ROSA Research Team
The core ROSA Research Team is based at the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI).
Professor Maria Inacio
ROSA DIRECTOR
Professor Maria Inacio is an epidemiologist with research interests in the areas of population health surveillance systems and utilisation of existing data and informatics to enhance these systems. Maria’s work focuses on the surveillance of people accessing aged care services in Australia and their subsequent health care utilisation and outcomes. This work has the goal of identifying good models of care, areas in need of improvement, factors leading to high health care utilisation, and opportunities to decrease unnecessary utilisation.
Click HERE to learn more about Professor Maria Inacio.
Professor Gillian Caughey
ROSA ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR
Professor Gillian Caughey (BSc Hons, PhD) is a pharmacoepidemiologist with research interests in population health surveillance, medicines safety and utilisation with a strong focus on the older population and aged care sector. Her research to date, has a strong translational focus on improving health outcomes for the older population and is internationally recognised for her work focused on older people with multimorbidity and polypharmacy. She is the Associate Director at ROSA, SAHMRI and Adjunct Professor at University of South Australia.
Click HERE to find out more about Gillian.
Ms Olivia Ryan
ROSA PROJECT MANAGER
Olivia is ROSA’s Project Manager. Olivia has an interest in health information management, quality improvement science and public health.
Olivia has an Honours degree in Health Information Management/Health Sciences from La Trobe University and a Graduate Certificate in Public Health from Flinders University.
Ms Ly Anne Nguyen
ROSA PROJECT OFFICER
Ly Anne is a Project Officer at ROSA. She has an interest in the quality improvement in the public health sector. Her role includes providing support in the administration of ROSA and its research activities, as well as maintaining relationships between partners and external stakeholders.
Ly Anne has completed her bachelor’s degree in Health and Medical Science at the University of Adelaide and a Certificate in Bridging Physics in Medical Radiation Sciences at Monash University. She is now completing her master’s in Medical Sonography at the University of South Australia. Prior to commencing at SAHMRI, Ly Anne was at CMAX Clinical Research working on Phase I Clinical Trials in the Data Team.
Ms Caitlin Wyman
ROSA RESEARCH ASSISTANT
Caitlin is a Research Assistant at ROSA. She recently graduated from Flinders University with a Bachelor of Nutrition and Dietetics (First Class Honours). Caitlin’s Honours project involved interviewing Home Care Package recipients about their overall experience with the program, including their value and use of food and nutrition services. As such, she has a strong passion for the role of nutrition and research in improving the health of the older population.
Ms Daria Gutteridge
ROSA/UNISA RESEARCH ASSOCIATE
Dr Daria Gutteridge is a research associate with the University of South Australia and affiliated ROSA researcher. Daria completed her PhD at UniSA in 2023 in the field of Psychology (Cognitive Neuroscience) focusing on blood pressure variability as a cardiovascular risk factor for cognitive decline in older adults. Her work as a research associate is within the PHARMA-Care project, which focuses on monitoring pharmacist services and quality use of medicines in aged care homes and involves collaboration with ROSA at SAHMRI.
Ms Catherine Lang
ROSA SENIOR DATA OFFICER AND DATA SCIENTIST
Catherine is ROSA’s Senior Data Officer and Data Scientist. In this role she prepares the datasets for researchers, creates tables and figures for reports and performs ad-hoc data analysis. Her work mostly involves coding in SAS with some SQL and R. The datasets Catherine works with are quite large and include national health and aged care records. At the moment she is also learning about Network Analysis to aid in visualising this data.
Before coming to SAHMRI, Catherine worked for the Australian Bureau of Statistics, in Methodology Division and in Construction Statistics. Catherine was also seconded to the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety during its investigations (2019-2020).
Catherine has an honours degree in Physics from the University of Adelaide where she also worked briefly as a research assistant at the Institute for Photonics and Advanced Sensing (IPAS).
Click HERE to learn more about Catherine.
Dr Robert Jorissen
POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCHER: STATISTICS
Dr Robert Jorissen is a postdoctoral researcher for ROSA and a research fellow in the College of Medicine & Public Health, Flinders University. His current work involves analysing ROSA registry data on people who are receiving aged care services (both in home and residential aged care) with respect to occurrences such as falls, fractures and medication use. Robert is passionate about applying data analysis and predictive analytics methodologies to questions whose answers may lead to improvement in patient and population health.
His previous training and experience include a PhD in bioinformatics (University of Melbourne) and a Master of Biostatistics (Monash University). He has previously applied his skills to areas such as molecular epidemiology for colorectal cancer, evaluation of cancer prognosis calculators, statistical and bioinformatics calculations for cancers such as melanoma and lymphoma, structure-activity analysis of lead compounds against HIV protease and protein structure modelling.
