Keynote Speakers

Prof Greg Scalia

The Prince Charles Hospital

Dr Alex Lee

The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Dr Dermot Phelan

Sanger Heart & Vascular Institute

Invited Speakers

Bonita Anderson

Bonita is an experienced cardiac sonographer with more than 40 years of clinical practice in echocardiography and served as an academic at Queensland University of Technology (QUT), where she established and coordinated the Graduate Diploma in Cardiac Ultrasound from 2000 to 2013. She is the author of two widely used echocardiography textbooks and has contributed to several other publications.

Dr Chris Anthony

Dr Chris Anthony is a fractional Staff Specialist at The Alfred and the Director of Cardiac Diagnostics and Imaging at Epworth. He specialises in advanced multimodality cardiac imaging, structural heart disease and interventional echocardiography. His clinical practice includes multimodality imaging with Cardiac MRI and Cardiac CT, with additional interests in Cardiomyopathies and Pericardial disease.

Dr Vinesh Appadurai

Dr Vinesh Appadurai is a staff specialist cardiologist at the Prince Charles Hospital, with subspecialist expertise in structural echocardiography and multi-modality cardiac imaging. He also serves as Secretary of the Echocardiography Society of Australia and New Zealand (ESANZ).He completed a two-year advanced echocardiography fellowship at the Prince Charles Hospital before undertaking a further two-year advanced structural echocardiography and cardiac MRI/CT fellowship at the world-renowned Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, USA.Dr Appadurai’s clinical and academic interests include advanced deformation mechanics and structural heart imaging. He completed his PhD in strain mechanics through the University of Queensland and has published extensively in international journals, including co-authoring the 2025 ASE/EACVI international strain guidelines.

Dr Emma Bowcock

Dr Emma Bowcock MBBS (Hons) FCICM DDU FASE is a Senior Staff Specialist and Co-Director of the Intensive Care Unit at Nepean Hospital, Sydney. She works within a collaborative intensivist–cardiology reporting service, a model that bridges the two specialties to deliver high-quality education and care for critically unwell patients. Her PhD research explores right ventricular–pulmonary vascular interactions in critical illness.

Amy Clark

Amy Clark is a senior cardiac physiologist and sonographer at Gosford hospital and is currently completing her PhD through the University of Sydney and Westmead Clinical School. Her research is focused on echocardiographic assessment of the left atrium in patients with atrial fibrillation and ischaemic stroke. Amy is a strong advocate for recognition and regulation of cardiac physiology and sonography, representing professionals as a union delegate and bargaining committee member through ongoing NSW allied health award reform.

Bianca Coelho

Bianca is the Senior Manager of Cardiac Physiology Services at Macquarie University Health. Her areas of expertise include imaging in structural heart disease (3D transthoracic imaging), cardiac oncology and athlete screening. Education and training have always been an area of interest for her. She manages the echocardiography training program for sonographers and advanced cardiology trainees and manages the clinical development of cardiac physiologists across the Cath lab, devices and electrophysiology. In addition to her role at Macquarie University, she is a member of the PICSA board of directors , guest lecturer within the Clinical Sciences department at Macquarie Medical School, NSW and a Fellow of the American Society of Echocardiography.

Prof Rachael Cordina

Professor Rachael Cordina is a clinical academic cardiologist with special interests in Adult Congenital Heart Disease, Pulmonary Hypertension, Indigenous Health, Exercise Physiology and Maternal Cardiology. She is appointed as Head of the Adult Congenital Heart Disease Service at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and Consultant Cardiologist at the Aboriginal Health Service in Redfern.

Dr Natalie Edwards

Dr Natalie Edwards is a senior cardiac scientist at The Prince Charles Hospital in Brisbane, with over 25 years of experience in echocardiography. She is also a Clinical Fellow at Queensland University of Technology, Australia.

