Board of Directors
The Board of Directors of NSV brings together a balance of scientific, public policy and commercial expertise. Mr Bill Burdett chairs the Board, which consists of the Chief Executive Officer, two nominees from each Research Node, a nominee from each Member University and independent representatives.
Mr Bill Burdett
BSc (Hons), ASIA
Chairman
Mr Burdett graduated in geology at the University of Western Australia and worked in oil exploration for nine years before moving to Melbourne to start a mining research department for the stockbroking firm of A.C. Goode & Co. In 1988 Bill was the Founding Chairman and Chief Executive of Burdett, Buckeridge & Young, an institutional stockbroker. He is currently a director of Investment Technology Group, Inc. (ITG), listed on the New York Stock Exchange, and IRESS Market Technology Limited, listed on the ASX. He is a director of the Victorian Neurotrauma Initiative Pty Ltd and Australian International Health Institute, a not-for-profit company of the University of Melbourne which aims to build capacity in public health services in the Asia-Pacific. He is also a Council Member of the Nossal Institute for Global Health.
Mrs Jan West AM
B.Comm, FCA
Deputy Chair
Mrs West commenced her career in 1975, joining Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, Melbourne after receiving her Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Melbourne. She is National Leader of Professional Standards Review having specialised in Assurance and Advisory, with a focus on manufacturing, consumer business and services industries. A Partner since 1988, Jan has provided professional services to a wide range of public companies and large businesses, operating within Australia and internationally and has worked extensively with audit committees on control, governance and operational best practice benchmarking. Jan was appointed a member of the Financial Reporting Council in 2005. She held the position of National President and Chairman of the Board of The Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia (ICAA) during 2001. Jan was Honorary Treasurer of the National Trust of Australia (Victoria) for eight years, a Board member of EcoRecycle Victoria for four years and is currently the Chair of the Professional Conduct Tribunal of the ICAA. She was awarded the Order of Australia in 2007 and the Governor General’s Centenary Medal in 2003. Jan is a Fellow of the ICAA and of CPA Australia and a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
Professor Stephen Davis
Professor Stephen Davis is the inaugural Professor of Translational Neuroscience at the University of Melbourne. He is based at the Royal Melbourne Hospital (RMH) where he is the Director of Neurosciences and Continuing Care, Director of Neurology and Director of the Melbourne Brain Centre (MBC) at the RMH. The MBC at RMH has been funded through a grant from the Health and Hospitals Fund and supported by a Centre of Research Excellence (CRE) grant from the NHMRC. He is the immediate past-President of the Australian and New Zealand Association of Neurologists (ANZAN) and a past-President of the Stroke Society of Australasia. He was the first Co-chair of the Australasian Stroke Trials network and has extensive experience in stroke trials. He is a board member of the World Stroke Organisation and Co-Chair of the World Stroke Academy. He is the Co-Chair, with Geoffrey Donnan, of Neuroscience Trials Australia (NTA). He is a Consulting Editor for Stroke and Associate Editor for Cerebrovascular Diseases. He has been a trustee of the RMH Neuroscience Foundation since its formation in 1992. He was given the M.J. Eadie Award in 2004 by the Australian and New Zealand Association of Neurologists for career achievements in neuroscience research and the Victorian Health Minister’s Award in 2008 for outstanding individual achievement, in the Victorian Public Healthcare awards. He was the 2011 recipient of the William Feinberg Award from the American Stroke Association. He is the 2011 recipient of the Bethlehem Griffiths Research Foundation medal. He is the joint recipient of an NHMRC program grant in stroke, has co-authored 3 books, numerous book chapters, and over 300 peer-reviewed papers. His major research interests involve clinical trials in stroke and the use of neuroimaging, particularly multimodal MRI, in the selection of acute stroke treatments. He is the Co-PI with Geoffrey Donnan of the EXTEND trial, a stroke trial aimed at extending the time window for thrombolysis using MRI in treatment selection.
Professor Geoffrey Donnan
MD, FRACP, FRCP
Professor Donnan is Director of Florey Neuroscience Institutes. He was Professor of Neurology, University of Melbourne and is the past Director of the National Stroke Research Institute. Geoff’s research interest is clinical stroke management and he was co–founder of the Australian Stroke Trials Network. He is past President of the World Stroke Organisation and received the American Stroke Association William Feinberg award for excellence in clinical stroke research in 2007.
Professor Paul Fitzgerald
MBBS, MPM, PhD, FRANZCP
Professor Paul Fitzgerald is Professor of Psychiatry, Deputy Director and Consultant Psychiatrist at the Monash Alfred Psychiatry Research Centre, a joint research centre of Monash University and the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne. He is a qualified psychiatrist, has a Masters of Psychological Medicine and research PhD. He runs a substantive research program utilising brain stimulation and neuroimaging techniques including transcranial magnetic stimulation, functional and structural
Professor John Furness
MSc, PhD, FAA
Professor Furness is best known for the chemical coding hypothesis that has strongly influenced studies of the organisation of nerve circuits, for his work in unravelling the intrinsic circuits in the digestive tract and for the discovery and characterisation of sensory neurons intrinsic to the digestive tract. The major focus of John’s current work are on visceral sensory neurons, the investigation of drugs that reduce visceral pain and on the control of ion channels that determine the excitabilities of neurons. Professor Furness was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in 1989. He received the Janssen International Research Award in 1993, the Davenport Medal of the American Physiological Society in 1997, the Distinguished Achievement Award of the Australian Neuroscience Society in 2003 and a Centenary Medal in 2003. He was elected Fellow of the Academy of Science of Bologna (L'accademia delle scienze dell'istituto di Bologna), the world’s second oldest scientific academy, in 2005.
