Professor Christopher Bladin is the Clinical Program Lead for the VST program. He is responsible for all aspects of the clinical and technical implementation of the program. Prof Bladin is a neurologist who completed his specialist training at the Austin Hospital in Melbourne in 1991 followed by a Stroke Research Fellowship at Guy’s Hospital, London and in 1992, a Stroke Research Fellowship at University of Toronto, Canada. As former Chairperson of the Department of Health’s Victorian Stroke Clinical Network Committee, he was responsible for the implementation of the Victorian Stroke Strategy. He was also the inaugural Chair, Department of Neurosciences (Box Hill Hospital-Monash University). Prof Bladin is active in stroke research and is a past chairperson, and current committee member of the Australasian Stroke Trials Network (ASTN). He is involved in many NHMRC funded research studies. He has a special interest in stroke thrombolysis, acute stroke brain imaging, and stroke telemedicine.

Professor Helen Dewey is Director of Neurosciences at Eastern Health and Monash University. Helen undertook her undergraduate degree at the University of Sydney, graduating in 1985 and later moved to Melbourne to complete her advanced training in neurology. She is trained in both neurology and rehabilitation medicine and is a member of the Australian Society for Geriatric Medicine. Helen has been active in stroke care and multidisciplinary stroke research for more than 20 years. She received her PhD from the University of Melbourne in 2000 for research conducted as part of the North East Melbourne Stroke Incidence Study (NEMESIS) (2000). She is Co-Chair of the Steering Committee for A Very Early Rehabilitation Trial (AVERT), a member of the Steering Committee for the Victorian Stroke Telemedicine project and an investigator for many stroke clinical trials. Helen has a keen interest in improving care and outcomes for patients with stroke. She is the current Vice-President of the Stroke Society of Australasia and Honorary Secretary for the Australian and New Zealand Association of Neurologists. In addition, she is the former Clinical Lead of the Victorian Stroke Clinical Network.

Richard Gerraty is the Chair of Medicine at Epworth HealthCare and is a Professor of Medicine in the Department of Medicine, Monash University. He is a stroke neurologist and has participated in many of the investigator driven and many of the pharma sponsored stroke trials in Australia. His MD thesis was on the perioperative stroke risk of asymptomatic carotid stenosis assessed by Doppler ultrasound, and he has conducted research projects in procedural stroke risk using transcranial Doppler ultraound. His current research relates to diagnosis of acute vestibular conditions and TIA diagnosis. He is on the steering committee of the START-EXTEND thrombolysis trial and is a chief investigator in two other NHMRC sponsored stroke studies, STAND-FIRM and the T3 Trial. He has been a member of the leadership group of the Department of Health’s Victorian Stroke Clinical Network since its formation.

A/Prof Peter Hand graduated with first class Honours in medicine from Monash University in 1991. He trained to become a specialist in neurology at the Alfred Hospital and the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford, United Kingdom. He performed research into acute stroke at the Edinburgh for two and a half years leading to the completion of a thesis for the higher degree of Doctor of Medicine (MD). He returned to Melbourne in mid-2002 to become a visiting consultant neurologist to the Royal Melbourne Hospital and Alfred Hospital. In 2004, A/Prof left the Alfred Hospital to become Co-Head of the Stroke Care Unit and was then appointed Deputy Director of Neurology at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. From 2007-2009 he was the Honorary Secretary of ANZAN (Australian & New Zealand Association of Neurologists) and was the Chair of the Neurology Specialist Training Committee of the RACP (Royal Australasian College of Physicians). In 2010 he was appointed Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Melbourne. He is the Clinical Lead for the Victorian Stroke Clinical Network. He is a member of the Victorian Stroke Telemedicine Steering Committee, and the Royal Australasian College of Physicians’ Overseas Trained Physicians Committee. Assoc. Professor Hand also serves on various committees for Medicines Australia. A/Prof Hand is a founding director of Melbourne Neurology Group and his interests include stroke, medical education and headache. He has published papers in medical journals in these areas and has presented the results of his research in stroke at major scientific meetings.

A/Prof Bruce Campbell is a consultant neurologist and head of hyperacute stroke in the Department of Neurology, Royal Melbourne Hospital (RMH). He is a principal research fellow in the Melbourne Brain Centre @ RMH, Department of Medicine, University of Melbourne. His research interests are focused on the imaging and treatment of acute stroke and he was co-principal investigator and medical co-ordinator of the EXTEND-IA multi-centre randomised trial of endovascular clot retrieval following standard intravenous thrombolysis in acute ischemic stroke published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2015. He is also a director and chair of Clinical Council for the Stroke Foundation. He has been an inaugural member of the Victorian stroke telemedicine project and is the co-ordinator of the National Brain School training program for neurologists in training. He is a member of the World Stroke Organization Guidelines Committee and Young Stroke Professionals Committee.

