Our Research Staff

Angelita has worked in public health practice, education and research, and holds a PhD, Master of Public Health, and Graduate Diploma of Education.

Her research is focused on the health needs of vulnerable Australians, including the elderly, people with disabilities, and families impacted by illness. She has extensive experience in policy and health services research, leading to substantial influence on policy and practice through successful collaboration with community, government, industry and non-government organisations.

Lakkhina is a clinical researcher with a background in neurodegenerative disease and neurotrauma. She has over 8 years postdoctoral training in biostatistics, epidemiology, population health, and general practice research at leading universities including UNDA Medicine, UWA Population Health, and UNSW Medicine.

She has worked on a wide range of research and evaluation studies including clinical trials, epidemiological and epigenetics studies, big data research and data linkage. 

At Brightwater, she leads the Brain Injury Research Program as well as oversees all quantitative analytics within the Research Centre.

Alexandra obtained her medical degree at The Medical University of Graz, Austria in 2004.

Since qualifying she has worked as Neurology registrar in Austria, the Netherlands and Australia. She developed a special interest for neurodegenerative and neuro-inflammatory disorders, which led to PhD studies at the Free University in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, which focused on imaging and histopathology in Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis and stroke.

Alexandra is passionate about disease prevention and the influence of lifestyle choices, especially nutrition and exercise, on health and disease. Her work is centred around clinical research and nutrition in neurological disease.

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

Georgina is a quantitative psychological researcher with a background in executive function and emotional disorder. Georgina completed her PhD in Psychological Science with the Centre for Advancement of Research on Emotion from the University of Western Australia in 2020. Georgina has since worked at the Brightwater Research Centre as part of the Brain Injury Research Programme. Georgina has published numerous scholarly articles and presented her research findings at national and international rehabilitation, psychology and brain injury conferences.

In 2022 Georgina was awarded the Brightwater Postdoctoral Research Fellowship, in partnership with the University of Western Australia. Under the supervision of Dr. Angelita Martini and Professor Romola Bucks, Georgina’s research aims to develop an early screening protocol to identify mental health difficulties in individuals with acquired brain injury to support symptom management and improve quality of life. 

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. 

Annie holds a Bachelor of Nursing Science degree from Galway, Ireland, and completed a Graduate Certificate in Continence Management & Promotion in 2015.

Annie has worked as an acute care Nurse in public hospitals in both Ireland and Australia. In 2015 she joined a community transdisciplinary continence service and is now an Advanced Continence Clinician. In this role Annie is involved in assessing and planning for clients with disabilities and bladder and bowel dysfunction in metropolitan and regional Western Australia. Annie is passionate about ensuring clients have access to quality continence services within the community so they have an improved quality of life.

In her Brightwater role, Annie is the continence Lead for a study aiming to improve independence, quality of life and the cost of care of catastrophically injured clients with brain and spinal injuries through enhanced assessment and planning of continence needs and delivery of services.

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.

Dr Somayyeh Azimi (Somy) is a Doctor of Dental Surgery with post-graduate training in oral and maxillofacial diseases. She also holds a PhD in Human Sciences focusing on head and neck cancer from the University of Western Australia.

Somy has over ten years of experience as a dental surgeon and researcher. She is an honorary research fellow at International Research Collaborative - Oral Health and Equity Centre (IRCOHE) at UWA, and a volunteer researcher at Telethon Kids Institute.

Somy’s field of research has been in clinical dental health, people with disabilities and telehealth, and has included a variety of research methods including, observational, experimental, and data linkage. Her research focus is on addressing issues in health disparities, and she is passionate about ensuring that research findings translate into high-impact outcomes.

Lily holds a Bachelor of Science with First Class Honours in Occupational Therapy from Curtin University and is the 2021 recipient of the Brightwater Lyn Beazley PhD Scholarship. As a Curtin University PhD candidate, Lily will be investigating community participation outcomes for adults with acquired brain injury after discharge from post-acute rehabilitation. This will involve working with both staff and clients at the Brightwater Oats Street facility, and be co-supervised by Dr Lakkhina Troeung from the Research Centre.

Lily’s honours study on the usefulness of a modified upper limb program on upper limb functioning for clients who had sustained an acquired brain injury. She also works as an Occupational Therapist and Research Assistant.

Lily is passionate about enabling people living with an acquired brain injury to live meaningful and purposeful lives in the community as independently as possible.

Hayley is a PhD candidate at Australian National University (Canberra) and holds a Bachelor of Arts with First Class Honours in Psychology from the University of Western Australia.

Hayley has been a researcher in a range of research in psychology and public health, including research focused on improving access to intervention for mental health problems and addressing the needs of children affected by chronic parental illness or disability.

At Brightwater, Hayley is working on studies aimed at understanding community rehabilitation outcomes following acquired brain injury and addressing the needs of children who have a parent with acquired brain injury or younger onset dementia.

Dayna is an early career researcher who is passionate about developing and implementing evidence-based health practices and policies which make a difference. She has a strong interest in working with decisions makers to ensure their programs are effective, equitable and achieve the maximum benefit for their clients within their constrained budgets.

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

At Brightwater, Dayna leads a range of research initiatives, with a focus on health economics.

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.