Click HERE to find out more about Robert.
Ms Tracy Air
STATISTICIAN
Tracy Air is a statistician for ROSA. She has a Master of Biostatistics (University of Melbourne) and has an interest in mental health and cardiology research. She has an extensive history in research, working on registry data, administrative data, cohort studies, randomised controlled trials, and cross-sectional studies. She is extremely passionate in working with data that has translational benefits to both consumers and the public health system, and using data to inform decisions concerning service delivery, quality and policy.
Click HERE to find out more about Tracy.
Dr Johannes Schwabe
STATISTICIAN
Dr Johannes Schwabe is a Statistician for ROSA. Johannes has a background in experimental social psychology. He has been awarded his PhD in social psychology from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in 2019. Before transitioning to Australia and his current role in 2022, he was a postdoctoral research fellow and lecturer on psychological methods, statistics, and social psychology at the LMU of Munich and the Philipps University of Marburg.
In his work at ROSA, Johannes uses his conceptual, methodological, and statistical skillsets to help improve the health and wellbeing of older people in Australia and worldwide. He is especially interested in open, efficient, and reproducible modelling of big data to generate insights informing policy making and service delivery.
Dr Dylan Harries
ANALYTICAL RESEARCH ASSOCIATE / EPIDEMIOLOGIST
Dylan is an analytical research associate for ROSA. He has a Master of Biostatistics (University of Sydney), and has previously worked as a biostatistician supporting the Australian Orthopaedic Association National Joint Replacement Registry. His research interests include methods for evaluating quality of care, and causal inference from observational data. Prior to joining SAHMRI he completed a PhD in physics at the University of Adelaide, and held postdoctoral roles with Charles University in Prague and the CSIRO.
Dr Jyoti Khadka
POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCHER: PSYCHOMETRICS/HEALTH ECONOMICS
Dr Khadka is a research fellow at ROSA. Jyoti originally trained as an optometrist. He was awarded a PhD at Cardiff University in the UK, followed by a Post-doctoral fellowship at Flinders University in Australia.
Jyoti’s main areas of research interests and expertise are in patient-reported outcomes and the application of modern psychometric methods to develop, validate and implement quality of life assessment instruments.
Click HERE to learn more about Jyoti.
Dr Janet Sluggett
ENTERPRISE FELLOW AND NHMRC EMERGING LEADERSHIP 2 FELLOW - PHARMACOEPIDEMIOLOGY
Dr Janet Sluggett is an Enterprise Fellow at the University of South Australia and an Affiliate Post-Doctoral Researcher with the Registry of Senior Australians at SAHMRI. Janet is a pharmacist and an NHMRC Emerging Leadership 2 Fellow. Her pharmacoepidemiology research focuses on using Big Data to optimise medicines use, safety and effectiveness among older people accessing aged care services. She is also interested in the delivery and outcomes of pharmacist services, such as medicines reviews, in aged care settings.
Click HERE to find out more about Janet.
Dr Miia Rahja
POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCHER
Miia Rahja is a post-doctoral research associate with Flinders Health and Medical research Institute. She completed her PhD in December 2019 evaluating the implementation of an evidence based occupational therapist-delivered reablement program for people living with dementia in Australia. She now conducts research in aged and dementia care with a focus on evaluating the economic and social impacts of new program implementation. She is the South Australian state coordinator for two Australian Dementia Network (ADNeT) initiatives (Registry, and Screening and Trials). Miia is an affiliated postdoctoral researcher with ROSA at SAHMRI.
Dr Stephanie Harrison
SENIOR RESEARCHER FELLOW: EPIDEMIOLOGY & STATISTICS
Dr Stephanie Harrison is a senior research fellow at ROSA. Dr Harrison is an epidemiologist, and her work has focused on analysing large datasets to address research questions impacting health and quality of life of the older population. Her research has included studies of risk factors for clinical outcomes in people living with dementia. She has also led the development of large observational studies for people following ischaemic stroke. Dr Harrison completed her PhD at Newcastle University, UK in 2016 and worked as a post-doctoral research fellow at Flinders University (2016-2018) and at ROSA, SAHMRI (2018-2019). Dr Harrison returned to the UK in 2019 to complete a tenure track fellowship at the University of Liverpool and in 2023 she returned to SAHMRI to continue working at ROSA.
Dr Tesfahun Eshetie
POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCHER: QUALITY INDICATORS/RISK PROFILING
Dr Tesfahun Eshetie is a Research Fellow ROSA. He completed his PhD in pharmacy at the University of South Australia in 2020, followed by a Geriatric Pharmacotherapy Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at the University of Washington. He has background in clinical pharmacy and passionate about improving health outcomes for the older population. His research interest and expertise include geriatric pharmacoepidemiology, dementia, adverse drug events, potentially inappropriate prescribing, health care utilisation outcomes, medication-related hospitalisation, quality use of medicines and medication safety in older adults. He has hands-on experience in the statistical analysis of hospital and large administrative claims data.
