About Us
Our People
KCA’s Executive Management Group (EMG), comprising several of the state’s leading child cancer researchers and clinician-researchers, oversees the strategic direction and operations of the Alliance.
Executive Member

KCA Director
A. Professor David Ziegler

Associate Professor Ziegler is a paediatric oncologist in the Centre for Child Cancer and Blood Disorders at the Sydney Children’s Hospital Network (SCHN) Randwick, as well as a research scientist in the Experimental Therapeutics Program at Children’s Cancer Institute Australia. His current work focuses on the childhood brain cancers, malignant gliomas and medulloblastomas.
As a clinician-scientist, Associate Professor Ziegler’s primary research interest is in the translation of novel targeted therapeutics from the laboratory to the clinic. At SCHN Randwick, he has been instrumental in establishing an early phase clinical trials unit to facilitate such translation.

KCA Deputy Director
Professor Geraldine O'Neill KCA Deputy Director

Associate Professor Geraldine O’Neill is Acting Head of the Children’s Cancer Research Unit at Kids Research, The Children’s Hospital at Westmead. Geraldine is Academic Leader, Basic Research, for the University of Sydney Faculty of Medicine and Health (Western Precinct) and additionally coordinates innovative new Cancer units of study at Westmead within the School of Medical Sciences, University of Sydney. Geraldine has a long-standing interest in the role of the tumour microenvironment in cancer progression and response to therapy, with a particular focus on the development of improved preclinical models for brain cancer. She completed her PhD at the Kolling Institute of Medical Research, University of Sydney and then undertook post-doctoral studies at Fox Chase Cancer Centre in Philadelphia, USA, returning to Australia with award of an NHMRC Howard Florey Post-doctoral Fellowship. Next, as NSW Cancer Council Career Development Fellow, she established a program of cancer cell biology research at Westmead. Among other roles, she is member of Scientific Advisory Committees of the Clinical Oncology Group – Neuro-oncology (COGNO) and the Children’s Hospital Foundation, Queensland.

Professor Glenn Marshall AM

Prof Marshall is Head of the Centre for Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders at the Sydney Children’s Hospital Network (SCHN) Randwick, and Head of Translational Research and Molecular Carcinogenesis at Children’s Cancer Institute Australia (CCIA). He has a longstanding clinical and translational research focus on relapse detection by minimal residual disease testing in leukaemia, and the therapy of high-risk or relapsed leukaemia.
His main preclinical research interests include investigating the mechanisms by which normal embryonal cells become cancerous, and improving the effectiveness of non-cytotoxic anti-cancer therapy in child cancer.

Dr Geoff McCowage

Dr McCowage has been a paediatric oncologist at the Sydney Children’s Hospital Network (SCHN) Westmead since 1996. He has a particular clinical interest in neuro-oncology and sarcomas of bone and soft tissue. His current research involves gene transfer with haematopoietic stem cells, focusing on the development of clinical gene therapy trials.
Dr McCowage is SCHN Westmead’s Principal Investigator for clinical trials of the international Children’s Oncology Group, and is also involved in other clinical trials sponsored by industry and other consortia.

Dr Jamie Fletcher

- Children’s Cancer Institute, Lowy Cancer Research Centre, UNSW Sydney
- School of Women’s and Children’s Health, UNSW Sydney
Dr Jamie Fletcher is a paediatric cancer researcher with a particular focus on high-risk neuroblastoma. His research interests include cancer drug resistance mechanisms, the identification and early stage development of novel anticancer agents, the development of patient-derived xenograft models and the preclinical assessment of new anticancer agents and combinations.

Professor Roger Reddel

KCA coordinator of Children’s Medical Research Institute groups and facilities involved in drug discovery
Prof Reddel has been Director of the Children’s Medical Research Institute (CMRI) since 2007 and is a leading international expert in cancer cell immortalisation, for which he was recently inducted as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Sciences. Head of the Cancer Research Unit at CMRI, a major research interest is the development of telomerase inhibitor therapy for cancer.

Professor Claire Wakefield

Prof Claire Wakefield is a Professor in the Discipline of Paediatrics, School of Women’s & Children’s Health, UNSW Medicine and leads one of Australia’s largest psycho-oncology research groups – The Behavioural Sciences Unit, part of the Kids Cancer Centre at Sydney Children’s Hospital.

Professor Luciano Dalla-Pozza

Associate Professor Luciano Dalla-Pozza is Director of The Cancer Centre for Children at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead. He has extensive clinical experience and leadership of one of the largest children’s oncology units in Australia). He is a Board Member of the Children’s Medical Research Institute and Australasian Children’s Cancer Trials Network. He is the Chair of the Expert Reference Group for the Optimal Care Pathways for Leukaemia, Solid Tumours and Brain Tumours. He is a member of the NSW Child Death Review Team (Office of the NSW Ombudsman). He is co-chair of the Australian and New Zealand Children’s Haematology-Oncology Group (ANZCHOG) trial for Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia (Study X) with the national data management centre centred within the Oncology Department of The Children’s Hospital at Westmead.
Executive Member Proxy



Dr Antoinette Anazodo

Dr Anazodo trained in Paediatric and Adolescent Oncology in the United Kingdom and completed her training with a clinical fellowship in the Kids Cancer Centre at Sydney Children’s Hospital. During her training and fellowship Dr Anazodo completed a postgraduate diploma in Adolescent Oncology.
Dr Anazodo was appointed as Director of Adolescent and Young Adult (AYA) Cancer at Sydney Children’s and Prince of Wales Hospital in October 2010 and has subsequently developed a comprehensive AYA cancer service across both the paediatric and adult cancer centre. Her appointment across the paediatric and adult campus has also provided opportunities for clinical and research collaboration. Dr Anazodo has been part of the AYA national leadership group working with national and state partners to develop specialist Youth Cancer Services (YCS) across Australia providing vital treatment and support to young patients.
Dr Anazodo leads the Future Fertility research program on reproductive concerns of cancer patients and in addition to the medical and psychological studies she has been instrumental in the development of Medicare item numbers for public funding for oncofertility care in Australia and leads international work on oncofertility models of care and a global competency framework. Dr Anazodo is the chair for the Australian AYA fertility preservation group and guidelines group.
Dr Anazodo has received a number of awards, including a Champions Award from Prince of Wales Hospital, Pride of Australia award in 2015, Churchill Fellowship in 2015 and nomination for Women of the Year in February 2016 and 2017 for her work on reproductive concerns in cancer patients. She has recently won a 2018 NSW Premiers Award for Outstanding Researcher.