A/Prof Kate English

Kate was born and educated in the UK, and after cardiology training in Yorkshire and completing a PhD at the University of Sheffield, she spent 20 years as a consultant in ACHD in the NHS. She re-located to Australia with her family in 2024. Kate is now Head of ACHD and Deputy Director of Cardiology at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and Associate Professor at the University of Melbourne. She has special interests in obstetric cardiology, complex ACHD physiology, and assessment and monitoring of healthcare outcomes.Kate has always played an active role in the education of doctors, cardiac physiologists, allied health professionals and patients. She aims to facilitate safe care of ACHD patients by broadening the knowledge base across craft groups and equipping people with the knowledge of who, when and how to refer to specialist services.

Dr Elizabeth Forrest

Dr Elizabeth Forrest is a cardiothoracic anaesthetist and Echo Clinical Lead at Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane. She has a particular interest in 3D TOE and perioperative echo education. She completed a cardiac anaesthesia and critical care fellowship at St Michael’s Hospital in Toronto and is actively involved in echocardiography teaching, quality improvement and resource development within her department and across Queensland. Elizabeth contributes to statewide perioperative echo quality, safety and education rounds and provides regular intraoperative teaching to trainees, fellows and colleagues.She is also a member of the Intraoperative Echocardiography Committee of the Echocardiography Society of Australia and New Zealand (ESANZ).

Dr Julie Humphries

Dr Humphries is a Structural Interventional Echocardiologist in Brisbane involved in programs at The Prince Charles Hospital and Greenslopes Private Hospital. She is a Cardiologist in private practice with Advara HeartCare and is a Senior Cardiologist in the Echo laboratory at The Prince Charles Hospital. She completed her Advanced Echo Fellowship at the Mayo Clinic, USA, and has clinical interests in aortopathy, valve disease, heart failure, and HCM. Her research interests include aortopathies and aortic dissection.

Dr Akshay Hungenahally

Dr. Hungenahally is a consultant Anaesthetist at the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane. He has subspecialty qualifications in liver transplant, cardiac and thoracic anaesthesia as well as medical perfusion for cardiopulmonary bypass and ECMO. He is the one of the department echocardiography leads and runs the echocardiography safety quality and POCUS program.

Dr Pranesh Jogia

Dr. Jogia is a Cardiologist and an Intensive Care Specialist working at Waikato Hospital in Hamilton, New Zealand. His subspecialty interest includes cardiac imaging and works part of the structural cardiac team as an imaging cardiologist providing imaging support for M/T TEER and TMVR/TVR. As a specialist in critical care, he manages critically ill cardiac patients and introduced echo to the unit. He has been involved in various leadership roles over the years and currently he is a trustee of the Heart Trust in Waikato.

A/Prof Amber Khanna

A/Prof Amber Khanna, MD MS FACC FRACP is a staff specialist at Canberra Hospital with an appointment at Australia National University. She specialises in adult congenital heart disease, maternity cardiology, aortopathies, and echocardiography. She completed internal medicine and paediatric training at the University of North Carolina and cardiology/adult congenital cardiology at Mayo Clinic before working at the University of Colorado for over ten years. She moved to Australia in 2024. She is an accomplished clinician, mentor, researcher, and educator. She has worked with the American College of Cardiology developing Self-Assessment Programs and planning annual scientific sessions. In her spare time, she enjoys skiing, bushwalking, and learning to sail.

Dr Katherine Lau

Dr Katherine Lau is a senior consultant cardiologist at the Prince Charles Hospital. She is a structural echocardiologist with advanced skills in valvular heart disease and heart failure interventional imaging. She has provided procedural imaging for many national and international device trials and is an international educator for structural imaging. Additionally she plays an active role in medical student and registrar teaching and is a senior lecturer at the University of Queensland.

Prof Dominic Leung

Professor Dominic Leung is a Senior Staff Specialist in Cardiology at the Liverpool Hospital, Sydney Southwest Area Health Service. He has served as Director of Cardiology and Head of Department, Director of Echocardiography and is currently the Director of Coronary Care Unit at the Liverpool Hospital. Professor Leung is an internationally acknowledged expert in echocardiography and cardiac imaging. He has published > 200 papers in peer-reviewed journals, book chapters, editorials, reviews and invited articles in major journals. The international recognition of his work is reflected (as of August 2025) in > 6300 citations of his papers (h-index 41) and frequent invitations to speak at major national and international meetings. Dominic’s current research interests include valvular heart disease, heart failure, exercise physiology, exercise echo, diabetic heart disease, microvascular dysfunction, acute coronary syndrome and interventional cardiology.