Professor Graeme Jackson
BSc (Hons), MD, FRACP
Professor Jackson is the Director of the Brain Research Institute, a subsidiary of the Florey Neuroscience Institutes of which he is also a Director. His primary research interest is the application of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) techniques to the understanding of epilepsy and brain function. Graeme is also a Neurologist at the Austin Hospital, a Professorial Fellow of the Department of Medicine at Austin Health, and an Adjunct Professor of Radiology, University of Melbourne.
Mr Bruce Kean AM
Dip ChemE, FIEAus, FTS, FAICD, FRSA
Mr Kean was educated in Melbourne, studying Chemical Engineering and Economics. He retired as a director of Folkestone Ltd in 2008 and has served on the boards of many public companies, including as Managing Director of Boral Ltd (1987-94) and a director of AMP (1989-2000). In community affairs, Bruce is currently Chair of the ATSE Clunies Ross Foundation. He is the Chairman of the APEC Study Centre Advisory Board, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and is a Governor of both the Mental Health Research Institute and the Florey Neuroscience Institutes. He was Chair of CEDA (1994-2002), Chair of The Sir David Martin Foundation (1994-98) and Chair of The Mental Health Research Institute of Victoria (2001-08). He was a member of the Prime Minister’s Economic and Planning Advisory Committee (1992-94), and Chair of the Commonwealth Government’s Committee of Inquiry into the Standards and Conformance Infrastructure of Australia (1994-95). In 1994 he was awarded the Order of Australia and later the Governor General’s Centenary Medal.
Professor Trevor Kilpatrick
MBBS, PhD, FRACP
Professor Kilpatrick is a clinician scientist whose basic research focuses on the neurobiology of multiple sclerosis, in particular oligodendrocytic biology and upon regenerative medicine. Trevor has initiated a number of productive clinical research projects and established multicentre collaborations to study the genetics and epidemiology of MS and is developing translational platforms for therapeutics that target neurodegenerative diseases. He is Director of the Centre for Neuroscience at the University of Melbourne and coordinates the Faculty of Medicine research domain in the Neurosciences and Behavioural Sciences. He also, heads the Multiple Sclerosis Division at the Florey Neurosciences Institutes and is a neurologist and head of the MS Unit at the Royal Melbourne Hospital.
Professor Colin Masters
B Med Sci (Hons), MBBS, MD, Hon.DLitt W.Aust., FRCPath, FRCPA, FAA, FTSE
Professor Colin Masters is a leader in research into Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative disease, including Creutzfeldt-Jakob and other prion diseases, and his work over the last 35 years is widely acknowledged as having had a major influence on Alzheimer’s disease research world-wide. This work has led to the continued development of novel drugs and therapeutic strategies to treat these diseases. Professor Masters is currently the Director of the Mental Health Research Institute, and Laureate Professor at the University of Melbourne. He is the Chair of the NHMRC’s Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies Advisory Committee, a consultant in neuropathology at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and a scientific advisor to Neurosciences Australia. His achievements have been recognised by the receipt of many international awards - including the King Faisal International Prize in Medicine (1996), the Grand Hamdan International Award for Medical Sciences (2006) and the Victoria Prize from the Minister for Innovation (2007).
Dr Andrew Milner
BSc (Hons), MSc, PhD, FASM
Chief Executive Officer
Dr Milner is the CEO of Neurosciences Victoria Ltd and Neurosciences Australia Ltd. He is also a non-executive director of STC Ltd, a micro and nano technology consortium. Andrew obtained a BSc (Hons) at the University of Melbourne in 1976, a MSc degree at the University of Melbourne in 1980 and a PhD at the John Curtin School of Medical Research at the Australian National University in 1983. Andrew is a Fellow of the Australian Society for Microbiology and has worked in animal health and agriculture as Head of Molecular Biology at the Victorian Institute of Animal Science and subsequently as Operations Manager at Daratech Pty Ltd. In the medical arena, he has worked as Pricing Manager for Zeneca and AstraZeneca in Australia, as Director of Development and Commercialisation for Kendle (Australia) and as Managing Director of Mimotopes Pty Ltd.
Professor Chris Rowe
Christopher Rowe FRACP MD is Director of the Department of Nuclear Medicine and Centre for PET and a consultant neurologist to the Memory Disorders Clinic at the Austin Hospital, Melbourne. He has published extensively on SPECT in epilepsy and beta-amyloid imaging in Alzheimer's disease. Prof. Rowe and Associate Professor Nat Lenzo (Fremantle Hospital and Edith Cowan University) apply state-of-the-art neuroimaging technology to develop and confirm new diagnostic tests and biomarkers.