Doris Lan is a PhD student at the University of Sydney, under the supervision of Prof Tamera Corte, A/Prof Luke Knibbs, A/Prof Lauren Troy and Dr Caitlin Fermoyle. Her research focuses on the geographical impact on patients with ILD. She hopes that the evidence will lead to policy changes aimed at enhancing accessibility and the quality of life for ILD patients.

Dr Sharna Mathieu PhD, is the Occupational Lung Disease Research Officer for Lung Foundation Australia within the Policy, Advocacy and Prevention team. Dr Mathieu is responsible for facilitating the development of a national research strategy in silicosis and occupational lung disease at Lung Foundation Australia.

Dona Wijayasinghe is in her 3rd year of her PhD looking into how your occupation impacts your lung health with a special focus on the impacts of silica, coal, and diesel.

Jingwen Zhang is a newly graduate PhD student from the University of Melbourne, focusing the epidemiology of adult chronic cough. She is also a research fellow, participating in multiple population-based respiratory cohort studies.

Professor Graeme Zosky is Associate Dean Research Performance in the College of Health and Medicine at the University of Tasmania and Director of the Tasmanian Data Linkage Unit.

Dr Jane Bourke leads the Respiratory Pharmacology Group at the Biomedicine Discovery Institute, Monash University. Jane’s research focuses on identifying improved therapeutic strategies in chronic cardiopulmonary diseases, applying her unique expertise with the precision cut lung slice technique. She has applied this approach to study disease mechanisms and test novel therapies in preclinical studies in mouse models and more recently in human tissues. Jane is a former Board Member and Chair of the Conference Committee for TSANZ (2012-16), and was recently made a Fellow of both TSANZ and the American Thoracic Society in recognition of her contributions to the field.

Dr Paris Papagianis is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Respiratory Pharmacology Lab under A/Prof Jane Bourke, within the Biomedicine Discovery Institute at Monash University. Paris’ research focus is on lung health and disease spanning early life into adulthood. Paris is interested in discovering similarities in disease mechanisms that contribute to lung injury; both in babies that are born too early and require premature birth care and in adults exposed to environmental factors who develop chronic lung diseases. In particular, Paris works closely with a cohort of Victorian workers exposed to silica dust from engineered stone that are at high risk of the occupational lung disease, silicosis. Paris and Jane Bourke are developing new non-invasive screening strategies to identify workers at high-risk of silicosis. Paris’ additional interests are in science communications, mentor-mentee relations and workplace culture for early career researchers.