Cerebral Palsy / Hōkai Nukurangi Education Day - Aotearoa NZ

Lineup

• More details about Paula Tesoriero MNZM PLY

  Paula Tesoriero MNZM PLY

  Paula Tesoriero is Chief Executive at Whaikaha - The Ministry of Disabled People. A law, Politics and Public Management graduate from Victoria University, Paula previously worked in private and public practice in law and policy. Prior to her current role, she was the Disability Rights Commissioner. Paula is a Paralympian who won gold and two bronze medals at the Beijing Summer Paralympics in 2008 and went on to win Word Champion titles on the road and velodrome. Her services to cycling were recognised when she was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2009. She retired as an athlete in 2011 but still rides her bike as many days a week as she can, on the road and around the Wellington Mountain Bike Tracks. Paula has served on several boards including the Halberg Disability Sport Foundation, New Zealand Artificial Limb Service, Sport Wellington and Paralympics New Zealand and currently serves on the Board of Wellington College. She was a member of the New Zealand Sports Tribunal for 10 years and was the Chef de Mission for the Tokyo 2020 NZ Paralympic Team.

• More details about Associate Professor Sian Williams

  Associate Professor Sian Williams

  Associate Professor Sian Williams Sian Williams is an Associate Professor at the School of Allied Health, Curtin University and Honorary Senior Research Fellow with the Liggins Institute, University of Auckland. Sian is an accredited Clinical Exercise Physiologist (Exercise and Sports Science Australia) with a background in clinical biomechanics (three-dimensional gait/movement analysis). Sian has over 15 years of research experience focused on cerebral palsy involving the measurement of movement, muscle development and promoting physical activity and function from infancy through to adolescence. Through the Australasian Cerebral Palsy Clinical Trials Network - CRE, and an Aotearoa Fellowship in New Zealand, Sian’s work has also focused in the area of early detection and intervention of cerebral palsy and has completed advanced training in the General Movements Assessment.

• More details about Dr Gaela Kilgour

  Dr Gaela Kilgour

  Dr Gaela Kilgour is a paediatric physiotherapist from Aotearoa with over 30 years of clinical experience. She currently works at the University of Melbourne as part of a team delivering a co-designed cycling program to people across all disabilities in their communities. Prior to this, Gaela worked as a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the University of Queensland developing and delivering participation-focused physical activity programs with children with cerebral palsy, of all abilities, ages 3-14 years. Gaela has a passion promoting physical activity for family health and wellbeing and creating opportunities within our communities.

• More details about Professor Cathy Stinear

  Professor Cathy Stinear

  Professor Cathy Stinear specialises in stroke recovery and rehabilitation. As an applied clinical neuroscientist, she is focused on translating neuroscience discoveries into clinical practice. Her current work is using neurophysiology and neuroimaging biomarkers to accurately predict motor outcomes after stroke for individual patients. She has led the development and validation of the PREP2 tool for predicting upper limb outcomes after stroke and is developing and validating the TWIST tool for predicting walking recovery after stroke. She has authored over 120 peer-reviewed publications. She serves on scientific and grant awarding committees for health-related funding organisations and is an Associate Editor for the journal Neurorehabilitation and Neural Repair.

• More details about Professor Thor Besier

  Professor Thor Besier

  Thor Besier is a Professor at the Auckland Bioengineering Institute (ABI) and has a joint appointment with the Department of Engineering Science & Biomedical Engineering at the University of Auckland. He completed his Ph.D. in musculoskeletal biomechanics at The University of Western Australia in 2000 and was a postdoctoral fellow in the Bioengineering Department at Stanford University from 2003 to 2006. Thor established Stanford's Human Performance Laboratory as the Director of Research and was a faculty member in the Department of Orthopaedics at Stanford from 2006 to 2010, before returning home to New Zealand in 2011. He leads the musculoskeletal modelling group at the ABI. Thor’s research combines medical imaging with computational modelling to understand mechanisms of musculoskeletal injury and disease.

• More details about Dr Meg Smith

  Dr Meg Smith

  Dr Meg Smith is on the Executive Committee of the Cerebral Palsy Society of NZ and has a teenage daughter who lives with Hōkai Nukurangi. Meg recently completed her Doctor of Health Science and her doctoral research explored the experiences of caregivers raising school-aged children with Hōkai Nukurangi (cerebral palsy) in Aotearoa New Zealand. Meg’s day job is as a Clinical Nurse Director at Counties Manukau Health.

• More details about Amy Hogan MSc (Hons)

  Amy Hogan MSc (Hons)

  Amy Hogan is a researcher at the Cerebral Palsy Society of New Zealand and holds a Master of Science in Psychology with First Class Honours, with research focused on disability, chronic health conditions and experimental treatments. Drawing on her lived experience of disability, Amy is a passionate advocate with extensive national and international research networks. Her interests include knowledge translation, equity and system change across Aotearoa New Zealand and the broader disability sector. Amy is currently Co-Chair of the Oceania Academy of Cerebral Palsy and other Childhood-Onset Disabilities.

• More details about Karen Adams

  Karen Adams

  Karen Adams is a physiotherapist with a mix of adult and paediatric experience. Graduating from Brunel University in 2000, she gained a Post Graduate Diploma in Health Science (Child Health) in 2024. She is a current PhD candidate exploring physiotherapy care for non-ambulatory children with cerebral palsy and intellectual disability. I am passionate about improving the evidence for children with complex disabilities and providing them with the most fun and beneficial physio that they deserve to be their best selves. I have an interest in clinical gait analysis, particularly the physiotherapy and orthotic management of gait and movement and work at the AUT Gait Analysis service.

• More details about Arul Hamill

  Arul Hamill

  Arul Hamill is a paediatric occupational therapist. Arul brings over 30 years of experience working with babies and children. Arul grew up in Fiji, trained in Aotearoa New Zealand and has worked in many settings including Child Development teams, ACC, school learning support unit, private practice. Arul is passionate about valuing the voice of infants, children and their families. She journeys alongside families in Aotearoa New Zealand and some Pacific Islands supporting infants and children to engage and participate in everyday routines and tasks within their varied environments. She uses task analysis, the F words in Child Development, and clinical reasoning frameworks in fun and playful ways.