Dr Mona Lwin

Dr Lwin is an adult congenital cardiologist with expertise in adult congenital echocardiography, aortopathy and pregnancy cardiology.

A/Prof Stuart Moir

Associate Professor Stuart Moir is a clinical cardiologist and non-invasive cardiac imaging specialist with expertise in echocardiography, cardiac CT and cardiac MRI. He completed advanced training at MonashHEART and a PhD at University of Queensland, followed by fellowships at the Mayo Clinic (USA), and The Heart Hospital in London. He is Lead Cardiologist for the Cardiac MRI Service at the Victorian Heart Hospital and an Adjunct Associate Professor at Monash University, with clinical and research interests in advanced cardiovascular imaging.

Rahul Mudannayake

Rahul is an experienced educator and a consultant cardiac anaesthetist in Adelaide, South Australia. He is passionate about the scientific foundations of anaesthesia and perioperative echocardiography.He was previously a consultant anaesthetist at the Princes Alexandra in Brisbane as well as Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge. He has also been a high school science teacher for over 20 years with over 10,000 hours of teaching experience.Rahul read in biochemistry in Vermont as an undergraduate, and then Medicine and Immunology at Imperial College London. He trained in anaesthesia in the Wessex region followed by registrar training in Cambridge.He undertook fellowships in cardiothoracic anaesthesia at the Royal Papworth Hospital as well as Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital in Perth. He has done a liver transplant fellowship at Addenbrooke’s Hospital as well as an airway fellowship.He completed the diplomate of Perioperative Transesophogeal Echocardiography by the US National Board of Echocardiography.He also has a PGCert in Education and Leadership from Cambridge University. He was a University of Cambridge, Royal Papworth and Addenbrooke’s Hospital Education Fellow and the national trainee representative for the Association for Cardiothoracic Anaesthesia and Critical Care.

Kazuaki Negishi

Prof Kaz Negishi, MD, MSc, PhD is an academic cardiologist and Chair of Cardiovascular Research at the University of New South Wales, South Western Sydney; Cardiologist at Liverpool Hospital, Faculty at Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute and Ingham Institute for Applied Medical Research. He worked in Japan, USA, Tasmania, and now based at Sydney. He is an internationally recognised expert in cardiac imaging, especially in myocardial strain and its clinical application in Cardio-Oncology, as well as a global leader in sonothrombolysis/ sonoperfusion. He delivered Feigenbaum Lecture at 50th year anniversary of ASE in 2025.

Prof Sam Orde

ICU specialist at Nepean Hospital. Co-lead for Nepean Cardiac Diagnostic echo lab. DDU examiner. ESANZ ICU committee lead.

Dr David Platts

Dr David Platts is an Associate at Queensland Cardiovascular Group, a Senior Staff Specialist Cardiologist at The Prince Charles Hospital in Brisbane and an Associate Professor within the School of Medicine, at the University of Queensland. In addition to general Cardiology, his clinical interests include heart failure, critical care cardiology and echocardiography (resting & stress echocardiography as well as trans-oesophageal echocardiography).

Cathy West

Cathy is a cardiac sonographer accredited in adult and congenital echocardiography with experience in the clinical, education and service management aspects of the field. She has served on Boards of Directors for professional societies in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States and is passionate about delivering high quality echo services.

Yang Yang

A/Prof Yang is a clinical leader, researcher, and educator with an exceptional record in the management of critically ill patients, particularly within mechanical circulatory support. She is the co-founded Australia's first protocolised cardiogenic shock team and the Impella service in Melbourne's west, bringing new hope to patients with severe cardiac disease. She is the current Chair of Examiners for the ASUM Diploma of Diagnostic Ultrasound (Critical Care) and a board member of the American Society of Echocardiography's Critical Care Council, and holds academic appointments at the University of Melbourne and Monash University. Her research interests span MCS haemodynamics and outcome, the health economics of mechanical support, and validation of AI-assisted echocardiography in critically unwell populations.