health system research.

In addition to her medical qualifications and roles, she holds an MBA and Master of Law (Health). In 2019, Professor O’Brien was named one of the top 10 Australian Women of Influence, winning the Innovation category.

Cathie Withyman

Cathie Withyman is a research impact communication specialist. She has worked with leading universities and government departments both domestically and internationally to develop and craft engaging and insightful impact narratives.

Cathie possesses over 20 years experience partnering with researchers, program managers and communication professionals to facilitate training and skills development in the effective communication of research and program funding impact.

She is a master at drawing out the true nature of impact and weaving this into a compelling narrative.

Cathie is skilled at coaching and mentoring research academics to plan, record and report on research impact. She has developed training programs and resource materials to support academics in this increasingly important area of their work.

Professor Geoff Delaney

Professor Geoff Delaney is an academic radiation oncologist at Liverpool Hospital, Professor of Radiation Oncology at the University of NSW, and clinical leader of the Cancer Clinical Advisory Group for Maridulu Budyari Gumal or SPHERE. Until recently he was also the Director of Cancer Services for South-Western Sydney Local Health District, an area with almost 1 million population and over 3500 cancers per year. His main clinical interest is breast cancer.

His research interests include health services-based research, Patient Reported Outcome Measures, radiation incident-reporting, the implementation of multidisciplinary care, survivorship and health service delivery inequities in cancer. He has published over 270 research papers in the international literature, presented scientific papers and posters at national and international meetings. He was awarded an AM for services to oncology and tertiary education.

Mark Cowley, Biosketch

Dr Mark Cowley is the Deputy Director (Enabling Platforms and Collaboration) of the Children’s Cancer Institute and conjoint Associate Professor at UNSW. He leads a multidisciplinary Computational Biology research group focused on developing cutting-edge genomic and computational approaches to understand disease at the genomic level. He is also the co-leader of the Luminesce Alliance Data Enabling Platform, the ACRF Childhood Cancer Liquid Biopsy Program, and the Genome Informatics leader of the Zero Childhood Cancer Program.

Mark began a Cancer Institute NSW ECF Fellowship in 2014, investigating how tumours evolve by developing innovative genomic approaches and highly accurate bioinformatic analysis methods. As an early adopter of whole genome sequencing (WGS) technologies, he has pioneered the use of WGS in many inherited genetic diseases and cancers, seeking to establish WGS as a first-line diagnostic test. This has resulted in several ISO accredited diagnostic tests and two Medicare rebates for diagnostic testing.

Since 2016, Mark has focussed increasingly on improving health outcomes within Australia’s largest precision medicine studies, by enabling the rapid analysis of adult and childhood cancer patients enrolled on either the MoST or Zero Childhood Cancer Programs (ZERO), respectively. Through the analysis systems that Mark’s team has developed, all Australian children and young adults with cancer can enrol on ZERO and receive a molecular report within 4 weeks, with significant patient benefit.

Mark’s current liquid biopsy research extends the vision he set during his CINSW fellowship: his goal is to molecularly monitor childhood cancer patients with unprecedented accuracy and sensitivity. Additionally, Mark is establishing technologies that underpin safe sharing of genomic data among researchers and is launching a research program to utilise clinical data from hospital records for further scientific exploration

Elisabeth Kochman

Elisabeth is Chair of Cancer Voices NSW and has over 25 years’ experience in health consumer advocacy. Previous experience includes as a volunteer with Cancer Council NSW (10 years) and the former Breast Cancer Action Group (10 years).

Her personal experience with cancer has included with family members as well as her own experience with breast cancer in 1985, 2002 and 2003.

Elisabeth’s particular interests includes ensuring that Cancer Voices has sound relationships and partnerships with decision makers at both a state and national level across the cancer and broader health continuum to ensure consumers are to the forefront in shaping our health system with access and equity in outcomes for everyone everywhere.

Elisabeth is a member of the Intercollegiate Advisory Group (ICAG) at Cancer Australia, the Australian Comprehensive Centre Network (ACCN) via Cancer Australia for the Australian Cancer Plan, the NSW Cancer Plan Advisory Committee, and the Cancer Council Australia cancer organisations collaboration.

Murray McLachlan

Murray is Deputy Chair and Secretary of Cancer Voices NSW and a Health Consumers NSW (the state’s peak health consumer organisation) board member. Previously, he worked voluntarily for Cancer Council NSW, focusing on policy and advocacy on the NSW Central Coast.

His personal cancer experiences include the death of his long-term partner from pancreatic cancer in 2007, and successful surgical intervention for prostate cancer in 2009.

Murray’s particular interests build on his career in the NSW public sector, focussing on working with decision makers and on policy development and implementation, and his involvement over many years with Sydney’s LGBTIQA+ communities, including as president of Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.

He is also a consumer representative on the Sydney Health Partners Consumer Advisory Panel, and the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Radiologists (RANZCR) Interventional Radiology and Artificial Intelligence committees.