Cool Topics in Neonatology 2026

Lineup

• More details about Professor Peter Davis

  Professor Peter Davis

  Professor Peter Davis recently retired after an incredible career in neonatal medicine at the Royal Women’s Hospital, where he began as a consultant neonatologist in 1993 and served as Professor/Director of Neonatal Medicine from 2009. Peter trained in Brisbane and at McMaster University, where he developed a strong interest in Clinical Epidemiology and Evidence Based Medicine. He is a major contributor to the Cochrane Neonatal Review Group, authoring forty reviews including those on prophylactic indomethacin, cooling for hypoxic ischaemic encephalopathy, volume targeted ventilation, and nasal CPAP. His research centres on respiratory support for premature infants and neonatal resuscitation and includes trials of non-invasive ventilation, caffeine, and oxygen targeting. A long-standing ILCOR member, he helped shape neonatal resuscitation guidelines used globally.

• More details about Professor Elizabeth Foglia

  Professor Elizabeth Foglia

  Dr. Elizabeth Foglia is a Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania and a neonatologist at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. She leads an NIH-funded clinical research program focused on delivery room resuscitation, respiratory management, and intubation safety for newborns. She is the Scientific Principal Investigator for the American Academy of Pediatrics DRIVE Network, a national network of delivery hospitals working to study and improve care for critically ill newborns. Dr. Foglia has also served on the Neonatal Resuscitation Program Steering Committee and the International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation Neonatal Life Support Task Force.

• More details about Professor Colm O'Donnell

  Professor Colm O'Donnell

  Professor O’Donnell graduated in Medicine from UCD in 1996 and worked in General Medicine and in Paediatrics in Ireland until 2001. He moved to Australia in 2001 where he was a Neonatal Fellow and Consultant at the Royal Women’s Hospital, Melbourne, and was awarded a PhD by the University of Melbourne for his research on neonatal resuscitation. He returned to Ireland in 2006 to take up a position as a Consultant Neonatologist at NMH in 2006. He has previously been the Director of Clinical Research the National Children’s Research Centre, and a National Specialty Director in General Paediatrics at the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland. He is a clinical researcher with specific interest in delivery room care of preterm infants, neonatal resuscitation, respiratory support of preterm infants, randomised clinical trials of intensive care interventions, evidence-based clinical practice and systematic reviews of the medical literature.

• More details about Dr Joyce O'Shea

  Dr Joyce O'Shea

  Joyce O’Shea - born and educated in Cork, Ireland. Her paediatric and neonatal training has been between Ireland, Scotland and Australia. Joyce developed an interest in neonatal resuscitation and airway management especially intubation/videolaryngoscopy when working as a research fellow at the Royal Women’s Hospital, Melbourne, 2011-2014. Joyce relocated to Scotland in 2014 and has worked since as a neonatal consultant at the Royal Children’s Hospital, Glasgow and with Scotstar neonatal transport. She continues to be passionate about making airway management as safe as possible for infants and clinicians. Joyce is the UK lead for the SURFSUP study looking at surfactant administration via sugpraglottic airway.

• More details about Erin Peebles

  Erin Peebles

  Erin Peebles was born at the Royal Women’s Hospital in Melbourne in 2011 following placental abruption at 26/40. She was sick for a very long time and had many ups and downs while in NICU. She had BPD and was frequently in hospital for the first several years of life and has had issues with her voice and her vision. She moved to Scotland with her family just before turning 3. She is now 15 years old and is thriving in high school and hopes to go on to study medicine. She is a passionate advocate for the preterm community and has campaigned to increase knowledge about the long term effects of BPD and the importance of exercise. She is very excited about returning to Melbourne and talking at Cool Topics and hopefully meeting some of the people who took such good care of her all those years ago.

• More details about Professor Jane Pillow

  Professor Jane Pillow

  Prof Jane Pillow is an academic neonatologist, NHMRC Leadership Fellow and Stan Perron Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia and Honorary Research Fellow at The Kids Research Institute Australia, supported by Category 1 funding for nearly 30 years. Her research program spans preclinical and clinical translational studies, with a major focus on improving immediate and long-term outcomes for children born preterm. A core focus of her research studies over the last decade has been to increase our understanding of the basis and developmental consequences of the delayed establishment of circadian rhythms. A key objective of this program is the development of simple, practical, low-cost interventions and changes to treatment routines that promote early establishment of circadian rhythms after preterm birth to guide developmental trajectories.

• More details about Professor Sue Walker AO

  Professor Sue Walker AO

  Professor Sue Walker AO FAAHMS is the Head of the Department of Obstetrics, Gynaecology and Newborn Health at The University of Melbourne and Chair of the Division of Perinatal Medicine at the Mercy Hospital for Women. She was appointed to the Sheila Handbury Chair of Maternal Fetal Medicine, University of Melbourne in 2011. She is currently co-Director of Mercy Perinatal, a centre of excellence in clinical care, education and research in high-risk pregnancy. Her research interests include improved detection of fetal growth disorders, new treatments for preeclampsia, and reducing the burden of preventable stillbirth.

