Dr Archit Chawla FRACP | Specialist contractor, Adult Medicine

Dr Archit Chawla is a consultant Respiratory and Sleep Physician at Nepean Hospital and Senior Clinical Lecturer with the University of Sydney. He has a clinical interest in lung cancer, interventional pulmonology and pleural disease, as well as respiratory failure. He is a strong advocate for trainee education and wellbeing and has been an active member of the TSANZ Education and Training Committee. He is a Supervisor and lead Respiratory Training Program educator for Basic and Advanced Trainees at Nepean Hospital. He also convenes a Respiratory Failure and NIV workshop to support trainee education. Archit is passionate about promoting evidence-based best practice in training and education standards and is committed to achieving this through his leadership in Respiratory curriculum re-development.

Dr André Schultz FRACP | Specialist contractor, Paediatrics & Child Health

André is a paediatric respiratory physician based at Perth Children’s Hospital, Program Head of Respiratory Health at Telethon Kids Institute, and Honorary Clinical Professor at the University of Western Australia. He is a MRFF Investigator and previous NHMRC TRIP Fellow. He is President of the Australian Council on Smoking and Health and Deputy Chair of the Australian Cystic Fibrosis Data Registry Steering Committee. He's committed to child health and improving lifelong health trajectories from early childhood, particularly for vulnerable populations. He recognises that investment in the next generation of specialists is vital to the future health of Australian children.

Dr Fiona Horwood FRACP | Chair

Fiona is a respiratory and general physician currently working in Whangarei, a regional centre in Te Tai Tokerau, New Zealand. She trained to consultant level in Respiratory and General Medicine in Nottingham, England and emigrated to New Zealand with her family in 2008. She initially worked at Middlemore Hospital in Auckland before moving north to Whangarei. Fiona maintains a broad general respiratory practice with her interests being chronic respiratory disease, lung cancer and pleural disease. Fiona has worked for years on enhancing the respiratory MDT. This has included successfully pushing out pulmonary rehabilitation from hospital into multiple community settings and creating a community COPD MDT. She has an interest in exploring ways of reducing the inequalities seen in health outcomes in respiratory disease in the Maori population in New Zealand. Fiona is also a keen educator and has been involved with many RACP committees since her arrival in New Zealand. She recently completed her term as chair of Aotearoa New Zealand Adult Medicine Division Education Committee during which time she was also a member of several other education committees in both Australia and New Zealand. Fiona’s main passion is to encourage and educate the physicians of the future by supervising and teaching trainees and students at all stages of their career.

Dr Andrew Tai FRACP | Deputy Chair

Andrew is a Paediatric Respiratory and Sleep Physician, Head of Department at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital Adelaide and Senior Lecturer at the University of Adelaide. He completed his advanced training at the Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne and PhD in 2011 following the famous Melbourne childhood asthma cohort to the age of 50 years. Andrew is also the Cystic Fibrosis Centre Director and held a directorial position with the Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand (TSANZ) overseeing the role of conference coordinator. Furthermore, Andrew was a member of the Written Exams Committee for RACP and a site accreditor for advanced training. He was part of the curriculum committee that formalised the current Paediatric training curriculum and served in multiple organisations including the Australasian Sleep Association, Lung Foundation Australia, and consumer organisations such as Asthma SA and Cystic Fibrosis SA. His research interests are in Paediatric asthma, origins of lung disease in children and translation of novel technology into clinical care.

Dr Arash Badiei FRACP 

Arash is a staff specialist and head of advanced training at the Royal Adelaide Hospital. He has a background in biomedical engineering and completed his PhD prior to pivoting to medicine. He completed advanced training in respiratory medicine in 2019 and a fellowship at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital in Perth. His specialty areas are interventional pulmonology and pleural medicine. Arash is interested in modernising advanced training, ensuring our training stays relevant to current practice, and that it encompasses trainees’ mental health and wellbeing. He is also co-convenor of the interventional pulmonology special interest group of the Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand. Outside of medicine Arash spends his time focused on family and friends, trying to keep fit, and embracing the chaos of raising two boys!

Dr Sandra Chuang FRACP 

Sandra is a Paediatric Respiratory Physician at Sydney Children's Hospital Randwick, and a Senior Lecturer at the University of New South Wales. She trained at the Children's Hospital Westmead and Sydney Children's Hospital Randwick before completing her PhD on Non-invasive measures of neural respiratory drive in children. Her interests include rare lung diseases such as respiratory complications of neuromuscular disease, congenital lung malformation, congenital diaphragmatic hernia, cystic fibrosis and asthma. She is also an academician, involved in the teaching of medical students and trainees in paediatrics and respiratory medicine. Sandra also undertakes committee work for the Thoracic Society Australia and New Zealand including the Education and Training Subcommittee, and the Paediatric Special Interest Group.

Dr Julia Fattore

Julia is a current final year Respiratory and Sleep medicine trainee at Liverpool Hospital. She aims to provide current and relevant advice for the update, as well as contribute strongly to the group discussions. Julia’s goal is to return to regional New South Wales in a respiratory, sleep and interventional role. She is very keen to assist in updating the curriculum with a focus on interventional training and requirements and ensure the training program is equitable between regional and urban sites.

