NSW Fellow Forum 2023
The 2023 Fellows’ Forum was held on Wednesday, 31 May 2023 at The Mint, Sydney. The central theme of the day was collaboration.
Aunty Joan Bell from the Metropolitan Aboriginal Land Council opened the program with a heartfelt Welcome to Country, which was followed by an opening welcome by Professor Tracey O’Brien with a reflection of her own experiences throughout her early research career.
The first presentation was delivered by Professor Nikola Bowden, who discussed what collaboration means in the research context, why it is important, and shared her own experiences with local, national, and international collaborations. She highlighted the importance of collaboration with consumers in all research design and implementation, and drew on her experiences of working with consumer advocacy groups in her work.
Professor Tri Phan and Professor Paul Timpson delivered the keynote address, sharing key aspects of the ground-breaking work they are currently undertaking at the ACRF INCITe Centre. They touched on key streams of work being led by Fellows in their teams and emphasised the importance of their collaborators in propelling their work to the international stage.
The afternoon workshop was moderated by Dr Narelle Tunstall who guided the Fellows through reflective exercises around stakeholder planning for career development to help identify career goals and milestones, current strengths, gaps and opportunities, and stakeholders who can help them achieve success.
Afterwards, attendees engaged in further networking by catching up with familiar faces and meeting new ones.
Forum Gallery Highlights
The Program
Program and Presenter | Start | Summary |
---|---|---|
Morning Tea and Networking | 11.00am | Network with your peers |
Welcome to Country | 11:40am | Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council |
Opening Welcome | 11:50am | Professor Tracey O’Brien, Cancer Institute NSW |
Presentation – Professor Nikola Bowden | 12:00pm | Professor Bowden will share her experiences in building collaborations at local, state, national and international levels. She will discuss differences in undertaking research in regional and metro locations. |
Keynote Address – Professor Paul Timpson and Professor Tri Phan | 12:25pm | Professor Timpson and Professor Phan will share their experiences and advice on partnerships and collaboration in research. |
Lunch | 1.10pm | |
Workshop – Dr Narelle Tunstall | 2:00pm | This workshop aims to empower attendees to articulate their research goals and identify and prioritise stakeholders who can help them on their journey. |
Networking | 3.30pm |
Our speakers
Professor Paul Timpson, Garvan Institute of Medical Research
Strategic Program Co-lead Tumour Ecosystems and Laboratory Head (Faculty) - Invasion and Metastasis, Garvan Institute of Medical Research.
Conjoint/Adjunct Role(s), Conjoint Senior Lecturer, St Vincent's Clinical School, Faculty of Medicine, UNSW Australia.
Paul completed his PhD with Prof Margaret Frame at the Beatson Institute for Cancer Research, UK in 2002 where he assessed the interplay between Src family kinases and the actin cytoskeleton during cancer cell invasion, focusing on the role of Rho family GTPases. (Show more)

Professor Tri Phan, Garvan Institute of Medical Research
Professor Tri Phan co-leads the Precision Immunology Program, Garvan Institute of Medical Research. He co-leads the ACRF INCITe Centre for Intravital Microscopy and heads the Intravital Microscopy and Gene Expression (IMAGE) Lab. He is clinical immunologist at St Vincent's Hospital, Sydney. His lab uses clinical genomics, single cell multi-omics, CRISPR gene editing, genetic mouse models and intravital microscopy to look into the dark spaces of cancers.

Professor Nikola Bowden, The University of Newcastle
Professor Nikola Bowden is Co-Director of the University of Newcastle and Hunter Medical Research Institute Centre for Drug Repurposing and Medicines Research and the Vanessa McGuigan HMRI Fellow in Ovarian Cancer Research. She was recently appointed as the Chief Investigator of the NSW Regional Cancer Research Network, a Cancer Institute NSW Translational Cancer Research Capacity Building Grant. (Show more)

Dr Narelle Tunstall, Empirical Research Development
Narelle is passionate about supporting researchers. She is an experienced Research Manager and accredited Career Development Practitioner, with a love of great grant writing!
Narelle’s research management and grants experience extends across numerous Australian Universities.(Show more)