Dr. Brendon Haslam is a part-time Research Fellow in the Neurorehabilitation and Recovery Lab, located in the School of Allied Health at La Trobe University and Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health. He earned his Bachelor of Applied Science (Physiotherapy) from the University of South Australia in 1992, Master of Physiotherapy (Neurological) in 2000 and Doctor of Philosophy in 2022 from the University of Melbourne. He also holds a position at Neuro Orthopaedic Institute, Australasia, and Singapore Post-Graduate Allied Health Institute. His expertise includes rehabilitation following stroke, ageing and disability, allied health education, and sensory rehabilitation.
Rashmika Nawaratne received his Ph.D. from the Business School of La Trobe University, Australia, in 2020. He is currently the Principal Data Scientist at Endeavour Group, Australia, and an Adjunct Research Fellow at the Centre for Data Analytics and Cognition at La Trobe University. His research interests include self-learning, incremental learning, video analytics, deep learning, and human cognition.
Prof. Damminda Alahakoon is a Professor of Business
Analytics and Artificial Intelligence at La Trobe University and the Founding
Director of the Research Centre for Data Analytics and Cognition (CDAC) at La
Trobe Business School. He also serves as a Visiting Professor at the Lulea
University of Technology Sweden and the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka. He has over 15 years of experience in academia and over 10 years in the IT and
finance industry. His research is focused on the areas of Machine Learning,
Artificial Intelligence, Advanced Data Analytics, Text and Social Media
Analytics, Business Intelligence, and the harnessing of such theories for
practical tools and innovative technology for the industry. His research has
been adopted in a range of domains, including healthcare, utilities, smart
cities, education, industrial optimization, and national security. Damminda’s
work on unsupervised self-structuring AI and the Growing Self-Organizing Map
(GSOM) algorithm has received international recognition and has been adopted in
diverse domains. He has advanced and extended the GSOM as a new paradigm in
artificial learning, with theoretical innovations and practical outcomes
published in over 150 peer-reviewed research articles.
Prof. Leeanne Mary Carey (BAppSc(OT), PhD, FAOTA, FOTARA) is a Professor of Occupational Therapy at La Trobe University and Founding Head of the Neurorehabilitation and Recovery research laboratory at Florey Institute. She is also a Fellow of the American Occupational Therapy Foundation, Australian Occupational Therapy Research Foundation, and Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health. Her program of stroke research focuses on stroke recovery; brain function and plasticity; restorative rehabilitation; and knowledge translation. Professor Carey has led several major cohort, intervention, and implementation clinical trials. She has developed a successful, neuroscience-based approach to help survivors of stroke regain a sense of touch so that they can use their hands more effectively in daily activities. She has also investigated the impact of depression and cognition on stroke recovery. An important focus has been to translate these discoveries into clinical practice and better outcomes for survivors of stroke.