Tesfahun’s current work involves research in aged care and pharmacoepidemiology with a focus on measuring and evaluating the quality and safety of care delivered to individuals in the aged care setting. This includes quality and safety monitoring, and risk profiling of individuals in aged care setting.
Click HERE to find out more about Tesfahun.
Dr Brian Pulling
EPIDEMIOLOGIST / RESEARCH ASSOCIATE
Brian Pulling is an epidemiologist and research associate at ROSA. His background in clinical health science has focused on evaluating the ways in which older adults think about and understand their health using novel assessment methods and psychometric analyses. Brian completed his PhD in 2024 at the University of South Australia with the Persistent Pain Research Group at SAHMRI. He has previously completed a masters by research with the Body in Mind Research Group at UniSA and worked as a clinical research coordinator at Boston Children’s Hospital & Harvard Medical School. Much of his research and teaching experience has focused on pain science, and the development and testing of novel interventions for persistent pain. In his work at ROSA, Brian is involved in several projects including coordination of the Primary Care project.
A/Prof Keith Evans
ROSA AGED CARE POLICY ADVISOR / SAHMRI RESEARCH FELLOW
A/Prof Keith Evans is the Principal of Integrated Policy Solutions (IPS), an Adelaide based Public Policy consultancy specialising in social policy reform and integration in health, human services, and social care. Keith is a Research Fellow on SAHMRI Faculty, and also holds an Adjunct appointment within the School of Public Health at Adelaide University.
Keith is Chair of Summit Health (formerly Adelaide Hills Division of General Practice), and is a Strategic Advisor to Medibank Health Solutions and Life Care (Aged Care provider). Previously he has been Chief Advisor Public Policy and Head of Research and Innovation with Silver Chain Group, Executive Director Drug and Alcohol Services South Australia, Chair of the Australian Inter-governmental Committee on Drugs and Deputy President of the International Council on Alcohol and Addictions.
Keith has a professional background in Nursing, Psychotherapy, Policy development and implementation, advocacy and Strategic Management. Keith has worked extensively at senior levels in Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, and with multi-national organisations.
Keith has been engaged with ROSA since its inception, and has a particular interest in progressing:
Aged Care Policy Reform
Integrated health and social care services delivery for older Australians
Ageing in Place/Home based Care
Rights based approach to Policy and Service Delivery
Dr Sara Javanparast
SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW: PUBLIC HEALTH AND HEALTH SERVICES
Dr Sara Javanparast is a Senior Research Fellow and a member of the MRFF-funded PHARMA-Care project team. She has a medical background with over 15 years of experience in public health and health services research. Sara is a qualitative researcher with research interests in the areas of health equity and access, health policy, primary health care, aged care, community development, research co-design and social determinants of health. Sara has extensive experience in program evaluation and was the Deputy Director of the South Australian Community Health Research Unit (the evaluation arm of SA Health) between 2011-2014. Before joining ROSA, Sara was a full-time Senior Research Fellow at the Research Centre for Palliative Care, Death and Dying, Flinders University and led or contributed to palliative care research projects and evaluation works
Dr Rangika Fernando
VISITING FELLOW: PUBLIC HEALTH & COMMUNITY MEDICINE
Rangika Fernando is a Visiting Fellow in Community Medicine from the Postgraduate Institute of Medicine, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka. Rangika has a background in medicine, having obtained her MBBS from Manipal University, India in 2009. She completed her MSc (2017) and MD (2021) in Community Medicine from the University of Colombo, and then worked as a Senior Registrar at the Directorate of Non-Communicable Diseases, Ministry of Health, Sri Lanka.
Rangika has over ten years of experience working in the Sri Lankan government health sector at the field level, in the hospital setting and at the Ministry of Health. Her areas of interest include health systems strengthening, especially with regards to primary health care, non-communicable disease prevention and control, health system responsiveness, and health financing. Her MD research looked at the responsiveness of the health system in providing follow up care to elders with chronic disease.
Rangika joined ROSA in March 2023 for her post MD overseas training. She will be looking at the provision of aged care services and health services for older Australians, the use of population health data to inform policy and planning decisions, and efforts to improve the quality and safety of these services.
Dr Sharmala Thuraisingam
POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCH FELLOW
Dr Sharm Thuraisingam is a Biostatistician and Postdoctoral Research Fellow at ROSA and Department of Surgery, University of Melbourne. Her research focuses on clinical prediction modelling utilising large linked national health data sets and electronic medical record data. Dr Thuraisingam was awarded her PhD from the University of Melbourne in 2022 after completing her Masters in Biostatistics in 2015. Her research interests include assessing data quality in electronic medical record data, missing data and longitudinal prediction modelling methods. Dr Thuraisingam brings a unique set of skills to medical research having trained (BEMech(Hons) 2007) and worked as Mechanical Engineer previously.
