Simone I. Strasser is head of the Department and Senior Staff Specialist in the AW Morrow Gastroenterology and Liver Centre, as well as the Australian National Liver Transplant Unit at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and the University of Sydney. She is the director of hepatology clinical trials at RPAH and is the site principal investigator on multiple clinical trials of new therapies for patients with liver disease and liver cancer. She is a regular speaker in national and local educational programs and sits on multiple educational, advisory, editorial, and administrative boards and committees in Australia and internationally, as well as being the past president of the Gastroenterological Society of Australia (GESA). She has a major clinical and research interest in primary liver cancer, viral hepatitis, metabolic-associated fatty liver disease, advanced liver disease, and liver transplantation.
Anouk Dev is the deputy director of gastroenterology at Monash Health and an associate professor in the school of clinical sciences at Monash University. She manages ward patients, attends outpatient clinics, and performs gastroscopy and colonoscopy. Anouk completed gastroenterology training at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, Peninsula Health, and Monash Medical Centre. She then undertook a clinical Ph.D. at Monash University in the field of hepatitis C and returned to Monash Health to establish community liver clinics providing tertiary-level care in Springvale and Cranbourne. She was awarded the Gastroenterology Society of Australia traveling scholarship in 2003 and attended Duke University North Carolina for post-doctoral studies. She participates in research activities including leading clinical trials in viral hepatitis and hepatocellular carcinoma, supervising Ph.D. students, and is active in undergraduate and postgraduate teaching. She is also a college-accredited supervisor of advanced trainees in gastroenterology and is committed to excellence in clinical practice. Anouk is an executive member of the Melbourne Liver Group (MLG), a founding member of the MLG liver cancer consortium, and serves on national guideline committees for hepatitis B and C and liver cancer.
Associate professor Jessica Howell is a consultant gastroenterologist and principal research fellow at St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne/University of Melbourne and head of the Hepatitis B and Liver Cancer research group, Burnet Institute. She is also chair of the Gastroenterology Society of Australia (GESA), Liver Faculty. She has a strong research focus in liver cancer and viral hepatitis, specifically public health/epidemiology, clinical trials, and novel diagnostics development.
Amanda J Nicoll is the director of gastroenterology at Eastern Health in Melbourne. She received her Ph.D. at the University of Melbourne in 1999. She has honorary appointments with Monash University, the University of Melbourne, and Royal Melbourne Hospital. As head of gastroenterology at Eastern Health, she also has extensive experience managing all acute and chronic gastroenterological problems. Her research interests include drug-induced liver injury (hepatotoxicity); hepatocellular carcinoma; shear wave elastography; autoimmune liver disease; and hemochromatosis.
Stephen Riordan is a professor of medicine (conjoint) at the Prince of Wales Clinical School, Faculty of Medicine, University of New South Wales, and head of the Gastrointestinal and Liver Unit at the Prince of Wales Hospital, a university teaching hospital, in Sydney, Australia. He holds appointments as senior staff specialist in gastroenterology and hepatology at the Prince of Wales Hospital and its affiliated Sydney Children’s Hospital and Royal Hospital for Women (also university teaching hospitals) and as a consultant physician, gastroenterologist, and hepatologist at the Prince of Wales Private Hospital. His undergraduate training in medicine was at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, from which he graduated with honours. He was among several clinicians and researchers profiled at the 2014 Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, held in Boston, Massachusetts, and also at the 2015 Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, held in San Francisco, California. His research interests include gastroenterology and hepatology.
Associate professor Siddharth Sood is a senior staff specialist and head of Hepatology at Northern Health. He is an academic gastroenterologist and hepatologist, with experience managing a wide range of gastrointestinal, liver, and endoscopic conditions. After completing residency and basic physician training through the Austin Hospital, he completed advanced training in gastroenterology and hepatology through the Austin, Northern, and Royal Melbourne Hospitals. He became the inaugural head of hepatology at Northern Health after 9 years as head of hepatology at Royal Melbourne. His research interests include autoimmune liver conditions, NASH, and hepatocellular carcinoma.
