Professor Mark Cooper is Head of the Diabetes Department in the Central Clinical School at Monash University. He was formerly Chief Scientific Officer, Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute, as well as the Director of Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation Centre (JDRF) for Diabetes Complications and maintains an active clinical practice at The Alfred as a senior endocrinologist. Professor Cooper's research interests are in diabetes and its three major complications: kidney disease, heart disease and blindness. His distinguished body of research has led to new treatments for sufferers of diabetes that are today considered standard. He has played a key role in translating exciting discoveries in the laboratory to clinical care with seminal studies defining various treatment strategies to reduce the burden of diabetic complications. For his contribution he has received a number of prestigious awards, including the Australian Diabetes Society (ADS) Kellion Award, the Claude Bernard Award from the European Association for the Study of Diabetes and the Edwin Bierman Award from the American Diabetes Association.

Prof. Alicia Jenkins is an endocrinologist at Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute and St. Vincent’s, Melbourne, and a member of ACADI and ACvA. Interests include diabetes complications, technology and biomarkers. Her studies include DCCT/EDIC, FinnDiane, insulin pump, FIELD and T4DM trials. She is CIA of the FAME-1 Eye trial of fenofibrate for type 1 diabetic retinopathy and a new trial of fenofibrate for CKD in Type 2 diabetes. Alicia has >450 papers, an H-index of 62 and has supervised 20 research degree candidates and >100 other trainees. Alicia won the 2019 Kellion Award and 2022 RACP International Medal.

Rob Fitridge is Professor of Vascular Surgery at the University of Adelaide and a Vascular Surgeon at the Royal Adelaide and the Queen Elizabeth Hospitals. His research focusses on the pathophysiology of atherosclerosis, improving wound healing in diabetes, biofilm and small colony variant bacteria in diabetes-related foot infections and improving access to multi-disciplinary foot care for First nations people and those living in rural and remote locations. He is co-Chair of the International Working Group for the Diabetic foot- Peripheral Arterial Disease Working Group and a member of the steering committee of the Global Vascular Guidelines for Chronic Limb-threatening Ischaemia. Rob is co-lead of the ACADI Diabetic Foot stream and was section editor of the Oxford Textbook of Vascular Surgery.

Dr Natasha Rasaratnam is an Intern at Alfred Health in Melbourne. She graduated from Monash University with a Doctor of Medicine and Bachelor of Medical Science (Honours). She undertook her year of research at the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute in Melbourne under the supervision of Dr Julian Sacre and Professor Jonathan Shaw, and in conjunction with the School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University. Natasha has an interest in pursuing a career in Endocrinology and will be starting her basic physicians training at Alfred Health in 2024.

Ms. Chunjie Xiang is a Ph.D. student at Southeast University and is supported by China Scholarship Council to undertake a 24-month visiting study at Adelaide University. Her research focuses on understanding the important role of the gut in glucose metabolism in both health and type 2 diabetes.