Fellowships set to position WA child health researchers for success in future funding
Over $1.9 million awarded to eight Western Australia (WA) Child Health Researchers via the Western Australian Early-Career Child Health Researcher (ECCHR) Fellowships Program.
ECCHR is a Co-Funding Partnerships Program that is managed and administered by the BrightSpark Foundation (BrightSpark) and is currently funded through the Future Health Research and Innovation (FHRI) Fund, Stan Perron Charitable Foundation and BrightSpark.
The Fellowships support WA early-career researchers to undertake child health research projects to become better qualified, experienced, and positioned to seek longer term and more advanced substantial child health research funding through avenues such as the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Investigator Grants Emerging Leadership scheme.
Further information about the ECCHR program can be found at the BrightSpark Foundation webpage.
The Western Australian Early-Career Child Health Researcher Fellowships 2024 recipients are:
| Recipient | Responsible entity | Activity title | Funding awarded |
| Jacinta Saldaris | The Kids Research Institute Australia on behalf of UWA | Mental health matters: Empowering children with intellectual disability and their parents | $215,345.90 |
| Sonia McAlister | The Kids Research Institute Australia on behalf of UWA | Decoding infant antibody signatures after maternal immunisations | $252,000.00 |
| Renee Ng | The Kids Research Institute Australia on behalf of UWA | Investigating the potential of phage combination therapies to improve antimicrobial stewardship and delay resistance development | $251,627.71 |
| Mohinder Sarna | Curtin University | Capturing the impact of respiratory syncytial virus infections and assessing the cost-savings of respiratory syncytial virus interventions | $208,518.70 |
| Emily McLeish | Murdoch University | AI-Driven MRI Analysis for Early Detection of Inflammation-Mediated Brain Injury in Extremely Preterm Infants with Sepsis | $252,000.00 |
| Blair Johnson | Fiona Wood Foundation | A novel model to understand heart disease in childhood burns | $251,401.00 |
| August Mikucki | The Kids Research Institute Australia on behalf of UWA | Novel probiotic candidates for the prevention of group A Streptococcus | $252,000.00 |
| Ritika Kar Bahal | The University of Western Australia | Towards better respiratory health of children by understanding respiratory commensal biology | $252,000.00 |