John Lubel is a gastroenterologist and hepatologist at The Alfred, Northern, and Epworth hospitals and an associate professor at Monash University Central Clinical School. He studied medicine at King’s College Hospital in London before arriving in Australia in 2001. He completed advanced training at the Victorian Liver Transplant Unit and was awarded the GESA Young Investigator Award in 2005. In 2008, he returned to the UK for 18 months and was a senior clinical fellow in IBD at the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford. John has written guidelines on the management of hepatitis B and C and non-invasive assessment of hepatic fibrosis. he is the co-chair of the GESA HCC and hepatitis B consensus statement committees and has served on the GESA Liver Faculty Committee for two terms and the chair of the GESA Scientific Program Committee (SPC) that coordinates the Annual Australian Gastroenterology Conference (AGW), as well as being an invited speaker at national and international conferences. His research interests include hepatitis; hepatology; liver diseases; hepatocellular carcinoma; cirrhosis; liver failure; biliary tract diseases; gastrointestinal diseases; hepatitis B; and hepatitis C.
William Kemp completed his medical degree at Monash University, Melbourne, in 1996 and is now a senior staff gastroenterologist at The Alfred Hospital. He has an interest in liver disease and viral hepatitis and has a Ph.D. in the study of portal hypertension. He has an active interest in diagnostic and therapeutic gastroscopy and colonoscopy and served as an instructor in NETI-accredited endoscopy and capsule endoscopy courses. He is a member of the Gastroenterology Society of Australia (GESA), the Australian Liver Association (ALA), and the European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL).
Ammar Majeed is a gastroenterologist interested in liver disease and endoscopy. He undertook advanced training in inflammatory bowel disease and liver disease at Karolinska University Hospital, Sweden, and worked there as a hepatologist in the Liver Transplant Centre. During that time, he obtained an additional subspecialty in coagulation and bleeding disorders and finished a Ph.D. in collaboration with McMaster University, Canada. He then completed a two-year post-doctoral position in the Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Karolinska Institute. In 2016, he joined the gastroenterology unit at the Alfred Hospital, where he held a substantial appointment. He is an active researcher in the field of hepatology.
John Zalcberg is a medical oncologist at Alfred Health. He is the immediate, past head of the Cancer Research Program in the School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine at Monash University and continues to provide academic leadership to several clinical quality registries. He held the inaugural Tony Charlton Chair in Cancer Research at the Alfred Hospital, Melbourne, Australia, until July 2023. Before taking up his most recent position in 2015, he was director of the Division of Cancer Medicine at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre (Peter Mac) in Melbourne for 17 years and chief medical officer at that institution for 5 years. He has received several awards including a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM), the Cancer Achievement Award from the Medical Oncology Group of Australia, and the Tom Reeve Award for Outstanding Contributions to Cancer Care from COSA. He is a co-founder of the Lorne Cancer Conference and the Australasian Gastrointestinal Trials Group (AGITG), he was the prior Chair of the Board of AGITG, and he was a previous board member of Cancer Trials Australia. His clinical areas of interest include gastrointestinal (GI) cancer, the diagnosis and management of patients with gastrointestinal tumours (GIST), and quality of care.
Stuart K. Roberts is a professor of gastroenterology, deputy director, and head of hepatology (since 2011) at Alfred Health, Melbourne, and was chair of The Gastroenterological Society of Australia (GESA) Liver Faculty Clinical Research Network (CRN) from 2010 to 2023. He has the qualifications of MBBS, MD, and MPH (high distinction), as well as fellowships with the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (FRACP), the American Association for the Study of Liver Disease (FAASLD), the American Gastroenterology Association (AGAF), and GESA (FGESA). His prior appointments include director of gastroenterology (2005 to 2011) at The Alfred. The Fellowships of AASLD, AGA, and GESA reflect his contributions to clinical medicine and clinical research at both a national and international level.
