I enjoy reading poetry, plays, and prose in my spare time, I have a black belt in Ju Jitsu, and I am a keen (amateur) debater of philosophical issues such as the facticity of determinism, the nature of consciousness, and matters involving economics (my academic specialty). I was married in early 2024 to my partner of eight years and have a five-year-old Maltese Shih Tzu named Lola. I regularly play team sports (most recently futsal) and frequently go running.

My mother was diagnosed with MS while I was a child, with my father taking on the role as her carer. Because of this, improving the lives of people living with multiple sclerosis (MS) and their supporters is a matter of great personal importance to me. I chose to become involved in MS research as it gives me the opportunity to help those close to me and leverages my passions for knowledge and innovation.

For me, the revolution in the treatment of MS with disease modifying therapies has been the greatest, recent development in MS research. Recent work by Fambiatos et al. (2020) has demonstrated that, among other achievements, improved treatment of MS has doubled to average duration to conversion, from relapsing remitting MS to secondary progressive MS, to about thirty years. Developments like this are very encouraging and demonstrate that research toward the effective treatment and management of MS is making a major impact.

I am currently working a broad suite of projects in the field of MS health economics. MS health economists seek to quantify the impact of MS in terms of costs of illness and quality of life. By doing so, we are able to: highlight healthcare inequities, provide guidance on how best to deploy limited healthcare resources, and provide evidence to support the subsidisation of new treatments. Our work is also vital in conveying the impact of disability on people living with MS and their supporters, raising awareness and encouraging action.

One component of my research concerns improving the methods and resources available to MS health economists. With respect to this, my goal is to augment the reliability and credibility of MS health economic information. In turn, this will make health economic information more useful to advocates seeking the subsidisation of MS therapies or greater funding for MS research. Issue-specific research projects I am undertaking include: assisting with the drafting of an updated MS Health Economic Impact Statement (which has previously been of substantial utility to MS advocates); understanding how people living with MS are impacted by the residual effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, and what assistance they might need; and providing Australia-specific evidence regarding the efficacy of key disease-modifying therapies to support their continued subsidisation under the PBS.

Unlike many of my peers, I am a data scientist and don't wear a lab coat! However, I can say that the most rewarding part of being an MS health economist is showing my research to people living with MS and their supporters. Seeing genuine interest in and approval of the research I am conducting, from the people I am trying to help, is both affirming and invigorating. Collaborating and consulting with people living with MS, and other consumers of MS research, is similarly motivating as it allows me to tailor my research to community needs as my projects develop.