Members
LAB members
Dr. Janine Kirk, AM, Chair
The Hon Dr. Kay Patterson, Deputy Chair
The Hon. John Brumby
Andrew Dyer
Elizabeth Matthews
Dr. Zita Unger
Tim Murphy
Professor Nadia Rosenthal, Director ARMI
Michael Spiegel, Executive Secretary
The Hon. John Brumby
The Hon John Brumby was the former Premier of Victoria (2007 – 2010) and has immense experience in public life serving for more than 10 years as Treasurer and then Premier of Victoria, 6 years as Leader of the Victorian Opposition and 7 years as Federal MHR for Bendigo during the period of the Hawke Government.
In Government, Mr Brumby was a champion of science, technology and innovation with major new investments in the Australian Synchrotron, the new Florey Neuroscience Centre, the $250 million BioResource Centre, the Centre for Regenerative Medicine, the expansion of WEHI and the new $1 billion Comprehensive Cancer Centre.
Since retiring from politics, Mr Brumby has accepted a number of Board positions as well as a joint appointment to both the Melbourne and Monash Universities as a Vice Chancellor’s Professorial Fellow. He is Chairman of the Motor Trades Association of Australia (MTAA) Superannuation Fund and an Independent Director of Huawei Technologies (Australia) Pty Limited. Mr Brumby is also a Panel Member of the Federal Government’s Review into GST Distribution.
Andrew Dyer
Andrew Dyer is Chairman of the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman Council and ITSS, and serves on the boards of the Transport Accident Commission, BrightSource Energy Australia, the American Australian Association, the Australian Solar Energy Society and The Good Foundation.
Andrew also serves on a number of advisory boards including the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, the Victorian College of the Arts and Faculty of Music at the University of Melbourne, and the Richmond Football Club. He is also a member of the La Trobe University Institute for Social and Environmental Sustainability and is a regular contributor to Climate Spectator and The Drum on climate and energy related matters.
Most recently, Andrew was the Victorian Commissioner to the Americas, based in San Francisco, where he was heavily involved in bilateral trade and investment activity between the Americas and Australia. Prior to his Commissioner role, he was Chief Operating Officer of SMS Management & Technology. Andrew has significant utility, energy and technology industry experience in Australia, Asia and the United States, including executive roles at Indus International (now Ventyx), FPL Group and IBM.
A former McKinsey & Co. consultant, Andrew holds a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering with first class honours from Monash University and an MBA from Georgetown University in Washington DC.
Dr. Janine Kirk AM (Chair)
Dr Janine Kirk AM, is the Lead Partner, Government & Public Sector at Ernst & Young. Janine is also a member of the Ernst & Young Area Advisory Board and Asia Pacific Area Council, a director of the Ernst & Young Foundation and was recently appointed Leader, Community with responsibility for EY’s community and social responsible activities across Australia and New Zealand.
Janine joined Ernst & Young in March 2007 after 12 years as the Chief Executive of the Committee for Melbourne, a private sector think tank of leaders from Melbourne’s business, academic, scientific and community sectors. Over the last decade Janine has been a Ministerial appointee to an extensive range of State Government Committees, Councils and Boards covering sectors as diverse as marketing & branding, innovation, tourism & events, community development, infrastructure, finance, education, drug prevention, international trade and urban planning.
Janine was formerly Chairman of the Melbourne Convention and Visitors Bureau for seven years and a founding Director of the Victorian Endowment for Science Knowledge & Innovation (VESKI) serving on the Board for 6 years. She now holds an ambassadorial role as a VESKI Fellow.
She was also a member of the Berry Street Victoria Board for 12 years where she held a number of roles including President and Vice President.
In addition Janine is currently Chairman, Tourism Victoria; Chairman, The Melbourne Prize Trust; Chairman, the Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute Leadership Advisory Board, a director of The Conversation Foundation Limited and The Conversation Media Group Ltd, an Ambassador of the Melbourne Community Foundation, and a founding committee member and director of The Melbourne Forum.
