15th Annual Victorian Scientific Meeting: keynote speakers

We are excited to hear from some of Victoria’s leaders in medical research at the 15th Annual Victorian Scientific Meeting.

They include:  

• Associate Professor Erin Howden, Baker Heart & Diabetes Institute

• Dr Michael Wheeler, Deakin University

• Dr Teddy Ang, Medplace

Associate Professor Erin Howden
Baker Heart & Diabetes Institute

Erin is the head of the Cardiometabolic Health and Exercise Physiology Lab at the Baker Heart & Diabetes Institute, co-leader of the Baker’s Physical Activity Program and co-chair of the Research Training and Education Committee. She holds honorary senior research fellow positions at the University of Melbourne and Monash University. After being awarded her PhD from the University of Queensland in 2012, Erin completed postdoctoral training at the Institute for Exercise and Environmental Medicine in Texas, a globally recognised centre for human clinical and integrative physiology. Awarded a Heart Foundation Future Leader Fellowship in 2020, Erin was also honoured by the Baker Institute with the Sir Laurence Muir Prize as an Emerging Leader. Her research focuses on improving the prevention and treatment of cardiometabolic diseases through innovative multidisciplinary approaches, particularly emphasising ‘exercise as medicine’. Her program combines advanced cardiac and vascular imaging, exercise testing, and bioinformatics to understand human integrative physiology and develop effective therapeutic strategies, ultimately aiming to reduce healthcare costs and improve quality of life for those at risk of cardiovascular disease. Notably, her seminal work published in Circulation demonstrated that exercise training can prevent the cardiovascular effects of sedentary ageing. She has recently developed a tool to characterise exercise limitations via a novel oxygen pathway phenotyping approach, also published in Circulation.

Dr Michael Wheeler
Deakin University

Dr Michael Wheeler joined Deakin University in 2022, where he holds an internationally competitive Executive Dean Health Early Career Research Fellowship at the Baker-Deakin Department of Lifestyle and Diabetes, within the Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition. His research focuses on the impact of physical activity and sedentary behaviour on cardiovascular, cognitive, and metabolic functions, with a strong emphasis on clinical trials and a growing interest in epidemiology, free-living studies, and digital health. Dr Wheeler completed a BSc in Sport Science and Health from Dublin City University, graduating with first-class honours, and completed his PhD at The University of Western Australia and the Baker Heart & Diabetes Institute in 2019, where he investigated the combined effects of exercise and sedentary behaviour on health. In addition to completing a postdoctoral fellowship at the Australian Catholic University, he is also a lecturer in science communication at The University of Melbourne and co-hosts the ‘Let’s Talk Scicomm’ podcast, which aims to make science communication more accessible. He also leads workshops tools for various groups and organisations on practical communication. 

Dr Teddy Ang
Medpace

Dr Teddy Ang is a Clinical Research Associate at Medpace, a global clinical research organisation, and has worked in this industry since January 2022. Teddy’s duties are centred around monitoring the conduct and safety of clinical trials at institutions/research sites across Australia and New Zealand. Prior to moving out of academia and into the clinical trials sector, Teddy completed his undergraduate studies and Honours in Food and Nutrition Sciences in 2013-2016, and his PhD in Physiology and Metabolism in 2021 at Deakin University’s Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition. Teddy’s PhD examined the regulation of endogenous glucose production and the physiologic responses under real-world meal-feeding conditions. Despite being heavily laboratory-based and focused on metabolic endocrinology, Teddy has since adapted his project management and critical thinking skills to a wide array of therapeutic areas including, but not limited to, trials within cardiovascular, oncology, neurology, ophthalmology, genetic diseases and infectious respiratory diseases. This work on global-scale projects, sponsored by pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, provides a sense of purpose for improving patient wellbeing, contribution to novel drug development, collaboration with a multitude of teams based around the world, and importantly, offers a level of variety to the daily grind.