Dr. Philip Choi is a consultant neurologist at the Department of Neurosciences, Eastern Health. Dr. Choi completed undergraduate medical training in 2002 at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. He worked in Occupational Medicine before starting physician training in 2005 and subsequently advanced training in General Medicine and Geriatrics in Auckland. Dr. Choi moved to Melbourne in 2010 to undertake a research fellowship and subsequently, neurology training at Monash Medical Centre and Box Hill Hospital. He received his FRACP in 2013. Dr. Choi completed a stroke fellowship at the Calgary Stroke Program, one of the leading programs in North America for stroke research from 2013 to 2014 before returning to Melbourne in 2015. Dr. Choi’s active research interests include treatment and prevention of minor stroke and TIA, stroke of undetermined cause and acute stroke therapy and decision-making. He received the Peter Bladin New Investigator Award from the Stroke Society of Australasia and RM Gibson Prize from the Australian and New Zealand Society for Geriatric Medicine. He is also a recipient of the Cardio Vascular Lipid Research Grant from Pfizer Australia. He is a medical bedside tutor for the Medical Student Programs, Eastern Health Clinical School, Monash University.

Dr Poh-Sien Loh completed his internship and basic physician training at the Royal Perth Hospital. He had specialist training in Neurology at the Austin Hospital and Box Hill Hospital. He was Stroke Research Fellow at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and became a specialist Neurologist in 2004. Dr Loh was appointed as a specialist neurologist at Eastern Health in 2005. He is involved in teaching medical students, junior medical staff, and advanced trainees. He is a Fellow of the Royal Australian College of Physicians, a member of the Australian and New Zealand Association of Neurologists, and Stroke Society of Australia.

Dr Marion Simpson graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 2004 and completed basic physician training in Edinburgh and Glasgow before moving to Melbourne in 2007. She undertook Neurology Advanced Training at the Austin & Alfred Hospitals and since 2013 has held a consultant position in the Austin Stroke Service. She is currently completing a DMedSci in the area of Multiple Sclerosis and Neurophysiology. Outside work, she enjoys powerlifting and has represented Australia in this sport on several occasions.

Dr Hans Tu is a consultant neurologist at the Western Hospital Footscray and the Royal Melbourne Hospital. He is currently undertaking a PhD by higher research at the University of Melbourne with a focus on the interaction between atrial fibrillation and stroke.

Dr Teddy Wu is a neurologist who has been part of VST program since 2014. Teddy obtained his medical degree from the University of Auckland, New Zealand in 2004 and completed his neurology training in Neurology at Auckland City Hospital in 2013. He recently completed his PhD stroke fellowship with a research focus on secondary injury after intracerebral haemorrhage at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. He has an interest in hyperacute stroke management and is involved in medical education. He is now be based at Christchurch Hospital in Christchurch, New Zealand and is the first international telemedicine neurologist for the VST program.

Dr Nawaf Yassi is a stroke neurologist and stroke research fellow based at the Melbourne Brain Centre at The Royal Melbourne Hospital. Dr Yassi has a special interest in using advanced neuroimaging techniques in the investigation of acute stroke and in predicting clinical outcome after stroke. He is involved in the acute stroke service at The Royal Melbourne Hospital and is currently completing a PhD focusing on advanced imaging in stroke. He holds an Australian Postgraduate Award for his postgraduate study and also received the Neurosciences Victoria Brain and Mind Scholarship in 2012. He has an interest and is actively involved in medical education as an honorary fellow of the University of Melbourne, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences.

Dr Clissold is a stroke neurologist at Monash Health and Barwon Health in Victoria, Australia. He is a graduate of Monash University and has completed his doctoral research in relation to patterns of stroke admissions to Victorian Hospitals using data linkage methods. His current clinical roles include as the head of inpatient services for neurology at Barwon Health in Victoria, one of Australia’s largest regional health services. He works in both rural and metropolitan acute stroke services at both Monash Health and Barwon Health, and is involved in providing hyperacute stroke treatment. He is a member of the Victorian Stroke Clinical Network, and is actively involved in clinical trial work including the EXTEND IV and TASTE trials. He also has ongoing research interests in data pattern recognition and cardiac risk factors for acute stroke and holds honorary fellow/ lecturer positions at Monash University and Deakin University. He recently joined the Victorian Stroke Telemedicine Service.

Professor Vincent Thijs is the Head of Stroke at the Austin Health and Co-head of the Stroke Division at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health. Previously, he was the head of the Stroke Unit at the University Hospitals in Leuven, Belgium. He was twice awarded the prestigious Clinical Investigatorship by the FWO, the main research fund in Flanders, Belgium. His clinical interests include stroke occurring at a young age (dissection, venous thrombosis and CADASIL), acute stroke treatment and stroke secondary prevention. Professor Thijs’ research interests include acute stroke treatment, stroke prevention, young stroke, the genetics of atrial fibrillation and stroke, and neuroimaging.  He completed a PhD on magnetic resonance imaging in acute stroke and has served on the steering committee of several acute stroke clinical trials (WAKE-UP, SCAST, MITI-IV and AXIS) and secondary prevention trials (REACT-AF, DIAGNOSE AF). Professor Thijs is a member of the International Stroke Genetics Consortium and an Editorial Board member of Stroke, the European Stroke Journal and the International Journal of Stroke. He has authored or co-authored more than 170 peer-reviewed papers on stroke related topics.

Matt is a neurologist passionate about all aspects of stroke medicine including acute treatment, rehabilitation and prevention. His training in stroke began at Nambour Hospital in Queensland, followed by the Austin and Royal Melbourne Hospitals in Victoria. In 2015 he worked in a hyper-acute stroke unit (HASU) in central London. Matt currently works as a consultant stroke neurologist at the Northern and Austin Hospitals.

Dr Henry Zhao is a consultant neurologist at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. He has an interest in pre-hospital care of stroke and is clinical project lead for the Melbourne CT-equipped stroke ambulance.