In 2006 Janine was appointed as an Honorary Aide to the Governor of Victoria Professor David de Kretser AC, a role she held for 3 years.
She was Awarded an AM in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List in 2006 for services to the city of Melbourne and to child welfare organisations. She received an Honorary Doctor of Law from Monash University, is a recipient The Centenary Medal and is a British Chevening Scholarship winner.
Elizabeth Matthew, B Comm, LLB Hons Melbourne University.
Liz has recently retired after a 20 year legal career with Corrs Chambers Westgarth. At Corrs, Liz spent most of her years as a commercial litigator before progressing into internal management positions. For the two years prior to retirement Liz was the National Manager of Legal Support. Liz now works in a volunteer capacity in the Melbourne County Court with Court Network as well as a member of the Leadership Advisory Board of ARMI.
Dr. Zita Unger
Dr Zita Unger has a distinguished career spanning 15 years as an evaluator, educator and entrepreneur, drawing on extensive knowledge of organisational development, business acumen and governance to bring valuable contributions at the board level. She gained her doctorate in Sociology of Education at the University of Melbourne.
Zita was founding Director of Evaluation Solutions Pty Ltd for 11 years developing an award-winning online survey management tool and delivering survey based solutions to corporate, education and public sector clients.
She has taught Program Evaluation at Deakin University to Instructional Design students and is a regular speaker at professional conferences locally and overseas. She is a past president of the International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI), Melbourne Chapter. She serves on the boards of the Edmund Rice Camps (Vic) and Architects Without Frontiers Australia.
Zita has received the Australasian Evaluation Society (AES) Evaluation Training and Service (ET&S) Award for outstanding contributions to the profession of evaluation.
Tim Murphy
Tim has held senior roles across a range of industries in the public and private sectors from the Federal Government to pharmaceutical, medical research and biotechnology to higher education, arts and tourism.
Since the late 1990s, he has held a number of board positions in sectors from youth support to insurance, healthcare and indigenous affairs. His professional and personal interests are quite broad and range from the arts to science. He has extensive experience in engaging with Australian State and Federal governments. Over recent years Tim has enjoyed success as both a policy developer and policy influencer.
Prior to moving to Canberra in 2008 to work for the Rudd Government, he held several the non-executive positions including as Deputy Chairman for Therapeutic Guidelines.
Tim has diverse experience and expertise across the pharmaceutical industry from lab bench to government and the commercial environment. For the past ten years Tim has been supporting the ongoing development of Melbourne as global centre for medical research and new therapy commercialisation.
Prior to joining GSK in November 2009, he was a senior adviser to the Minister for Innovation, Industry Science and Research. He was responsible for innovation policy, IP, commercialisation, risk capital, taxation and the pharmaceutical industry supply chain. Tim was the inaugural CEO of BioMelbourne Network from 2002-2008, building a self-sustaining organisation that navigated the intersection of industry, research and government.
Tim is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and holds a Bachelor of Science (Honours) and Master of Marketing from Melbourne Business School.
The Hon. Dr. Kay Patterson (Deputy Chair)
Dr. Patterson was a Senator for Victoria for 21 years. Prior to entering the Senate she managed a small business before attending university and attaining a PhD in Psychology. She taught at Sydney and Monash Universities and held senior academic positions including Chairman of the School of Behavioural Sciences at the Lincoln Institute of Health Sciences (now at Latrobe University).
She was elected to the Senate in 1987 and in Government held a number of executive positions including Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Immigration and the Minister for Foreign Affairs. In 2001, she was appointed to Cabinet as Minister for Health and Ageing and then in October 2003 Minister for Family and Community Services and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Women’s Issues. She retired from the Cabinet in 2006 and from the Senate in June 2008.