Dr Nathan Harb

Nathan is a Respiratory Advanced Trainee at Liverpool Hospital with a particular interest in Interventional Pulmonology and Tuberculosis. He is also passionate about teaching and is a Conjoint Associate Lecturer with the University of New South Wales.

Associate Professor Belinda Miller FRACP 

Belinda is a respiratory and sleep medicine physician, at the Alfred Hospital and Epworth Sleep Centre, Melbourne. Her clinical interests include ventilatory failure, oxygen therapy and many aspects of general respiratory medicine. She is a member of the RACP national examination panel for the fellowship examinations, and current chair of the Respiratory and Sleep Advanced Training Subcommittee.

Dr Siobhan Mulrennan FRACP 

Siobhan is a respiratory consultant at Perth's Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital since 2008. She is also the Director of the Adult Cystic Fibrosis (CF) Service since 2016. Her consultancy spans various areas, encompassing cystic fibrosis, general respiratory medicine, bronchoscopy, and EBUS. In addition, she holds the position of Clinical Professor at the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Western Australia, where she is affiliated with both the Institute of Respiratory Health and the Busselton Population Medical Research Institute. Siobhan is also involved in CF clinical research and population-based respiratory health research. At the Institute of Respiratory Health, she serves as the Principal Investigator for CF and bronchiectasis clinical trials. Additionally, she also recently held the role as Co-convenor of the CF Special Interest Group (SIG) at the Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand. Furthermore, she has co-chaired the Australian CF Centre Directors Group from 2020 to 2023. Siobhan is also a member of the Australian CF Data Registry Committee and the Australian CF Standards of Care Committee.

Dr Chintaka Samaranayake FRACP 

Chinthaka is a Thoracic and Sleep physician and specialist in pulmonary vascular diseases, exercise physiology and thoracic malignancy. After obtaining FRACP in 2019, he pursued post-graduate research fellowship for 2 years at Royal Brompton Hospital, London UK, working in the field of pulmonary vascular disease (2020-2022) whilst completing a PhD in experimental and translational medicine and interventions. Chintaka has a research track record in cardiopulmonary medicine, and his PhD research received a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Postgraduate Scholarship. He has received numerous clinical and research awards for his work including the European Respiratory Society and APSR Young Investigator Award in 2022. Chintaka is passionate about medical education and respiratory training, and brings direct experience gained working in several Respiratory Training Networks across Australia, New Zealand, and United Kingdom.

Dr Kevin Wen

Kevin is a third year Respiratory and Sleep Medicine advanced trainee currently at Liverpool Hospital. He has previously trained at Wollongong Hospital and Westmead Hospital.

Associate Professor Jonathan Williamson FRACP 

Jonathan is a Respiratory and Sleep Physician who trained in Australia and Germany. He is a Consultant Respiratory and Sleep Physician at Liverpool Hospital and a Visiting Medical Officer at Macquarie University Hospital. His practice provides care to patients with a range of respiratory and sleep pathologies including asthma, COPD, pulmonary infections, interstitial lung disease, sleep disorders and lung cancer with a sub-specialised interest in airway interventions including rigid bronchoscopy, cryotherapy, endoscopic therapies for advanced COPD, airway stents and managing central airway obstruction. After completing training in NSW, Jonathan undertook PhD studies at the University of Western Australia investigating anatomical optical coherence tomography to assist with airway dimension measurement for clinical and research applications. He also directs the interventional bronchoscopy unit at Liverpool Hospital and performs interventional pulmonology procedures at Macquarie University Hospital, working with other interventional bronchoscopists. His research interests include minimally invasive techniques for lung biopsies in interstitial lung disease, endoscopic therapies for advanced emphysema, endobronchial ultrasound samples for genetic analysis and Rapid Access pathways for lung cancer diagnosis and management. Jonathan chairs the Lung Cancer Multidisciplinary Meeting at Macquarie University Hospital and is an active member of the Liverpool Hospital Lung Cancer Multidisciplinary Meeting. He has been involved in COVID-19 management at Liverpool Hospital where he chairs the COVID-19 Clinical Taskforce, he convened the Interventional Pulmonology Special Interest Group of the TSANZ between 2015-2019 and chairs a sub-committee developing and implementing national guidelines for competence in respiratory procedures.

Dr Sarah Yeo FRACP 

Sarah is a respiratory physician currently completing post-fellowship year in sleep medicine. She completed her MBBS at the University of Adelaide, where she is now a Senior Clinical Lecturer, has completed a Cystic Fibrosis Fellowship at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, and obtained FRACP after training at the Central Adelaide Local Health Network. She is the current SA/NT Branch President of the Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand and is a member of the TSANZ working party for developing guidelines for recognition of competency in respiratory medicine in interventional pulmonology and pleural procedures.  Sarah has a keen interest in diagnosis and management of lung cancer, mechanisms of resistance of lung cancer to immunotherapy, interventional pulmonology, and pleural procedures, as well as curriculum design and continuing education through every phase of training encompassing post-fellowship competency-based assessment.