Clinical Council

Professor Dewey is a Consultant Neurologist and clinician researcher, specialising in the area of stroke. Her interests include stroke epidemiology, health service improvement and acute stroke therapies.  

She is Clinical Director of Neurosciences at Eastern Health and Professor, Eastern Health Clinical School, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne. She is also a past President of the Stroke Society of Australasia, past Honorary Secretary of the Australian and New Zealand Association of Neurologists and was a previous Chair of the Advanced Training Committee in Neurology, Royal Australasian College of Physicians. She is the current Chair of the Management Committee for the Australian Stroke Clinical Registry (AuSCR). 

Professor Dewey undertook her undergraduate degree at the University of Sydney, graduating in 1985 with the University Medal 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 and New Zealand Society for Geriatric Medicine.  

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). She was Co-Chair of the Steering Committee for A Very Early Rehabilitation Trial (AVERT), the largest international trial ever conducted in the field of stroke rehabilitation.  

Associate Professor Mackay is a Paediatric Neurologist and Epileptologist at The Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne. Dr. Mackay's main interests are epilepsy and childhood stroke. He is an Associate Professor and Honorary Principal Fellow with the University of Melbourne, an Honorary Research Fellow with the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute and Honorary Professorial Research Fellow with the Florey Neurosciences Institute. 

He is Director of the Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH) Melbourne Stroke Program and is the paediatric representative on the Australian Stroke Clinical Registry steering committee.   Associate Professor Mackay is elected chairperson of (i) the ANZ Child Neurology Society Stroke Special Interest Group, (ii) the Australian Childhood Stroke Advisory Committee, and (iii) the Victorian Perinatal Stroke Advisory Committee.

He has over 10 years’ experience in the conceptualisation of paediatric stroke and epilepsy research projects and has a publication and presentation profile in these fields. He has established a dedicated paediatric stroke program; the first of its kind in Australia and is a major contributor to the International Pediatric Stroke Study. 

Associate Professor Mackay was awarded the 2016 Stroke Care Champion for his outstanding dedication and commitment to Australia’s youngest stroke patients. 

Dr Carlos Garcia-Esperon is a stroke neurologist and early career researcher. He undertook his clinical training in neurology in Spain and Switzerland, then undertook a Stroke Fellowship at John Hunter Hospital. He recently completed a PhD program at the University of Newcastle in the field of brain perfusion imaging in acute stroke under Prof Parsons, Levi and Spratt supervision.

Despite being in the early stages of his research career, Dr Garcia-Esperon has been involved in over 20 acute stroke clinical trials as co-investigator, and has published over 60 peer-reviewed journal articles. He has presented his research on a number of occasions at the European Stroke Organisation Conference, and locally at the Stroke Society of Australasia Annual Scientific Meeting. He has also presented widely in regional and rural centres in NSW on the role of telestroke and educating healthcare practitioners in its role in acute stroke treatment. His project, ‘Implementation of Telestroke across HNE and MNC Local Health Districts’, won the Health and Research Innovation category of the 2020 HNE Health Excellence Awards. He was recently awarded a three year Hunter New England Clinical and Health Service Research Fellowship to build on this work in a project titled ‘Using virtual reality to improve professional training for medical and nursing staff involved in rural and regional hyperacute stroke treatment’. He is currently the Director of the Hunter Stroke Services and Stream, Conjoint Lecturer at the University of Newcastle, and a member of the Hunter New England Ethics Committee.

Annabelle has worked as a specialist speech pathologist in the field of neurological rehabilitation for over a decade. She has a strong interest in undertaking and using research to improve health outcomes.

She is currently engaged in postgraduate studies as a confirmed PhD candidate through the University of Queensland in addition to maintaining a full-time clinical role. She is also collaborating on other research projects aimed at understanding and improving post-stroke care.

She regularly presents at a range of stroke forums and is an academic title holder at Griffith University.

Dr Levy is an Advanced Practitioner Neurological Physiotherapist at Flinders Medical Centre, Rehabilitation Services as well as a researcher/teacher at Flinders University. She has over 30 years of clinical experience in neurological rehabilitation and has expertise in several areas including spasticity management, vestibular rehabilitation and neuroprosthetic gait rehabilitation. 

Her area of research interest is around developing and implementing evidence-based rehabilitation programs for people with stroke and chronic neurological conditions, with a focus on promoting and sustaining behaviour change. 

Lauren Pesavento is a Stroke Nurse Consultant working in hyper-acute and acute stroke. She has a strong interest in secondary stroke prevention and supporting health behaviour changes.

She has worked in the Neurology Department at the Royal Melbourne Hospital since 2011 and has been in the Stroke Nurse Consultant role since 2015. This has been complemented by working in the pre-hospital setting on the inaugural Melbourne Mobile Stroke Unit and as a research assistant in acute stroke care. She is currently the co-chair of the Victoria Stroke and Neurosciences Nurse Practitioner Collaborative.

To augment her clinical experience, she completed a Master of Advanced Nursing Practice through the University of Melbourne in 2022. She is currently pursing endorsement and a candidacy role as a Nurse Practitioner.

Associate Professor Martin Jude is a consultant Neurologist in Wagga Wagga, NSW. His Neurology training was undertaken at St Vincent's and St George Hospitals, followed by the ANZAN attachment at the Radcliffe Infirmary/University of Oxford, where he was clinical lecturer in Neurology. He is currently a conjoint Associate Professor, UNSW rural clinical school, with main interests in Stroke Neurology, Medical education and coordinating systems of care to enhance clinical outcomes for stroke patients. He has been instrumental in setting up Stroke Unit care in Regional NSW, and the rural stroke coordinators network in NSW, as well as stroke education systems for undergraduate medical and physician trainees and is an active member of the RACP National Examination Panel. He was until recently the medical co-chair, Agency for Clinical Innovation/Stroke Services which is the clinician-led organisation that informs the NSW Ministry of Health in relation to optimising stroke systems and clinical outcomes. He was awarded the OAM in 2017.