In 2002 when Minister for Health she took legislation through the Senate on behalf of the Government which permitted within very strict parameters the creation of stem cell lines from donated embryos excess to IVF requirements. In 2006, she developed a private member’s bill which passed into law in December of that year, to extend existing legislation permitting research using somatic cell nuclear transfer.
She was a member of Monash University Council for twenty years and has been a member of Guides Australia since she was 10. In 2002, she was honoured to be appointed an Honorary Life Member of Guides Victoria. She joined Interplast Australia and New Zealand as a Director and Board Member in 2006 and was appointed Vice-President in 2009. In September 2008 she was appointed Vice Chancellor’s Professorial Fellow at Monash University. In 2009 she was appointed a Director of the Brockoff Foundation. She is also Patron of the Australian Boys Choir.
Professor Nadia Rosenthal, Director ARMI
PhD 1981, Harvard Medical School, USA.
Postdoctoral research at the National Cancer Institute, USA.
Assistant Professor, Boston University Medical Center, USA.
Associate Professor, Massachusetts General Hospital, USA.
Head of EMBL Monterotondo Outstation, Rome, Italy
Chair in Cardiovascular Science, Imperial College London
Founding Director,Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute, Monash University
Scientific Head, EMBL Australia
Born in the US, Professor Nadia Rosenthal obtained her PhD in 1981 from Harvard Medical School and trained as a postdoctoral fellow at NIH, then directed a biomedical research laboratory at Harvard Medical School, and served for a decade at the New England Journal of Medicine as editor of the Molecular Medicine series. In 2001 she moved to Rome to head the EMBL Mouse Biology Unit, and holds a Professorship of Cardiovascular Science at Imperial College London. She is an EMBO member, with numerous awards and honours including the Ferrari-Soave Prize in Cell Biology and Doctors Honoris Causa from the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris and the University of Amsterdam.
She spearheaded the election of Australia to EMBL as its first Associate Member, and in 2008 she founded the Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute at Monash University, which serves as Headquarters for the EMBL Australia Partner Laboratory Network. She is an NH&MRC Australia Fellow.
Professor Rosenthal’s research focuses on muscle and cardiac developmental genetics and the role of growth factors and stem cells in tissue regeneration, with over 100 primary research articles and prominent reviews in high impact international journals, including two stem cell reviews for Scientific American. She has attracted sponsored research funding from major pharmaceutical companies including Amgen, Genzyme and Novartis for her translational studies in stem cell and regenerative medicine.
Michael Spiegel (Executive Secretary)
Michael is the Head, Strategic Development and Executive Secretary of the Leadership Advisory Board for the Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute (ARMI) and director and founder of Mirrorcone Pty Ltd.
Michael joined ARMI in September of 2009 after co-founding and running the Monash Antibody Technologies Facility, one of the world’s most sophisticated and automated novel antibody facilities.
Prior to arriving in Australia in May of 2007, Michael spent 15 years in Europe, working at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) for over 9 years both in Heidelberg, Germany and in Monterotondo (Rome), Italy. From 2000-2003 he was Business Development and Licensing Manager and member of the founding management team of Gene Bridges GmbH, a biotechnology company focused on genetic engineering using novel DNA technology developed at EMBL, where he was successful leading licensing deals with major international Pharma and Biotech concerns.
He was also founder and CEO of Mirrorcone Pty Ltd, developing mobile applications for the Life Sciences. With over 16 years international experience in the sector, Michael continues to consult widely for global Life Science concerns. He was on the Tecan AG Scientific Advisory Panel on Biotherapeutics from 2008-2010 and a Committee Member for the Victorian Biotechnology Action Plan 2011.
In his early professional career, Michael was senior counselor for at risk teenagers for over 8 years in California, Program Director for the Overseas Development Network, which focused funds and attention to small-scale community development projects in developing countries and worked in Guatemala as a human rights volunteer accompanying high risk, high profile individuals and organisations. He holds a BA from UC Santa Cruz, a MSc from University of London and is currently finishing his MBA at Monash University.