Meet Our Team

From left to right: (back row): Tom Scerri (former team member), Sarah Horton, Lottie Morison, Olivia van Reyk, Inge Timmerman (former team member), Miya St John, Ruth Braden (front row): Fatma Lelik, Lorraine O'Donnell, Alecka Garrett, Mariana Lauretta, Elana Forbes, Charlotte Boulton (former team member), Angela Morgan.

Prof. Angela Morgan leads the Speech and Language team at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute where she is also a senior principal research fellow. Prof. Morgan is also a senior speech pathologist with over 25 years of clinical-research experience across Australia and the United Kingdom. Her current research is focussed on understanding the neurobiology of speech disorders to improve outcomes for children.

Dr. Emma Baker (not in picture) is a post-doctoral fellow. Dr. Baker is an autism specialist with extensive experience working with individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders that present with an autism phenotype, including Fragile X, Prader-Willi, Angelman and Chromosome 15 Duplication Syndromes.

Dr. Ruth Braden is a speech pathologist and post-doctoral fellow. Her research primarily focuses on elucidating gene-brain-behaviour relationships, by refining the speech and language phenotypes of children with genetic and neural pathologies.

Elana Forbes is a research coordinator and clinical trial coordinator with experience conducting research in neurodevelopment, family and child psychology, and neurodegeneration. She is also currently a Clinical Neuropsychology PhD candidate and provisional psychologist at Monash University.

Alecka Garrett is a speech pathologist and research assistant within the Speech and Language group. Alecka is also pursuing her PhD studies, with a focus on speech in severe childhood epilepsies.

Loretta (Lottie) Gasparini (not in picture) is a PhD candidate with the Speech and Language group. Her PhD investigates early communication abilities as predictors of later language difficulties, utilising data from large cohort studies including including Generation Victoria (GenV), a whole-of-state birth and parent cohort spanning many areas of health and development. She is also a research assistant for GenV. 

Victoria Heinlen (not in picture) is a speech pathologist, research assistant, and PhD student at the University of Melbourne. Her doctoral research focuses on early intervention strategies aimed at improving outcomes for infants and toddlers at risk for speech and language delays.

Sarah Horton is a PhD candidate completing her PhD titled "Sub-phenotyping in a genome-wide association study of stuttering". She also works clinically as a speech pathologist and volunteers with SAY: Australia. Sarah has an interest in identifying sub-groups of stuttering to better inform future treatment trials

Mariana Lauretta is a speech pathologist, associate genetic counsellor and research assistant. Mariana has worked across clinical and research speech pathology, and genetics service settings. She is currently working as a speech pathologist and genetic counsellor with the Speech Apraxia and Genetics clinic, a gene discovery clinic at the The Royal Children's Hospital and MCRI. She has a keen interest in the translational implications of genetic testing for children with speech sound disorders.

Lottie Morison is a speech pathologist and research assistant. Lottie has worked in clinical and research settings as a speech pathologist. Lottie's areas of interest include motor speech disorders, augmentative and alternative communication, and early language and literacy development. Lottie is also a PhD student at the University of Melbourne.

Lorraine O’Donnell is a registered nurse and research coordinator of the Speech Apraxia and Genetics clinic and Methylphenidate (Ritalin) in Childhood Apraxia of Speech trial. Lorraine has worked in clinical setting as a Research Nurse.

Dr. Miya St John is a speech pathologist and post-doctoral fellow. She has experience working as a speech pathologist both clinically and in research. Miya’s primary research interests include understanding the speech and language profiles of individuals with rare genetic conditions, with a particular interest in chromatin-related disorders (e.g. KAT6A syndrome, Koolen-de Vries syndrome). Miya is currently working on projects analysing the communication profiles in KAT6B-related conditions and PURA syndrome and is helping to coordinate the sub-phenotyping arm of the Genetics of Stuttering study. Miya also supports students clinically at the Melbourne Indigenous Transition School and is a Lecturer in Speech Pathology at the University of Melbourne.

Tahlia Thomas (not in picture) is a speech pathologist and PhD student. Her PhD project is focused on investigating the genetic aetiology of stuttering. Tahlia also works in a clinical setting with children and adults. Areas of interest in her clinical work include stuttering, early intervention, and augmentative and alternative communication (AAC).   

Clara Tjiandra (not in picture) is a speech pathologist, research assistant and PhD student at the University of Melbourne. She is currently completing her project about motor speech intervention with Speech and Language Team at MCRI. Clara also works clinically with students at the Melbourne Indigenous Transition School. Her interests include motor speech disorders, language disorders and literacy. 

Hali Van Niel (not in picture) is a research coordinator of the CRE - Translational Centre for Speech Disorders. She is also a Masters of Genomics and Health graduate. Hali has experience in paediatric genetic research and working in a clinical cancer genetic service. She has interests in the genomic underpinnings of paediatric conditions and the translational utility of genomic analysis.

Olivia van Reyk is a speech pathologist and research officer with expertise in speech and language phenotyping. She coordinates a population-based study collecting normative data in school and early learning settings for the development of a digital speech assessment tool, as well as natural history studies in rare genetic conditions. 

Jen Wong (not in picture) is a speech pathologist and PhD student at the University of Melbourne. She will be completing her project with the Speech and Language Team. Jen also works clinically, seeing both children and young adults. Her areas of interest include augmentative and alternative communication, language development and literacy.

Each year, we support around 8 to 16 Masters students with research projects in Speech Pathology as well as Genetic Counselling.