Our Research Staff

Dayna, an emerging researcher, is passionate about advancing evidence-based health practices and policies which make a difference.. Her fervour lies in collaborating with decisions makers to ensure programs are not only effective but also equitable, maximising benefits for their clients within budgetary constraints.

In her role as the Manager of the Brightwater Research Centre, Dayna spearheads a multidisciplinary team of researchers conducting impactful research. This ensures that Brightwater’s practices are firmly grounded in evidence, ultimately  making a positive difference to the lives of staff, clients and the broader community.

Prior to joining Brightwater Care Group, Dayna’s research primarily focused on optimising and personalising screening interventions to prevent colorectal cancer. Her doctoral thesis, completed at Erasmus University Medical Centre in the Netherlands evaluated the harms and benefits of colorectal cancer screening programs. This research aimed to improve their overall effectiveness and cost-effectiveness, addressing both the general population and specific high risk population groups.

Robyn graduated from Murdoch University with a Master of Applied Psychology (Clinical) in 2003.

Since, Robyn has worked in government and non-government agencies providing psychotherapeutic treatment for children, youth and families.

At Brightwater,  Robyn has the opportunity to use her experience of working with children in distress and her curiosity about what helps families thrive, within a study that aims to develop support for children when a parent has an acquired brain injury or younger onset dementia.  

Rebecca holds a Bachelor of Science in Occupational Therapy and a Bachelor of Communications in Journalism & Public Relations. Rebecca has worked as an occupational therapist in the aged care and the NDIS/community sectors, and as an assessor and interventionist on paediatric studies within a tertiary hospital.

Rebecca has a particular interest in the implementation of research into evidence-based best practice. At Brightwater Research Centre, Rebecca has worked to determine and implement best-practice outcome measures for use in residential aged care to measure health, wellbeing and quality of life; and contributed to studies exploring the use of nurse practitioners and pharmacists to simplify medication in residential aged care, and to ensuring the optimisation of Brightwater’s clinical data.   

Rebecca is now the Clinical Trials Coordinator on the EARLI study, using a strengths-based intervention to increase rates of advance care planning in the community. She is passionate about achieving the best outcomes and quality of life possible for aged care clients at Brightwater.

Chebiwot is a Public Health specialist with a medical background. She has over twenty years of experience as a health practitioner and researcher having worked in Government, private and Non-Governmental organisations both in Australia and Internationally.

Chebiwot holds a medical degree from Patrice Lumumba, Moscow, Russia, with a PhD in Public Health from Monash University, Australia. Prior to joining Brightwater, she worked as a Research Fellow at Monash University, the Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS) as well as a Public Health Senior Lecturer at Kabarak University, Kenya. While at Monash University, Chebiwot worked with the World Health Organisation (WHO) where she played a key role in the design, piloting and evaluation of the first Global Mortuary Based Injury and Violence Surveillance manual for WHO and available globally.

Chebiwot’s professional interests include working at the nexus of evidence, policy and practice, particularly biased towards injury prevention among vulnerable groups in society. She is passionate about the role that research entities, academic institutions and industry can play to improve service delivery to citizens by translating evidence into high quality practice.

Chebiwot is also a lecturer at the Curtin Medical School, Curtin University. 

Gap Tshering holds a Master of Management Information Systems (Australia), Master of Business Administration International (Australia), Postgraduate Diploma in Financial Management (Bhutan) and a Bachelor of Business Administration (India). He has extensive experience working in both government and private sector. While in Bhutan, Gap worked in the Department of Employment where he was largely involved in administering entrepreneurship development programmes, he also worked within Policy and Planning Division of the Ministry of Labour and Human Resources where his assignments mainly entailed formulating sectoral policies, strategic planning and monitoring & evaluation of programmes and projects within results-framework.

During his employment with Brightwater, Gap was awarded the 2019 Don Hutchison Scholarship to implement his idea of engaging disabled clients in entrepreneurial activities through his project titled, “The Weekend Entrepreneur”, which later earned him the annual Brightwater Innovation Award 2020.

Gap is currently working on a clinical data optimisation study to improve quality of clinical data and documentation across Brightwater Care Group.

Naomi holds a Bachelor of Science (Speech Pathology) with Honours from Curtin University. Since graduating, Naomi has worked in a number of roles in the disability and aged care sector, providing services to adults living with communication or swallowing impairment.

Naomi is most passionate about improving communication for older people living with dementia. She is the Lead Therapist on the SenseCog Care Australia project, a collaboration between a number of research partners, including Brightwater Care Group, University of Queensland, and Murdoch University. SenseCog Care Australia aims to provide hearing and vision support to improve communication and quality of life for people living with dementia in residential aged care facilities.