Research Team

The University of Melbourne Team

The University of Melbourne Research team is led by Professor Brian Oldenburg. Professor Oldenburg is Chair of Non-Communicable Disease Control and Director of the Centre for Health Equity in the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne. Professor Oldenburg's research aims to develop scalable interventions to improve the prevention and management of cardiometabolic and other chronic conditions. As such, he has undertaken more than 15 “real-world” trials over the last 10 years in policy settings, health care settings, work organisations, schools and other community settings in Australia and internationally.Professor Oldenburg's work has led the way (inter)nationally in the development and evaluation of the use of new technologies and m-Health interventions to improve health.

Mandy is a Research Fellow in the Non-communicable Diseases Unit at the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health and the Project Manager of the My Diabetes Coach project. Her expertise is in psychology, chronic disease self-management and eHealth research. She worked on the original Telephone-Linked Care Diabetes project before completing a PhD that involved the development and evaluation of a web-based type 2 diabetes self-management and mood intervention.

Shaira Baptista is a full time Research Assistant on the My Diabetes Coach program and is also currently enrolled as a part time PhD student in the Non-communicable Disease Unit at the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health. Her PhD topic is ‘User experience and engagement with digital health technology apps’ and her expertise is in user experience design and testing of digital technology lifestyle interventions for chronic illness management.

  • Anna Scovelle (Program Coordinator/ Research Assistant)

Anna Scovelle works on the My Diabetes Coach program as a full-time Research Assistant and also provides support to the program users. Her background is in Psychology and Physiology and she has taken intermission from her PhD to work with us. Anna has previously worked for the Australian Centre for Behavioural Research in Diabetes where she assisted in the evaluation of the IDEAS model of diabetes.

Chief Investigators

  • Professor Brian Oldenburg (Chief Investigator)
  • Associate Professor Anthony Russell (Princess Alexandra Hospital)
  • Professor Mark Harris (University of New South Wales)
  • Professor Paul Scuffham (Griffith University)
  • Dr Michaela Riddell (Monash University)
  • Professor Jane Speight (Australian Centre for Behavioural Research in Diabetes)
  • Dr Dominique Bird (University of Queensland)
  • Professor Robert Friedman (Boston Medical Centre)
  • Dr Emily Williams (University College London)

Associate Investigators

  • Taryn Black (Diabetes Queensland)
  • Dr Louisa Gordon (Griffith University)
  • Carolyn Hines (Diabetes Victoria)
  • Professor Greg Johnson (Diabetes Australia)
  • Andrew Wagstaff (Diabetes WA)