Four talented researchers have become the first to receive our new clinician researcher fellowships at Kids Research.

Following a rigorous application process, Dr Bernadette Prentice, Dr Laurel Mimmo, Dr Cathryn Crowle and Dr Himanshu Popat were announced as the successful recipients of the Kids Research Clinician Researcher Fellowships. The newly established scheme was designed to drive research and innovation across The Sydney Children's Hospitals Network (SCHN) and build clinician-researcher career pathways.

The fellowships were awarded in four categories: medical, nursing, allied health and merit-based, and were selected on each individual's proven leadership and dedication to paediatric research in their clinical roles.

“We are extremely proud to award these fellowships to provide protected time for research," commented Paula Bray, SCHN Director of Research.

"The aim is to accelerate the Network’s translational research capabilities, while also supporting our exceptional clinicians. Congratulations to the inaugural clinician researcher fellows. "

As fellows, the clinician researchers will use their funded and protected research time to accelerate research activity across SCHN and help revolutionise the way care is delivered to children and young people.

Learn more about our recipients:

Dr Bernadette Prentice – Medical

Dr Bernadette Prentice is a Paediatric Respiratory Staff Specialist based at Sydney Children’s Hospital, Randwick, where she leads the Cystic Fibrosis (CF) multidisciplinary team as Centre Director. She holds a Bachelor of Medicine (Honours), Master of Public Health and a PhD in CF.

She is passionate about her work and strives to ensure that her patients with CF receive world-class care. She believes that collaborative, innovative, interdisciplinary research is critical to this undertaking.

Bernadette’s Fellowship project will be in CF. When children with CF develop diabetes, they become more unwell and develop more severe lung disease. Her PhD identified that infants with CF can have signs of early diabetes and this Fellowship will look at the long-term impact of these signs. Bernadette’s goal is to be able to predict which children will go on to develop diabetes, so that we can ultimately prevent this from occurring. 

Dr Laurel Mimmo – Nursing

Dr Laurel Mimmo is the Senior Research Fellow with the Nursing Research Unit at Kids Research. She was awarded her PhD in 2022 for exploring the inequities in the hospital quality and safety experiences of children with intellectual disability, using an inclusive, strengths-based approach. Laurel has over 25 years of experience working in paediatric healthcare, including 15 years of clinical experience as a paediatric nurse and over 10 years working in quality and safety roles in paediatric healthcare.

Laurel’s Fellowship project will work with children and young people with lived experience of intellectual disability to co-design and implement a tool to meaningfully capture experiences of being in hospital with and for children with intellectual disability. This information will then be used by hospitals and healthcare staff to improve hospital experiences for children with intellectual disability, which will ultimately have benefits for all children in hospital.

Dr Cathryn Crowle – Allied Health

Dr Cathryn Crowle is a Senior Occupational Therapist and Co-Lead of Research in the Grace Centre for Neonatal Intensive Care based at The Children’s Hospital at Westmead. She has over 25 years of experience as a paediatric occupational therapist, with expertise in neonatal developmental care, and assessment for neurodevelopmental disorders.

She is passionate about translating scientific findings into clinical practice to improve outcomes for infants and their families.

Cathryn’s Fellowship project will pilot the feasibility of universal cerebral palsy screening in infancy. It will use a novel, parent-friendly mobile phone app to investigate how effectively novice scorers can identify infants at risk of cerebral palsy, using the General Movements Assessment. Initially involving three neonatal intensive care units in NSW, the project has the potential to expand statewide, and ultimately impact care at a national level. Early identification of at-risk infants significantly improves access to evidence-based interventions, and to life-changing support for infants and their families.

Dr Himanshu Popat – Merit-based

Dr Himanshu Popat is a clinician and a researcher. He is a Newborn Intensivist and Co-Head of the Grace Newborn Intensive Care Unit based at The Children’s Hospital at Westmead. He is an emerging trialist and a future leader fellow at the NRMRC Clinical Trial Centre.

His passion is to improve the outcomes of newborns by partnering with families and conducting high quality multidisciplinary research.

Himanshu’s Fellowship project seeks to perform a pilot randomised trial to assess effectiveness of delayed cord clamping in babies with congenital heart disease, where cord clamping guidance is absent. This initial research will lay the foundation for a larger multicentre definitive trial of delayed cord clamping in newborns with congenital heart disease. This will help address an urgent unmet need to improve outcomes of newborns with congenital heart disease and will place the Network at the forefront of congenital heart disease research in newborns.

The fellowship scheme was made possible by the generosity of the Sydney Children’s Hospitals Foundation and their donors.