Past Graduate Students

Jannette Blennerhassett

PhD

Successful completion of doctoral degree.

Supervised by: Professor Leeanne Carey, Associate Professor Tom Matyas

Project: Pinch grip force control in stoke

Investigation of the relationship between sensory and motor impairment upon altered pinch grip after stroke

Chris Derry

BSc MBBS MRCP PhD

Successful completion of doctoral degree.

Supervised by: Professor Sam Berkovic and Professor John Duncan ( UCL, UK)

Project: Sleep and frontal lobe epilepsy: clinical and physiological aspects

This thesis undertook a number of studies investigating the relationship between sleep and frontal lobe epilepsy, including the measurement of neurochemical changes in human sleep using positron emission tomography (PET) imaging, clinical and neurophysiological features which enabled reliable distinction of nocturnal frontal lobe epilepsy from other benign sleep disorders, and genotype/ phenotype correlations in Autosomal Dominant Nocturnal Frontal Lobe Epilepsy (ADNFLE).

Clarissa Martin

PhD thesis submitted and under examination

Supervised by: Professor Mary Galea, Dr Bev Phillips

Project: A longitudinal study of gait and balance parameters in people recently diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

Seana Paul

PhD thesis submitted and under examination

Supervised by: Dr Mandy Thrift, Dr Helen Dewey

Project: Long-term outcome after stroke and its association with the management of stroke risk factors.

This project aimed to assess the long-term (3-5 years) outcome of survivors of stroke. In particular, an investigation of how the management of stroke risk factors such as hypertension and diabetes may influence the outcome of stroke survivors in the long-term. 

Jill Rodda

BAppSc (PT), PhD

Successful completion of doctoral degree.

Supervised by: Professor Mary Galea, Professor Kerr Graham, Dr Richard Baker

Project: Severe crouch gait in spastic diplegia: the impact of single event multilevel surgery

This thesis presented an analysis of the outcome of single event multilevel surgery at one and five years for children with spastic diplegia walking in severe crouch gait. A pre-cursor of this analysis was a rigorous definition of “crouch gait” which is absent from the literature. A significant component of this thesis was therefore the proposal of a systematic classification of sagittal gait patterns in spastic diplegia including a specific definition of the term “crouch gait”.

Paul Smith

M. Physiotherapy (Research)

Successful completion of masters degree.

Supervised by: Professor Mary Galea, Dr Michael Woodward

Project: An investigation of physical activity patterns in elderly patients admitted to the A&RMC aged care service.

Isabella Taylor

MBBS FRACP (Neurology) PhD

Successful completion of doctoral degree.

Supervised by: Professor Samuel Berkovic, Professor Ingrid Scheffer

Project: Photosensitivity and occipital epilepsy:clinical features and genetics.

Santha Tisseverasinghe

M. Physiotherapy (Research)

Successful completion of masters degree.

Supervised by: Professor Mary Galea, Margaret Sherburn

Project: Ultrasound biofeedback in the management of incontinence in the elderly.

Lata Vadlamudi

MBBS FRACGP FRACP PhD

Successful completion of doctoral degree.

Supervised by: Professor Samuel Berkovic

Project: Genetics of Epilepsy: The Testimony of Twins

This work exploits the classical twin method to understand the genetics of epilepsy, and utilizes novel twin approaches to further understand mechanisms of monozygous twin discordance as well as search for potential epilepsy genes.