Dr Caroline Bateman

Dr Caroline Bateman is a Paediatric Haematologist and Oncologist at the Cancer Centre for Children at The Children’s Hospital at Westmead. She trained in the UK at The Royal Marsden and Great Ormond Street Hospitals. Her clinical interests are childhood leukaemia (including high-risk leukaemia), lymphoma, pre malignant disorders. She has completed a PhD with Professor Sir Mel Greaves FRS at The Institute of Cancer, London, UK. She studied the molecular pathogenesis of childhood ALL, the results of which has led to a better understanding on how leukaemia develops in children. Her research interest remains in the aetiology and pathogenesis of childhood leukaemia but also includes emerging immune effector cell therapies such as CAR-T and other immunotherapies , this is in collaboration with The Immunotherapy Group at The Westmead Institute for Medical Research. She is a member of ANZCHOG Leukaemia and Lymphoma Group.

Professor Michelle Haber AM

KCA Coordinator of work on molecularly targeted therapeutics, drug discovery, minimal residual disease detection, and molecular profiling
Prof Haber was appointed Executive Director of Children’s Cancer Institute Australia (CCIA) in 2003, having been a scientist at the Institute since its beginning in 1984. During the past 20 years, she has made a major contribution to Australia’s health and medical research effort in the field of child cancer.
In particular, she is known nationally and internationally for her research on delineating mechanisms of resistance to anti-cancer drugs in the treatment of neuroblastoma, and in developing new approaches to improving the outcome of children diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia.
She has taken a leading role in pioneering high-throughput screening of chemical small molecule libraries for drug discovery in child cancer.
Prof Haber is the current President of the International Advances in Neuroblastoma Research Association. She was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in 2007 for services to science, scientific education and the community. The following year, she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the UNSW for her service to the cancer research community.

Tracy Bryan BSc (Hons) (Macquarie University), PhD (University of Sydney)

- Unit Head, Cell Biology Unit, Children’s Medical Research Institute
- Associate Professor, Sydney Medical School, University of Sydney
Tracy Bryan obtained her Bachelor of Science degree from Macquarie University in Sydney. During her PhD studies with Roger Reddel at the Children’s Medical Research Institute (CMRI) in Sydney (1993 – 1997), she discovered a new mechanism for maintenance of the ends of chromosomes (telomeres) in human tumours, called ALT.
Dr. Bryan spent four years conducting postdoctoral research with Tom Cech at the University of Colorado, USA, where she carried out biochemical studies on the enzyme telomerase, which adds DNA to telomeres. She returned to Australia to establish her own research programme at the CMRI in 2001. The research in Dr. Bryan’s laboratory continues to focus on the role of telomeres in cancer cells and in bone marrow failure syndromes, with an emphasis on understanding the cell biology and biochemistry of telomerase action.

Dr Ursula Sansom-Daly

- Post-doctoral Research Fellow, Behavioural Sciences Unit, Women & Children's Health, Medicine, UNSW
Dr Ursula Sansom-Daly leads the Mental Health Research Stream within the Behavioural Sciences Unit. Ursula is an early career clinician-researcher. She completed her PhD and Masters in Clinical Psychology at UNSW Sydney. Ursula's PhD used a suite of non-clinical studies among young people without cancer to examine psychological processes that may underpin adverse responses to serious illnesses, such as cancer - including autobiographical memory, problem-solving, and the ability to think about the future.

Jonathan Karpelowsky

- Group Leader Liquid Biopsy research Group
- Children’s Cancer Research Unit – Kids Research
- University of Sydney
Associate Professor Jonathan Karpelowsky is a paediatric surgeon scientist at the University of Sydney and Children’s Hospital Westmead, Sydney Australia. Assoc. Prof Karpelowsky has over 60 publications in peer reviewed journals and major paediatric surgical text books . He leads a basic science research group looking at liquid biopsies in paediatric cancer.
His focus is on the utilisation on liquid biopsies to asses for minimal residual disease in paediatric solid cancers. His group use a variety of techniques including circulating tumour DNA, mRNA, miRNA and circulating tumour cells.
Education & Training Sub-Committee
The following KCA members have consistently contributed to the KCA Education & Training Sub-Committee over the years and some continue to do so. We are also pleased to see emerging leaders getting involved with this important contribution to KCA.

Dr David Ziegler

Professor Glenn Marshall

Dr Jamie Fletcher

Dr Toby Trahair

Dr Antoinette Anazodo

Professor Claire Wakefield

Dr Michelle Henderson

Dr Ursula Sansom-Daly

Professor Richard Cohn

Dr Richard Lock

Dr Jonathan Karpelowsky

Associate Professor Tracy Bryan

Dr Geoff McCowage

Dr Luce Dalla-Pozza

Dr Amanda Philp

Dr Caroline Bateman

Associate Professor Geraldine O'Neill

Associate Professor Tony Cesare

Dr Jenny Wang

Professor Roger Reddel
Administration
