Our Research Team
& Collaborators

Katherine Barron is the Program Manager on the MCD Spotlight research program. Katherine’s expertise lies in program management, fostering collaborations, and synthesising and facilitating broad research programs. Her skillset is underpinned by a passion for progressing impact-driven, evidence-based population health research. Katherine is responsible for chartering the planning, management, delivery and reporting of this program, and building and maintaining relationships with key collaborators and interest-holders, including researchers, health professionals, and consumers and research advocates.

Priscilla Chan is a Research Officer on the MCD Spotlight research program, supporting research activities and program administration. With a background in clinical dietetics, she has a broad experience across academic, administrative, and research roles in implementation science. Priscilla’s methodological strengths include qualitative research, and her work focuses on evidence translation and improving models of care to enhance health service delivery.

Suzanne Hughes manages, designs and conducts scoping and systematic reviews to provide high quality objective evidence to underpin clinical practice and government policy. Since 2007 she has reviewed a wide range of topics including breast and prostate imaging, PSA testing for the early detection of prostate cancer, liver cancer surveillance, colorectal cancer screening, breast cancer screening, the effect of a cancer diagnosis on COVID mortality, psychosocial interventions for prostate cancer, cervical precancers and cancers associated with different HPV test and cytology results, and treatments for prostate cancer, lung cancer, colon cancer and cervical cancer. Many of these reviews were the evidence bases for PSA testing guidelines, liver cancer surveillance guidelines, colorectal cancer screening guidelines, clinical practice guidelines for the treatment of advanced prostate cancer and guidelines to support the National Cervical Screening Program. Suzanne also supports the systematic review team members and other researchers by providing advice on systematic review methods and strategies.

Martinez Gutierrez is an academic primary care physician and researcher specialising in digital interventions for cancer prevention and early detection. She is completing a Ph.D. on this topic at the University of Melbourne and holds an MPH from the University of Washington, USA. Her work focuses on primary care–based cancer prevention, clinical decision support systems, and community health. She serves on the Executive Committee of the Cancer and Primary Care Research International Network (Ca PRI) and the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Committee, contributing nationally and internationally to advancing cancer research and healthcare.

Christy Vu is a Research Support Officer within the Cancer in Primary Care group at The University of Melbourne. She has several years of experience as a research assistant, with a background in infectious diseases and epidemiology research. Within the Clinical Trials team, Christy supports clinical trials including the CASSOWARY (CAncer genomic riSk ScOres in primARY Care) trial. She is also part of the Primary Care Collaborative Cancer Clinical Trials (PC4) office team, supporting the development of new cancer research initiatives in primary care. Christy holds a Master of Science (Epidemiology) from The University of Melbourne.