Nikki Mills
Nikki is a Paediatric ENT Surgeon at Starship Children's Hospital. She has a special interest in Paediatric Airway and Swallowing Disorders. Nikki has trained as a Simulation Instructor and is actively involved with the Simulation Teaching in the OR and Emergency Department at Starship.
She directed an Airway Skills “Boot Camp” for ENT Registrars in 2013. She has been actively involved with the RACS Surgical Teachers Academy and is now part of their faculty for the Surgical Teachers’ Course.
Nikki is also the Principal Investigator for the OMIVI Study - A Multi-Phase, Multi-Centre Study on the microbiology of Otitis Media in NZ in the context of a changing pneumococcal vaccine schedule.
Lisa Marasco
Lisa Marasco has been working with breastfeeding mothers for 35 years and has been an IBCLC since 1993. She holds a Master’s degree in Human Development with specialization in Lactation Consulting and was designated a Fellow of ILCA in 2009. Lisa is co-author of Making More Milk: The Breastfeeding Guide to Increasing Your Milk Production, a contributing author to the Core Curriculum for Interdisciplinary Lactation Care, and a new Cochrane Collaborative author. She is employed by WIC of Santa Barbara County while she continues to research, write and speak. In addition, Lisa is affiliated with La Leche League of Southern California/Nevada, and serves on the Breastfeeding Coalition of Santa Barbara County.
Dr Jenny Thomas
Dr Jenny Thomas is a pediatrician and breastfeeding medicine specialist at Aurora Healthcare in Franklin, Wisconsin and is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Community and Family Medicine and Pediatrics at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW). She received her MD from MCW in 1993, and her MPH in 2011. She has been an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) since 2003. She is now serving on the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Section on Breastfeeding Executive Board after spending several years as the Chief of the Chapter Breastfeeding Coordinators. She also serves on the Executive Board of the Wisconsin Chapter of the AAP, and is a founder and the immediate-past Chairperson of the Wisconsin Breastfeeding Coalition, and is the author of Dr Jen's Guide to Breastfeeding.
She is a sought after speaker, giving presentations on breastfeeding to any group wanting to learn. She has received national awards for teaching, advocacy for children, and innovation within her practice and community. She is one of only a few physicians internationally to be recognised as a Fellow of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine (FABM) for her expertise on breastfeeding. Dr Thomas' interests and research have focused on issues related to the use of social media to support breastfeeding mothers.
Dr Lars Bode
Dr Lars Bode is Associate Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Neonatology and the Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition (www.bodelab.com) and Director of the Mother-Milk-Infant Center of Research Excellence (MoMI CoRE) at the University of California, San Diego. He is also the President of the International Society for Research in Human Milk and Lactation (ISRHML) and serves on the Editorial Board for the journal Advances in Nutrition.
Dr Bode received both his Master of Science and PhD degree in Nutritional Sciences from the Justus-Liebig University Giessen, Germany and completed a pre-doctoral fellowship at the Institute of Child Health, University College London, studying the effects of human milk oligosaccharides on selectin-mediated cell-cell interactions in the immune system. Following a postdoctoral fellow at the Burnham Institute for Medical Research in La Jolla, California, he was appointed as Staff Scientist in 2006. Dr Bode is now leading a research program at the University of California, San Diego, dedicated to investigating human milk oligosaccharide biosynthesis and potential benefits for infant health and development.