Professor Fiona Stanley

Professor Peter Rosenbaum

Peter Rosenbaum, MD, FRCP(C), Professor of Paediatrics at McMaster University , holds a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair (since 2001). He is among the most experienced developmental paediatric researchers in the world. With his colleague Dr. Mary Law Dr. Rosenbaum was the co-founder of CanChild Centre for Childhood Disability Research at McMaster, an award-winning multidisciplinary health system-linked research centre. In October 2007 Dr. Rosenbaum became the inaugural Director of McMaster's Child Health Research Institute, addressing ‘children with complicated lives and their families within a life-course perspective'. Dr. Rosenbaum has held more than 70 peer-reviewed research grants and is a contributing author to over 200 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters. As a teacher and mentor Dr. Rosenbaum has worked as supervisor or committee member with 45 master's and doctoral level students, including students at the Universities of Oxford, Utrecht , Witwatersrand , Ljubljana ( Slovenia ) and Toronto in addition to McMaster. His accomplishments have been recognized with the Ross Award from the Canadian Paediatric Society (2000), the Weinstein-Goldenson Scientific Award from the United Cerebral Palsy Research and Educational Foundation in Washington , DC (2002), an Honorary Doctor of Science, Université Laval (2005), and the first AACPDM Mentorship Award (2007).

Professor Matthew Sanders

Professor Robert Palisano

Robert J. Palisano, PT, ScD, is an experienced clinician, educator and researcher in the Programs in Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Sciences. He is also a Co-Investigator, CanChild Centre for Childhood Disability Research, McMaster University and a member of the Scientific Staff at Shriners Hospitals for Children – Philadelphia . He is principle investigator of a national study ( USA ) of activity and participation of children with cerebral palsy funded by the Shriners Research Foundation. He is co-investigator of an international study on determinants of gross motor function and playfulness of children with cerebral palsy funded by the National Institute of disability Rehabilitation Research. His research at CanChild involving quality of life and changes in mobility and self-care in adolescents with cerebral palsy is funded by the Canadian Institutes of health Research. He has served as an advisor or committee member of thesis and dissertation research for over 30 students. Dr. Palisano is Co-Editor of the journal Physical & Occupational Therapy in Pediatrics and Associate Editor of the textbook Physical Therapy for Children.

Professor Alastair MacLennan

Professor Alastair MacLennan, MB ChB, MD, FRCOG, FRANZOG is Professor and Head of the Discipline of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, School of Paediatrics and Reproductive Health, at the University of Adelaide. He was trained in Glasgow , Chicago , Oxford and San Francisco and moved to Adelaide in 1977. He specialises in reproductive endocrinology and also researches in feto-maternal medicine with a special interest in the causation of cerebral palsy. He has chaired two international multidisciplinary consensus statements on cerebral palsy. He is author of over 300 peer-reviewed publications and three books. He is a Past President of the Perinatal Society of Australia and New Zealand . His current research grants include studies of fetal thrombophilia, bacterial and viral infections and genetic polymorphisms for susceptibility to infection as possible perinatal causes of cerebral palsy. Professor MacLennan is Director of The South Australian Cerebral Palsy Research Group, which has received NH&MRC, NIH, Cerebral Palsy Foundation (NSW) and Channel 7 Children's Research Foundation funding. He is involved in promoting public and professional understanding of cerebral palsy causation and supports legislative changes to support cerebral palsy families and diminish the adverse effects on maternity services of inappropriate litigation.

Associate Professor Ann Christian Eliasson

Occupational Therapist, Neuropediatric research Unit, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm , Sweden . She started her PhD training, studying motor control of hand function. It resulted in a PhD 1994 and in 2000 became associate professor. She has mainly been working at Karolinska Institute, Karolinska Hospital and Department of Habilitation Services in Stockholm Sweden . She did a post doc in USA and has been a visiting professor in Australia and Norway . For one year, 2003, she decided to broaden her perspective of research. She got a position at Sida, SAREC, and organising research in developing countries. She has a strong research interest in hand function and motor control in children with cerebral palsy. The work covers the field from experimental research on force regulation of precision grip to development of assessment and intervention and even qualitative studies. She has been working a lot with constraint induced movement therapy in children with cerebral palsy. Theories of treatment and how to develop efficient training paradigm as well as to explore the relation between the development of functional ability, brain lesion and reorganisation is the main interest of her research.

Associate Professor Lena Krumlinde – Sundholm

Lena Krumlinde-Sundholm is an Occupational Therapist and a researcher at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm . She completed a PhD degree in Paediatric Neuroscience 2002 and is currently doing research involving test development, intervention outcomes and longitudinal outcome in children with disabilities. Research interest areas range from hand function, in particular the Assisting Hand Assessment (AHA) and the Manual Ability Classification System (MACS) to measures and interventions of participation.

