Research Translation Coordinators

Since 2014, Western Alliance has built a research presence across the Western Victorian health landscape, with activities to promote collaboration, build research capacity, and ultimately fund regionally focused health research. Feedback from Western Alliance health service members indicated that ‘boots on the ground support’, particularly in smaller health services, was critical to fostering engagement and driving both capacity building and health sector led research.

As a result, three Research Translation Coordinator positions have been developed and employed across the western region of Victoria. These roles are embedded within health services, and among other things they provide technical support for conducting and translating research, assist with identifying and facilitating opportunities for collaboration and grant funding, and help to develop research capacity and capability across Western Alliance member organisations.

We encourage you to contact Ella, Louise and Michael (see below) to discuss how they can best support your research and research translation efforts.

Dr Michael Field, MBBS, BA (Psych), BCom

Newly appointed as the Research Translation Coordinator for the Barwon/Colac region, Michael grew up on the Bellarine Peninsula and studied at Deakin University in Geelong before moving to Adelaide where he attended medical school. Michael worked as a junior doctor in South Australia in both city and country settings then returned to Victoria taking up a position in population health research at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute at the Royal Children’s Hospital.

Michael’s research experience spans clinical trials, cross-sectional studies and cohorts, and his research interests include childhood allergy and addressing rural health outcome inequalities. He also maintains part-time clinical practice in surgical assisting.

Michael joined Western Alliance in February 2020 and aims to build research capacity in the Barwon/Colac region through supporting clinical and administrative staff at Western Alliance partner sites in the region.

Michael can be contacted via email: MField@cah.vic.gov.au

Dr Louise Greenstock, PhD, PG Cert (Social Sciences)

Appointed as the Research Translation Coordinator for the South West/Western District region, Louise is an experienced researcher whose post-doctoral career began with a Research Fellow position at the Australian Health Workforce Institute at the University of Melbourne in 2010. In this role, Louise designed and led a number of research projects on topics related to health workforce, models of care, inter-professional learning, and health inequalities.

Louise has since worked on a wide range of academic and applied research projects and has a rich consulting portfolio, which spans the fields of primary prevention, harm minimisation, and health system redesign. This work has included developmental evaluation, research capacity building, mentoring and training roles.

Louise is interested in working with health professionals to identify ways to collect meaningful data and demonstrate impact on health outcomes. Louise joined Western Alliance in July 2020 and aims to build research capacity within the Hamilton and Warrnambool regions.

Louise can be contacted via email: louise.greenstock@wdhs.net

Dr Ella Ottrey, PhD, BNut(Hons), BNutrDietet

Dr Ella Ottrey joined Western Alliance in 2021 as Research Translation Coordinator for the Ballarat/East Grampians region.

Ella grew up in Gippsland, before moving to Melbourne to train and work as a clinical dietitian. Ella’s research career began eight years ago, completing honours and then a PhD, exploring mealtimes in hospital. In addition to her role with Western Alliance, Ella is a Postdoctoral Fellow with Monash Centre for Scholarship in Health Education.

Ella looks forward to building research capacity and capability within the health services in her region. She provides support to people conducting research, by reviewing protocols or ethics applications, accessing statistical support, navigating the pathway to publication, and in linking health services with universities.

Email: ella.ottrey@eghs.net.au