Northern Health Research Week awards 2022

Congratulations to Associate Professor Lisa Hui and Eleanor Johnson from the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology who received awards at the Northern Health Research Week.

Clinician researchers from the Department of O&G were successful at this year's Northern Health Research week , with Associate Professor Lisa Hui winning the "Researcher of the Year" and "Best oral presentation" awards, and research midwife Ms Eleanor Johnson taking the "Rising Star" award.

Associate Professor Lisa Hui presented the results of the Collaborative Maternity and Newborn Dashboard for the COVID-19 pandemic study (CoMaND) at Research Week, demonstrating a rise in preterm stillbirths during the 2020 Melbourne lockdown. This study involved all 12 public maternity hospitals in Melbourne and showed that a reduction in iatrogenic preterm birth for fetal compromise was associated with this rise in stillbirths.

Eleanor Johnson is a research midwife who leads the recruitment and sample collection for the NCHER Reproductive Health Biobank. She graduated from her Masters of Public Health with first class honors and won the 3 Minute Thesis Presentation competition at the Burnet Institute in 2020. She was recently awarded a $52,000 grant from the Victorian Nursing and Midwifery Trust to undertake an innovative co-design study to improve abortion care in Melbourne's north: "Partnering with the community to co-design a comprehensive abortion care service in Melbourne's North".  She will also present results from the CoMaND project on the impact of the pandemic on breastmilk feeding at the upcoming Lactation Consultants of Australia and New Zealand annual scientific meeting.