ROSA Students:
Dr Angela Molga - PhD student (University of Adelaide), 2020 - current.
Dr Angela Molga is a PhD candidate with the University of Adelaide. Her PhD is investigating the role of frailty in haematological malignancies utilising the Registry of Senior Australians (ROSA) at SAHMRI, as well as conducting a prospective clinical trial in hospitals in Adelaide. She is a specialist physician and works in various clinical roles: Clinical Pharmacologist at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, Geriatrician in the Northern Adelaide Health Network and is also a Principal Investigator for phase 1 trials at CMAX clinical trials facility.
Angela is passionate about the quality use of medicines and serves as the medical representative on state committees – South Australia Formulary Committee, South Australian Medicines Safety Advisory Group. She is the current State Secretary for the South Australian division of the Australian and New Zealand Society of Geriatric Medicine (ANZSGM), and wrote the position statement ‘Prescribing in Older People’ for the ANZSGM. She is also an Associate Lecturer at the University of Adelaide.
Ms Georgina Hughes - PhD student (University of South Australia), 2021- current.
Georgina is PhD Candidate with the University of South Australia, UniSA Clinical and Health Sciences. Georgina’s PhD is investigating how we can improve the safe and effective use of medicines in older people accessing aged care services and/or undergoing transitions of care.
Georgina is a registered pharmacist, holding a Bachelor of Pharmacy (Honours) and Bachelor of Pharmaceutical Science from the University of South Australia. Her practice experience extends across research, hospital and community pharmacy practice and aseptic compounding. Prior to commencing her PhD, Georgina has been actively involved in pharmaceutical research. This has included a study examining medication adherence in Rheumatoid Arthritis and process evaluations for two interventional studies to simplify medication regimens for older people. Georgina is also working on a clinical trial evaluating the usability of a novel ambulatory infusion device, designed to support out of hospital care services.
Georgina is passionate about practice-informing, translational and innovative research to improve quality use of medicines and health outcomes among older people.
Mr Yohanes Ayele Wondimkun - PhD student (University of South Australia), 2022- current.
Yohanes’ PhD research focuses on enhancing medication effectiveness and safety for elderly people in residents aged care facilities particularly on management of diabetes mellitus using ROSA’s data set.
Prior to commencing his study at the University of South Australia, Yohanes graduated from Gondar University with a a Bachelor in Pharmacy, and has completed his Masters in Pharmacy Practice at Addis Ababa University. He has extensive experience in higher education institutions as an academician and researcher. He has worked at Haramaya University and Hawassa University.
Yohanes also took different administrative roles including his position as Head of school of Pharmacy, Haramaya University. Yohanes was intensively involved in research activities and has published articles in different international reputable journals. His research work focuses on improving medication safety and effectiveness. Yohanes is highly interested in conducting innovative pharmacoepidemiological studies using large data set in the area of aged care.
Sarah McMullen-Roach – PhD Student (University of South Australia), 2022-current
Sarah is a PhD Candidate with the University of South Australia. Sarah’s PhD is exploring aged care in Australia for LGBTI+ identifying older adults.
As a registered Occupational Therapist, Sarah is a lecturer in the occupational therapy program and has experience in a range of practice areas including adult neurology, healthcare management, aged care, complex injury management, acute care, vocational rehabilitation and seating and postural management. Sarah has spent a significant portion of her career working in New Zealand and has developed competence in the delivery of culturally adaptive healthcare.
Having now returned to Australia and worked predominately in the aged care sector, Sarah is a strong advocate for healthy aging for all older adults and has contributed to research exploring active aging, management of frailty and more recently the models and approaches used within the aged care sector.
Ms Ling Davies - PhD student (University of South Australia), 2024 - current.
Ling is a PhD student with the University of South Australia, UniSA Allied Health and Human Performance. Ling’s PhD is investigating the utilisation of inpatient rehabilitation services by older Australians and associated health outcomes using administrative linkage data and contemporary statistical methods.
Prior to commencing her PhD study, Ling had completed a Masters of Biostatistics (University of Adelaide) and previously working at ROSA as a junior biostatistician. Her masters’ projects involved analysis, interpretation and reporting of complex administrative health data to understand the historical and future utilisation of aged care services at a population-level.
Ling’s research interests include quantitative study designs and statistical methods selections for real-world evidence studies, particularly focusing on understanding the effects of confounding, time-varying covariates and longitudinal/correlated data on study outcomes.