Associate Professor Eve Blair

Eve Blair, an epidemiologist of 26 years experience, is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Child Health Research, University of Western Australia , at the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research. She leads the Cerebral Palsy (CP) Studies team that maintains the WA CP Register and conducts research associated with CP: (i) elucidating aetiological paths to CP with the aim of identifying effective and acceptable points for interruption and (ii) evaluating management strategies for persons with CP. She has also published concerning data quality and epidemiological methods, particularly as they apply to the small heterogeneous patient groups met with in the study of CP, and the logical application of epidemiological evidence. She is the editor responsible for CP for the Cochrane Review Group pertaining to Movement Disorders. Current research includes analysis of a large case control study that includes a representative sample of perinatal deaths in addition to CP and unimpaired survivor samples, d eve loping a form to reliably record descriptions of CP that has necessitated devising a reliable method of assessing degree of spasticity , evaluating novel applications of botulinum toxin A in the management of spasticity and devising and applying measures of appropriateness of intrauterine growth.

Professor H. Kerr Graham

Kerr Graham is the University of Melbourne Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery and Director of the Hugh Williamson Gait Laboratory at The Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne . He is the Chair of the National Health and Medical Research Council, Clinical Centre of Research Excellence in Gait Rehabilitation. Professor Graham works an orthopaedic surgeon at The Royal Children's Hospital where his main clinical interests and responsibilities are caring for children with cerebral palsy and other disabilities. In addition, as Director of the Hugh Williamson Gait Laboratory he has a major commitment to clinical gait analysis as well as research in a wide range of gait disorders in children, adolescents and adults. His work investigating the use of Botulinum toxin in children with cerebral palsy has been recognised by the award of two Richmond cerebral palsy awards from the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy and Developmental Medicine. He has interests in musculoskeletal surgery for children with cerebral palsy, quality of life and is a co-investigator of the Cerebral Palsy Collaborative Project (CPCP). He was recently appointed Associate Editor to Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology

Associate Professor David Walker

David W Walker received his PhD in 1978 from Monash University for research into the development of the autonomic innervation of the human fetal heart. He then worked for 8 years as a postdoctoral fellow at the Nuffield Institute for Medical Research at Oxford University, studying the development of the sheep fetus, firstly in relation to development of the adrenosympathetic system, and then on development of CNS pathways involved in the regulation of breathing movements and the onset of sleep/wake behavioural states. Returning to Monash University in 1982, he established his own fetal/neonatal physiology research group, continuing research into development of the brain of fetal sheep, and more recently into the mechanisms involved in causing hypoxia- and infection-related brain damage in late gestation. In 2006 he established the Cerebral Palsy Research Group at Monash University , and is now involved with devising procedures which can protect the fetal brain from damage during pregnancy, and which could be applied to human patients. He was awarded a D.Sc degree by Monash University in 2001.

Christine Cans has been working in developing countries from 1981-1985, and then as a general practitioner from 1986-1991. During this time she trained in biostatistics and public health. Since 1992 Dr. Cans has been associated as epidemiologist within the Register of Childhood Impairments in Isere County (RHEOP). Her main research interests are surveys of childhood impairments for decision-making and policies. Currently she is working at the University Grenoble Hospital , Information and Statistics department (SIIM) and TIMC-ThEMAS research unit. She is the coordinator of the European network of cerebral palsy registers (SCPE) supported by EC since 1999 . This network has been successful in delivering outcomes, e.g. guidelines for inclusion/exclusion criteria, Reference & Training Manual based on video pieces, publications in peer review journals. SCPE has developed research protocols, e.g. on Quality of Life, Risk factors for cerebral palsy, and congenital anomalies in CP children. Besides monitoring the rates of childhood impairments, in an area of 30 000 births per year, the RHEOP has got several research axis based on the disabled children included in the register: children with autism, children with CP, and children with mild intellectual impairment. The RHEOP has put efforts also in monitoring stillbirths and medically induced pregnancies.

Professor Karin Nelson

Karin B. Nelson, MD, is a child neurologist whose research interest is identification of causes and strategies for prevention of developmental neurologic disabilities in children. Outcomes of interest in her research have been febrile seizures, epilepsy, cerebral palsy, autism, and Down syndrome.  Working in the Neuroepidemiology Branch of the US National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke in collaboration with Dr. Jonas Ellenberg and Dr. Judith Grether, she has used large federal and state data-sets to explore for risk factors and to study natural history.  An observational study of administration of magnesium sulphate to women with preterm labor and/or pre-eclampsia suggested potential usefulness of MgS04 for neuroprotection, a topic that has been pursued in several randomized clinical trials.  Dr. Nelson is scientist emeritus at the NINDS and works part-time with clinical fellows at Children's Hospital National Medical Center , Washington , DC.

Professor Ingeborg Krageloh-Mann

Executive Medical Director of the Department of Paediatrics, University of Tübingen. The Tübingen department of Paediatric and Developmental Neurology has a traditional special interest in Cerebral palsy, which was centred first on phenomenology and epidemiology, was then extended on imaging in CP children. We could characterize CP as a mainly lesional CNS disease and are now specially interested in the organisation and reorganisation after early brain lesions (for motor functions, language and visuo-perception), which we characterize on a morphological and functional level including functional imaging and also behavioural and cognitive measures. Another field of interest is the clinical and biochemical characterization of sphingolipidosis, especially Metachromatic Leukodystrophy.

Associate Professor Roslyn Boyd