- Our people
Research fellows

Dr Jody Church
Dr Church is an experienced health economist with a strong profile in the field of applied economic evaluation and health technology assessment. Since 2009 she has been employed as a Research Fellow at the Centre for Health Economics Research and Evaluation (CHERE) at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), where she obtained a PhD in Health Economics focusing on the economics of obesity.

Dr Karin Hammarberg
Dr Karin Hammarberg is a Registered Nurse with 20 years’ experience as clinical co-ordinator of IVF programs.

Dr Sharon James
Dr Sharon James is an experienced primary health care nurse and a Board Director of the Australian Primary Health Care Nurses Association. She was awarded an Australian Government Research Training Scholarship and NTEU Joan Hardy Scholarship to complete her PhD about lifestyle risk factor communication between nurses and patients in general practice.

Dr Jessica Botfield
Jessica is a clinician-researcher with research and clinical expertise in sexual and reproductive health. She is a Senior Research Fellow at SPHERE, and also provides research support to the Family Planning Australia Research Centre. Jessica is a qualitative and mixed methods researcher and has experience working in academic, non-government and clinical settings.

Dr Anisa Assifi
Anisa is a SPHERE Research Fellow in the Department of General Practice, School of Public and Preventive Medicine at Monash University. She is a public health researcher, with an interest in sexual and reproductive health, with a particular focus on abortion access and adolescent sexual and reproductive health.

A/Professor Kristina Edvardsson
Kristina is a Primary Health Care Nurse with a Master’s degree in Nursing and a PhD in Epidemiology and Public Health. In 2013, she was awarded a Marie Curie International Postdoc Fellowship from the Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare to coordinate a research project on the use of ultrasound in pregnancy management in low, middle and high-income countries.

Dr Maryam Moradi
Dr Maryam Moradi is an academic midwife and researcher who completed her PhD at the Australian National University Medical School in 2015. Maryam’s PhD dissertation entitled “Exploring women’s experiences of living with endometriosis and its impact; development and psychometric properties of a questionnaire to measure the impact of endometriosis on women’s lives”.

Dr Yi Ling Low
Dr Yi Ling Low is a Research Fellow for the ALLIANCE Trial within the SPHERE Centre of Research Excellence, where her main role is to oversee the overall implementation of the trial. Previously, Yi Ling was one of the two lead academic organisers of Monash Employability Week, a university-based program focused on enhancing employability for undergraduate pharmaceutical sciences students.
Dr Satish Melwani
Dr Satish Melwani has joined SPHERE as a research fellow on the AusCAPPS Trial, where his main role will be working on an outcome evaluation of the the trial.

Dr Alissia Kost
Dr Alissia Kost is a SPHERE Research Fellow for the Endometriosis Management Plan and Australian Contraception and Abortion Primary Care Practitioner Support (AusCAPPS) Network projects. She joined the Department of General Practice at Monash University in 2023.

Dr Noushin Arefadib
Noushin joined SPHERE as a Research Fellow in June 2023 where she is involved in the ORIENT trial as Project Manager. Noushin completed her PhD in early 2023, examining the postnatal depression and anxiety screening and management practices of Maternal and Child Health nurses and the socioecological factors which impacted these. Noushin also holds a Masters in Human Rights and is passionate about social justice and health equity.

Dr Sharinne Crawford
Dr Sharinne Crawford joined SPHERE as a Research Fellow on the Endometriosis Management Plan (Endo-MP) project in 2023. Sharinne is a mixed methods public health researcher with a particular interest in qualitative research.
Research affiliates

Dr Melissa Harris
Dr Melissa Harris is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Women’s Health Research at the University of Newcastle. She has a background in psychology and has developed a significant track record in women’s health around understanding the complex health and social outcomes for women.

A/Professor Luke Grzeskowiak
Associate Professor Luke Grzeskowiak is a registered pharmacist and Associate Professor (Practitioner Fellow) at Flinders University and the South Australian Health and Medical Research. Luke’s clinical and research interests lie in optimising medication management to improve the health and wellbeing of women and children.

Dr Leesa Hooker
Dr Leesa Hooker is a nurse/midwife academic and Senior Research Fellow at the La Trobe Rural Health School and the Judith Lumley Centre - La Trobe University, leading the Child, Family and Community Health research stream within the Centre.

Professor Deborah Street
Deborah Street is a Professor and Head of the Discrete Choice Experiments Programme at the Centre for Health Economics Reseach and Evaluation at the University of Technology Sydney.

Dr Karen Freilich
Karen Freilich is a junior doctor who is passionate about sexual and reproductive health rights, access and equity.

Dr Shelly Makleff
Dr Shelly Makleff is a Research Fellow in the Global and Women's Health Unit in the School Public Health and Preventive Medicine at Monash University and a Research Affiliate with SPHERE. She is also Senior Advisor - Research and Translation at Respect Victoria.

Dr Sarah Ratcliffe
Dr Sarah Ratcliffe (she/her; PhD) is building the evidence-base informing sustainable interventions, policies, and practice supporting health and social equity. Researching stigma, gender, and reproductive health internationally, Sarah has developed and validating tools to quantify abortion stigma and explored experiences of stigma among trans and gender diverse communities.
Academic registrars

Dr Sonia Srinivasan
Dr Sonia Srinivasan is an Academic GP Registrar currently undertaking dual training in primary care research and clinical General Practice. She began her journey in women's health research with lab-based research in pregnancy disorders at the University of Auckland.
Project Support

Joly Kwek
Joly Kwek joined SPHERE as the Community of Practice Project Officer in March 2022. She provides a range of project support associated with maintaining the AusCAPPS online community of practice, coordinating activities with stakeholders to recruit clinicians to join the online network, and developing a variety of contents to support member engagement on the network.

Mae Rilloraza
Mae is an academic Registered Nurse, who works as a Sessional Academic in the School of Nursing and Midwifery at Monash University, where she teaches clinical nursing skills and assessments. She also holds the position of Senior Research Nurse at the Royal Women's Hospital in the Gynaecology & Gynae-oncology Research Department.

Jessie Zeng
Jessie joined SPHERE as a Research Officer in 2022. She has a Bachelor degree in Science (Biological Science, Psychology) and an Honours degree in Arts (Media and Communication) from the University of Auckland.

Catriona Rowe
Catriona is a senior research officer who joined the Department in 2016 as a clinical trial coordinator on the ACCORd Trial. Prior to this, she worked at Monash University in research/project management roles in tertiary and primary care settings, including Eastern Health Clinical School and the School of Primary and Allied Healthcare.

Claudia Morando-Stokoe
Claudia graduated from Latrobe University with a Bachelors of Public Health in 2019. She previously worked as an administration assistant for a private nursing company and joined SPHERE in 2022. Claudia is the administrative officer for SPHERE.

Sangita Chakraborty
Sangita has joined SPHERE as a research officer on the Endo-MP Project. Sangita is a Public Health researcher with over 5 years of experience working across government and non-government sectors addressing inequitable health services for women and children.
Management

Dr Maria De Leon-Santiago
Dr Maria de Leon-Santiago is the Manager of the SPHERE Centre of Research Excellence and is based at the Department of General Practice, Monash University. Her research background is in immunology, but she moved into primary health care where she has developed expertise in research development and management.

Claudia Morando-Stokoe
Claudia graduated from Latrobe University with a Bachelors of Public Health in 2019. She previously worked as an administration assistant for a private nursing company and joined SPHERE in 2022. Claudia is the administrative officer for SPHERE.
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