Dr Georgina Moody received her Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery from the University of Otago in 2017. During her studies, she worked for the University of Otago as a Research Assistant with the Paediatrics Department and won a New Investigator Award for her work with the NZ 1986 VLBW Study in 2015. Since graduating, she has worked as a clinician at Te Whatu Ora Waitaha Canterbury and began specialist training in Psychiatry at this organisation. She has a special interest in child and adolescent mental health and development.
Dr. Brian A. Darlow trained at Cambridge University and elsewhere in the United Kingdom and New Zealand, with a spell in Papua New Guinea. He returned to the department as a Senior Lecturer in 1982 and was appointed to the Chair of Paediatrics in 2001. From 2007 until 2018, Brian held the Cure Kids Chair of Paediatric Research at the University of Otago, Christchurch. Through most of his career, he has worked as a clinical neonatologist with research interests including free radical disease in the newborn, particularly retinopathy of prematurity, neonatal networking, and the epidemiology and outcome of complications of prematurity. In recent years, he has led the NZ 1986 VLBW Follow-up Study assessing young adult outcomes of this national cohort of very preterm infants compared with term-born control subjects. Interests outside of medicine include ornithology and tramping.
Prof. Lianne J. Woodward is a Professor of Child Developmental Psychology and Team Leader of the Canterbury Child Development Research programme at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. Previous appointments include Director of Research at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, co-Director of the Intellectual Disabilities and Development Research Centre at Washington University in St Louis, and Head of School Health Sciences at the University of Canterbury. She completed her doctorate degree in Psychology at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neuroscience, University of London. Her awards include the HRC Liley Medal, the Condliffe Memorial Prize, Royal Society of New Zealand James Cook Fellowship, Commonwealth Scholarship, William Georgetti Scholarship, and a team leadership award from Mass General Brigham for her work in establishing the Brigham Centre for Child Development. Lianne’s main research focusses on how early life experiences affect children’s brain and behavioural development. She is involved in multiple longitudinal studies of diverse populations, as well as several randomized controlled trials with international interdisciplinary teams. Her research aims to advance understanding of the complex biopsychosocial mechanisms that shape children’s mental health, cognitive, academic, and social development over time, and to use this knowledge to design intervention and prevention strategies that will improve child health and development.
