I enjoy being in the outdoors, and am often found bushwalking/rockclimbing when not at work. At home I am proud dad to 4 chooks – Bev, Maple, Zucchini and Tobasco.

Seeing first-hand the impact of MS on patients and how MS research has improved their lives within our lifetime.

The use of big data in MS research to develop new treatment modalities.

My current project looks to examine the use of mobile apps in the monitoring of MS and whether we can predict future disease progression/relapse via the use of these apps. We hope to identify these digital biomarkers that can be easily used by people with MS on their own personal smartphones, and use a big data approach towards analysing the data that can be derived from these apps.

The current clinical approach to monitoring MS is mainly based around infrequent clinical assessments and MRI scans. With modern mobile app based technology, we have an easily accessible device that can potentially provide more data on how MS affects patients on a day-to-day basis. We hope to identify patients at higher risk of progression/relapse with these apps and this may allow us to better select for patients in future progressive MS trials. It will also allow for greater patient involvement with their own care, and is a promising technology to improve remote clinical assessment, particular in the setting of the COVID pandemic.

I enjoy working as part of a multidisciplinary team to solve a research problem – we each have our own unique strengths and perspectives which we can use to benefit the patient.