Associate investigators

Dr Carmel Smart

Dr Carmel Smart (APD, PhD) is a Specialist Diabetes Dietitian at the John Hunter Children's Hospital, Newcastle and is completing Post Doctoral research with the Hunter Medical Research Institute, NSW. Carmel holds a conjoint appointment with the School of Health Sciences, University of Newcastle. 

Carmel has published peer reviewed papers and book chapters on the nutritional management of type 1 diabetes. She has co-authored national and international diabetes clinical practice guidelines and has received numerous grants to support her research. Carmel has served on the International Society of Pediatric and Adolescent Diabetes (ISPAD) Advisory Council and as a co-convenor of the ISPAD Health Professional's Science School.

Associate Professor Bruce King

Associate Professor King is a Senior Paediatric Endocrinologist at John Hunter Children's Hospital, Newcastle.  Bruce is part of a team that has innovated paediatric diabetes management.  The team has focused on achieving good diabetes control while maintaining quality of life and minimising the impact of diabetes on families.  

Associate Professor King is the secretary of the APEG diabetes subcommittee, chair of the Diabetes NSW Children's Services Committee, member of the Australian Type 1 Diabetes Clinical Research Network, and board member of Diabetes NSW. Associate Professor King's research has been directed by questions raised by patients and their families. This research has focused on factors that cause BGLs to go high after meals. This research has been published in journals including Diabetes Care, Diabetes, Diabetes Medicine, BMJ online and Paediatric Diabetes.  

Bruce is now focused on the development of the closed loop insulin pump. He believes that the development of this technology will lead to significant improvement in the lives of people living with diabetes.

Professor Fergus Cameron

Professor Cameron is a Group Leader at Murdoch Children's Research Institute, Head of Diabetes Services and Deputy Director of the department of Endocrinology and Diabetes at The Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne. He has published widely in medical and lay literature about endocrine and diabetes management. Professor Cameron is a current president of the Australasian Paediatric Endocrine Group and is a participant in the Hvidoere Study Group on Childhood Diabetes. He is a past council member of the International Society for Paediatric and Adolescent Diabetes.

Professor Geoff Ambler

Professor Ambler is a Paediatric Endocrinologist, specialising in growth and endocrine disorders and diabetes in children and adolescents. This includes disorders of growth, puberty, thyroid, adrenal, pituitary and other hormone systems.

He is a Senior Staff Specialist and Co-Head of the Institute of Endocrinology and Diabetes at The Children's Hospital at Westmead and a Clinical Professor at the University of Sydney.

He graduated from The University of Sydney in 1983 and subsequently undertook postgraduate clinical and research training in Paediatric Endocrinology. In 1997 he was awarded a Doctorate of Medicine from the University of Auckland for his thesis on regulation of the growth hormone axis. In 2011 he was appointed Clinical Professor at the University of Sydney, having been a Clinical Associate Professor since 2006. He is actively involved in undergraduate and post-graduate teaching and has published extensively in the scientific literature in paediatric endocrinology and diabetes.

Alan Brnabic

Mr Brnabic is the Health Outcomes Statistics Group Leader and senior research scientist at Eli Lilly Asia Pacific statistical sciences. His role includes leading and reviewing external methodologies/ guidelines for use within the company, consulting/coordinating strategy for analysis on reimbursement dossiers and other related health outcome activities for countries like Australia, Canada and Korea. 

Mr Brnabic received a BA Dip Ed in mathematics and statistics and a MA in applied statistics from Macquarie University, Sydney. Previously, he worked for SPSS Australasia as a Technical Support and Training Consultant, at Macquarie University Practical Demonstrator/Tutor in statistic, Public Health NSW Health Department and as a Senior Biostatistician at the George Institute which is affiliated with Sydney University where he worked on epidemiological studies and RCTs. 

Dr Joey Kaye

Dr Kaye is a Consultant Endocrinologist and the Director of Diabetes Services at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital in Western Australia.

Joey completed his undergraduate medical training at The University of Western Australia, physician training at various hospitals in Western Australia and completed specialist training in Endocrinology and Diabetes in 2001. Joey undertook a PhD in neuro-endocrinology at the University of Bristol, UK from 2000-03.

Dr Aris Siafarikas

MD, FRACP

Consultant paediatric endocrinologist

Areas of research expertise: Clinical endocrinology, diabetes, bone and mineral medicine

Aris has been at Princess Margaret Hospital and Perth Children's Hospital since 2002. He is a consultant Paediatric Endocrinologist and actively involved in education and research at The Kids Research Institute Australia, University of Western Australia and Notre Dame University.

Professor Bu Yeap

Professor Yeap is an endocrinologist based at Fiona Stanley Hospital, Western Australia, and Professor in the School of Medicine and Pharmacology at the University of Western Australia. He is involved in clinical service, supervision of junior staff and endocrine advanced trainees, and teaching. He leads the endocrine aspects of the Health In Men Study (HIMS), examining hormones and their relationship to health outcomes in 4,248 older West Australian men. These include testosterone, dihydrotestosterone, estradiol, luteinising hormone, and sex hormone-binding globulin, as well as insulin, thyroid function, and bone turnover markers.

He has 80 publications comprising 59 original research articles, 16 invited reviews or editorials and 5 research communications. He has been an international invited speaker on the topic of hormones and health outcomes in ageing men, and has been awarded more than $6 million in research funding. He is the second named Chief Investigator on the NHMRC grant funding T4DM, an Australia-wide multicentre randomised placebo-controlled trial of testosterone to prevent diabetes in men with impaired glucose tolerance.

Dr Marie-Anne Burckhardt

Dr Burckhardt graduated from Basel Medical School in 2008. She trained in Paediatrics at University Children's Hospital in Basel and Bern and qualified as a general paediatrician in 2014 in Switzerland. She is currently training in paediatric endocrinology. Her research interests are in the field of technology in type 1 diabetes with a special interest in closed-loop technology.