Professor Michelle Barakat-Johnson

Director and Founder
 

Professor Michelle Barakat-Johnson is a Conjoint Professor of Wound Care and Skin Health at Sydney Local Health District and the University of Sydney. A clinician researcher and founder of the Wound Care Command Centre^™, she is dedicated to translating research into real-world impact and has extensive experience in pressure injury prevention and wound management.

Dr Michelle Lai

Program Manager
 

Dr Michelle Lai is the Program Manager for the Tissue Repair Institute and the Wound Care Command Centre at Sydney Local Health District. With extensive experience in health services research, she is dedicated to operationalising and translating novel research into real-world outcomes, managing projects from conception to implementation and facilitating the translation of evidence into scalable and sustainable practice.

Ivanka Komusanac

Executive Co-Chair
 

Ivanka Komusanac is the Executive Director of Nursing and Midwifery at Sydney Local Health District. She has demonstrated exceptional leadership by deploying clinical teams to assist communities during state-wide natural disasters like fires and floods as well the COVID pandemic efforts. Furthermore, she has championed initiatives to strengthen workforce capacity and skills development, particularly for rural and remote Local Health Districts, through strategic partnerships and international recruitment campaigns.

Professor Stephen Twigg

Executive Co-Chair
 

Professor Stephen Twigg is a clinical academic who is the Medical Head of RPA’s Diabetes High Risk Foot Service and the Head of the hospital’s Endocrinology Department. He is also the Kellion Professor of Endocrinology and Stan Clark Chair in Diabetes at the University of Sydney.

Associate Professor Sarah Aitken

Surgical Co-Chair
 

Associate Professor Sarah Aitken is a vascular surgeon at Concord Hospital and a clinical academic at the University of Sydney. She is the Head of Surgery at the University, Chair of the training board for vascular surgery at the College of Surgeons and Co-Chair of Concord Hospital’s Institute of Academic Surgery.

Professor Brendan McCormack

Academic Co-Chair
 

Professor Brendan McCormack is the Head of the Susan Wakil School of Nursing and Midwifery and Dean at the University of Sydney. Professor McCormack is an internationally recognised leader in person-centred healthcare, with a career spanning research, leadership and cultural transformation.