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.

Suzi is an occupational therapist who holds a PhD in Health Sciences from Curtin University. Her research is focused on outcome measure development, evaluation and translation within clinical settings.  She has over four years’ experience working as a Research Coordinator in tertiary hospital Occupational Therapy Departments. Suzi has a strong passion for building the research capacity of clinical staff and embedding new evidence-based knowledge in practice.

At Brightwater Research Centre, Suzi will be leading the study that determines the most valuable outcome measures for health status, wellbeing, quality of life and goal attainment for Brightwater’s aged care clients.

Georgina is a quantitative researcher who has completed a PhD in Psychological Science from the University of Western Australia. Georgina has a background of research into executive functioning deficits and disordered mood and a passion for the integration of psychological principles and evidence-based best practice to support individuals living with complex disabilities.

At Brightwater Research Centre, Georgina is involved in the Brain Injury Research Program alongside Dr Lakkhina Troeung and Dr Angelita Martini. Her work focuses on examining the effects of complex physical and mental health conditions on rehabilitation outcomes and goal attainment for Brightwater’s clients with acquired brain injury.

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. She is currently completing her Graduate Certificate in Public Health. Rebecca has worked as an occupational therapist in the aged care sector for four years, in the NDIS/community sector, and as an assessor and interventionist on paediatric upper limb 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 is working within three studies: To determine and implement the best-practice outcome measures for use in residential aged care to measure health, wellbeing and quality of life; The clinical data optimisation study; and a Nurse Practitioner led study to simplify medication regimes.

She is passionate about achieving the best outcomes and quality of life possible for residential 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 Li Chen holds a PhD in media and cultural studies, a Master of communications, and Bachelor of Arts majoring in journalism.

Li is the community development expert in the Research Centre, and is also the postgraduate supervisor in the Research Project Preparation in Arts and Humanities unit at Edith Cowan University. Her research has focused on multicultural Australia and cross-cultural communications. Lily has published widely in academic journals as well as the local media. Li is a scholarly article reviewer for internationally recognised journals such as HealthCare, Environmental Research and Public Health, Social Science, Religions, Sustainability, and Genealogy. 

With experience in teaching, supervision, and research development, Li is also an expert in communications and journalism. She has 15 years experience working as an award winning journalist, documentary filmmaker and news editor. Over the years, she has worked with many environmental and community development NGOs from an interdisciplinary perspective, allowing her research to have academic and industry reach and impact. 

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.

Melissa holds a Master of Nutrition and Dietetics from Edith Cowan University, and a Bachelor of Health Science from University of Tasmania.

She has been working as a private practice dietitian since graduating in September 2017. Research formed a significant part of Melissa’s studies and has led to her developing a strong passion for research that improves health outcomes and quality of life of individuals within the local and broader community.

Melissa is currently working on a nutrition based study at Brightwater with Dr Alexandra Seewann and Dr Angelita Martini that aims to assess the influence of food additives on behaviour in elderly with dementia.

Youqi is the Research Administration Officer within the Brightwater Research Centre. In this role, he oversees administration of research grants, ethics, policies, budgets and communications to ensure the Research Centre functions efficiently.

Youqi holds a Master of Public Health from the University of Western Australia, a Postgraduate Diploma in International Financial Management, and a Bachelor of Administrative Management and Law; and is a qualified welfare worker.

During his career, Youqi has held a variety of senior management roles in sales and marketing, online media intellectual property, IT, and as Chief Editor for media companies in China and Australia. He also currently consults to Microsoft China as an insider reviewer for MS Windows. At Brightwater, Youqi worked in administration and as the Oats St Resource Facilitator and established a systematic service framework.