Dr Nicky Lawrence, MBChB, FRACP, PhD
Director
Nicky is a Medical Oncologist at Te Pūriri o Te Ora, Regional Cancer and Blood Services at Te Toka Tumai Auckland, with an interest in genitourinary cancers and clinical trial methodology. She gained experience working in a co-ordinating centre for cancer clinical trials at the NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre, University of Sydney. She was awarded a PhD from The University of Sydney for her work evaluating the design of cancer clinical trials in the era of targeted and immunological therapies. She is passionate about education and research, and convened the inaugural NZ concept development workshop, critical appraisal workshop and is a member of the ACORD protocol writing workshop international steering committee and the ASCO International Education Steering Group. Nicky is co-lead of the Aotearoa Decentralised Clinical Trial Steering Committee, is a member of Australia and New Zealand Urogenital and Prostate Cancer Trials Group (ANZUP) Scientific Advisory Committee 2022 – present, and was a New Zealand Society for Oncology (NZSO) Executive Committee Member 2019 – 2021, and the Convenor of NZ Germ Cell Medical Oncology Network, 2020 – 2021.
Professor Katrina Sharples, PhD
Principal Biostatistician
Katrina was instrumental in developing CTNZ and is based at the University of Otago, dividing her time between the Department of Medicine and the Department of Mathematics and Statistics. She gained her initial experience in clinical trials at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre in Seattle while undertaking a PhD in Biostatistics at the University of Washington. Since returning to New Zealand she has worked as a statistician for trials in a variety of areas, with a primary focus on cancer, and has gained wide expertise through serving on Data Monitoring Committees. She was the Chair of the Health Research Council of New Zealand Data Monitoring Core Committee for over 10 years. Katrina has broad interests in statistical methods for epidemiology and clinical research, and in addition to her role with CTNZ, she is the lead statistician for two research groups based at Otago, the Centre for International Health and the Pharmacoepidemiology Research Network .
Sarah Benge, PhD
Research Operations Manager
Sarah joined CTNZ in November 2011 from Hampshire in the UK. She has over 20 years’ experience of managing multi-centre, national clinical trials. In her previous role as Senior Clinical Trials Manager at the University of Southampton Clinical Trials Unit she was involved in the development and/or management of over 10 trials across a variety of disciplines. Prior to that she was at the University of Oxford where she was responsible for setting up and getting national registration status for the Primary Care Clinical Trials Unit of which she was the Deputy Director.
Jade Scott, MSc Chemistry
Trials Manager/Quality Manager
Jade has worked in Clinical Research for more than 15 years. After graduating from the University of Auckland with a Master of Science in Chemistry she worked at the London Fire Brigade HQ as a Database Administrator before joining the Auckland Breast Cancer Study Group as a Data Manager. She moved to ADHB Oncology Research as a Clinical Trial Coordinator in 2003 before starting at CTNZ in 2007 as the Clinical Trials Monitor across a number of trials. Jade has been a committee member of the Northern A Health and Disability Ethics Committee since August 2021 and is a GCP Trainer at the University of Auckland. Jade is of Māori descent (Ngāpuhi) and brings an awareness of Te Reo Māori and Tikanga Māori.
Shani Peleg, Information System Engineer
Clinical Data Manager, Data Management Team Lead
Shani joined CTNZ in November 2019. She is an IT Project Manager with over eight years’ experience in a large Health Maintenance Organization. She is experienced in leading and implementing high-volume IT projects including, clinical research development platform, database maintenance, software development, communication and infrastructure. Shani is also an experienced Data Analyst and BI Developer.
Braden Woodhouse, BSc (Hons)
Project Manager
Braden joined CTNZ in August 2022. He graduated from the University of Auckland in 2014 with a BSc (Hons) in Biomedical Science and is currently undertaking part-time studies in Data Science. Braden has been involved in translational research for seven years as part of the NETwork! translational research programme, with experience in data management, analysis and project management.
