• Professor of Paediatrics, Medical School, UWA 1998-present
• Head, School of Paediatrics and Child Health (SPACH), UWA: 1988-1990, 1993, 1998-2001, 2004 to 2016
• Head, Children's Respiratory Science Group, Telethon Kids Institute and UWA 1985 - present

Education and training
• MBBS (UWA) 1966-71, MRCP(UK) 1976, FRACP 1980, MD 1984
• paediatrics: University College Hospital, London 1974-75, neonatal research fellow 1976-77
• respiratory physiology research fellow: Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto 1981-82
• respiratory research fellow: Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne 1983-84
• molecular genetics sabbatical: University of Oxford, UK 1991

Employment
• Professor of Paediatrics, University of Western Australia (UWA); 1998-present.
• Head, School of Paediatrics and Child Health (SPACH), UWA: 1998-2001, 2004 to 2016
• Head, Children's Respiratory Science Group, UWA and Telethon Kids Institute
• Respiratory Physician, Founding Head, Department of Respiratory Medicine, PCH, Perth, WA

Honoary Research Fellow, Telethon Kids Institute, Perth, WA

Current research profile and leadership

Respiratory research:

Over the last 30 years, he has led and continues to lead many successful respiratory and infectious disease research studies including16 NHMRC projects as CIA (3 current NHMRC projects). Studies include those using the Mechanisms of Viral Respiratory Infection in Children (MAVRIC) study platform currently investigating immunological responses to acute respiratory viral infections and the Perth Infant Asthma Follow-up (PIAF) Birth Cohort study. These have resulted in over 250 peer-reviewed publications.

“Future child health - the effect of environmental decline and increasing world population”.

He has worked over the last 4 years to establish an international research group in this new area of research. This work identifies arguably the most important current gap in medical research: the lack of systematic research on the projected global health of children over the next century given the expected deterioration in the planet’s environment and population increases. Meaningful projections on future child health can be made using available data and these projections are likely to show a serious decline in global child health. To state this another way, nothing could be more important for our species than the health of future generations of children and given the rising threats to this, we must stimulate research to predict where the greatest problems lie so that this evidence can be used to obtain the best outcome for future children. He has been CIA for three grants that have funded the work thus far – one from the Peter Wall Research Institute, UBC and two research awards from UWA. These grants have resulted in 3 international meetings of experts in environmental and global child health: in Vancouver funded by UBC in April 2016; and two meetings resulting from the UWA RCA grant, the 1st in Vancouver, November 2017 and a follow-up meeting in San Diego, May 2018. Through these meetings, he has assembled a collaborative group of international experts with expertise encompassing the required broad range of knowledge; this group is now working cohesively to progress this research. A 4^th meeting, again UWA funded, will be held in Perth in December 2019. We anticipate that our scientific results will generate discussion and advocacy to contribute to future global policies to produce the best possible outcomes for future children.

Established global health projects: He has worked in collaboration with researchers from every continent over the last 25 years on many aspects of child health. This work has taken him on expeditions to: the Orinoco River Delta in Venezuela (just before the area was taken over by rebel militia); the Amazonas Region in Colombia and Venezuela (during an outbreak of war between the two countries); Greenland and Siberia in winter; and the Karelian region in Finland and Russia.

He has established major collaborations in:

• South America: researchers from Caracas, Venezuela studying relations between respiratory disease and parasitic disease in Venezuela and on Coche Island in the Caribbean

• Africa with Spanish and Mozambican researchers: respiratory disease, malaria, measles, tb and HIV in Mozambique, and South African researchers: respiratory and allergic diseases in South Africa.

• Greenland with Danish & Greenlander researchers studying the evolution of human immune responses

• Siberia with Russian researchers also studying the evolution of human immune responses

• Karelia region of Finland and Russia with Finnish and Russian researchers studying environmental effects on the genetic influence on respiratory diseases

Previous research profile and leadership include establishing several new research initiatives:
• infant respiratory function: designed/implemented innovative techniques: single breath technique in neonates and raised volume forced expiratory method for measuring infant lung function
• Perth Children’s Aerosol Research Group: founded this group which has made the greatest international contribution to outlining the science of aerosol drug delivery in children.
• Immunogenetics Research Group: from 1992 with Prof Jack Goldblatt - all aspects of asthma genetics research; this expertise has led to vaccine, measles, malaria and HIV research in Africa
• human evolution: defined effect of geoclimatic factors on human immune system evolution
• raised > $15 million in competitive research grants and grants from industry

Mechanisms of acute viral respiratory infections in children
Immunogenetics of HIV infections in adults and children
Predictions of future health in children