• More details about Elisa McDonald

  Elisa McDonald

  Elisa McDonald is Victoria's inaugural Chief Midwife, with a strong background across clinical practice, education, leadership and system‑level reform. She has experience working across rural and metropolitan settings, and a demonstrated track record in advancing workforce capability and supporting high‑quality and safe outcomes for women, babies and families. Elisa holds dual master’s degrees in public health and health care leadership and management and is an Adjunct Professor with Monash University. Her expertise spans health policy, health service performance and collaboration, system planning, clinical governance and improvement with a focus on driving sustainable improvement across the maternity system. Elisa has played a key role in a range of statewide initiatives, including leading the Victorian Maternity Taskforce, the development of the Respectful Maternity Care Framework, and the My Maternity Journey online resource. She has also contributed to a number of statewide and Commonwealth advisory committees focused on workforce and maternity strategy, supporting the development and implementation of significant policy and reform initiatives.

• More details about Professor Della Forster

  Professor Della Forster

  Della is an internationally recognised leader in maternal and infant health research with extensive experience as a clinical midwife. She has a joint appointment as Professor of Midwifery and Maternity Services Research at the Judith Lumley Centre, La Trobe University and the Royal Women’s Hospital (the Women’s) and is Director of the Midwifery and Maternity Services Research Unit at the Women’s. Della is an expert in effective development, evaluation, and implementation of strategies to improve care experiences and health outcomes of mothers and infants and has over 20 years’ experience leading complex interventions in complex settings, with expertise in large randomised controlled trials of models of maternity care and a focus on vulnerable and priority populations.

• More details about Associate Professor Calum Roberts

  Associate Professor Calum Roberts

  A/Prof. Calum Roberts is a clinician-researcher within the Dept. of Paediatrics at Monash University, and a neonatologist at Monash Children’s Hospital, in Melbourne, Australia. His research aims to improve outcomes for preterm and sick newborn infants, and their families. Calum has led several trials of respiratory support strategies in preterm infants, including HIPSTER, FONDUE and SURFSUP. He is the Australian lead for the Australian and UK collaborative neoGASTRIC Trial, assessing the routine use of gastric residual aspirates on establishment of feeding and necrotising enterocolitis in preterm infants.

• More details about Dr Anna Tottman

  Dr Anna Tottman

  Dr Anna Tottman is a Specialist Neonatologist who trained in the UK, New Zealand and Australia. She has a special interest in early life nutrition and the developmental origins of health and disease, and completed her PhD at the Liggins Institute, University of Auckland NZ investigating long-term neurodevelopmental and metabolic outcomes in children born very preterm. She is a Consultant at the Royal Women’s Hospital, where she leads the Women’s Alcohol and Drug Service-First Thousand Days Clinic; a novel, philanthropically funded service providing longitudinal health and developmental care to infants and families impacted by complex substance exposures before birth.

• More details about Professor Ram Nataraja

  Professor Ram Nataraja

  Professor Ram Nataraja is a General Paediatric Surgeon, Director of Monash Children’s Simulation and Professor of Simulation-based Education at Monash Children’s Hospital (MCH) & Monash University in Melbourne. He completed paediatric surgical training in the London Deanery, including a fellowship at the Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne, and worked as a Consultant Paediatric Surgeon at Barts Health and Chelsea & Westminster Hospital before relocating to Australia in 2015. He founded Monash Children’s Simulation (MCS), which has delivered more than 650 simulation-based education activities to over 6000 national and international participants, including international collaborations with RACS, DFAT and the WHO. He worked as a consultant in surgical education at the WHO from 2021-2024. His academic work spans clinical research, global health and medical education, with more than 150 peer-reviewed publications, over 130 international presentations, and multiple textbook contributions. A pioneer in paediatric minimally invasive surgery and low-cost simulation, he has led major capacity-building programmes in Myanmar, Bhutan, Fiji, Samoa, Vanuatu, Tonga, the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea. His contributions have been recognised with multiple awards, including the Monash University’s Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Excellence and a Senior Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy.

• More details about Dr Doug Blank

  Dr Doug Blank

  Doug Blank is a Neonatal Consultant at Monash Newborn and with PIPER at the RCH and a senior lecturer at the Ritchie Centre (Monash University). He completed a NICU Fellowship at UC San Diego in 2014 before moving to Melbourne to further his education as a clinician-scientist at the Royal Women’s Hospital and Monash Uni. He was awarded a PhD and started at as a consultant at Monash in 2018. His work, studying physiological changes at birth and investigating strategies to improve care during neonatal resuscitation, is current being supported by an NH&MRC Emerging Leadership Grant. Outside of work, he enjoys exploring Victorias’s excellent beaches with his wife and four school age kids.

• More details about Professor David Tingay

  Professor David Tingay

  David is a clinical neonatologist and respiratory physiologist at the Melbourne Children’s Campus, Australia, and leads the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute Neonatal Research Program. His research focuses on improving respiratory outcomes for newborn infants through molecular and clinical studies of lung injury and neonatal respiratory support. He has advanced strategies for optimising lung volume, supporting respiratory transition at birth, and developed innovative imaging and proteomic methods to study preterm lung injury. David also contributes to international neonatal and paediatric care guidelines, chairs the Respiratory Failure Section of ESPNIC, and leads major international collaborative research, including the POLAR Trial.