Our Team
Christine Zahren, MAppSc (Acu), BSN, RN
Co- Founder
Christine has a background in nursing with over 25 yrs experience in healthcare. She has worked in various areas of health including aged care, acute care, rehabilitation medicine, dermatology specialist clinics, and surgery. Christine has extensive experience as a clinical trial nurse coordinator, and spent 5 years managing the Dermatology Clinical Trials Unit at the Skin & Cancer Foundation Inc in Victoria. She also holds a Master of Applied Science in Chinese Medicine (Acupuncture) and spent 4 years in private practice. ( See also OUR BOARD)
Fiona Cameron BBus CPM
Co-Founder
Fiona Cameron has over 20 years of experience as a Marketer, specialising in the retail and consumer sector, she has been a part of the strategic development of several key Australian brands.
Fiona has extensive knowledge and expertise in marketing, strategic planning, and business management. She has worked with traditional, digital and mainstream media and has had what she calls “the advantage” of working within a field that has adapted, grown and reinvented itself several times over. (See also OUR BOARD)
Michelle Di Vito-Smith
Head of Patient Experience & Stakeholder Engagement
Michelle has an Honours degree in Pharmacology from the University of Adelaide. Her keen interest in pharmacology led her to work in the biopharmaceutical industry for over 25 years leading the management, execution and oversight of clinical trials across Australia & New Zealand. She has also led cross-functional and cross-cultural teams across project initiatives focused on improving clinical trial efficiencies and the patient experience. This gave her a great sense of purpose and satisfaction knowing that she was positively impacting patients in the community by developing new medicines in the hope that they would transform lives.
Michelle has a real passion for helping patients navigate and connect to innovative therapies through clinical trials and has made this her new purpose. Through her work with the WCF, she has a vision to integrate clinical trials into routine clinical care.
Our Volunteers
At White Coats Foundation we are very grateful for the time people donate to help raise awareness of the importance of clinical trials in advancing medical science and health care. Not only is our board, team, speakers and contributors volunteers but we on occasion have people donate administration and other skills to help us fulfil many of our initiatives. We thought it was well worth giving them a shout out.
Deepti Pandey
About
Deepti has 12 years of experience working in healthcare sector in Australia, most of it with clinical trials. Deepti has recently taken up a position with Bristol Myers Squibb as Clinical Trial Manager after working with Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre for over 10 years in various positions.
Deepti is passionate about clinical trials and her various roles within oncology clinical trials have given her opportunities to directly interact with patients. This offered her an insight into the difference a new drug can bring into the lives of the patients and seeing the theory and vision of clinical trials come to life. This has become her biggest motivation to work in the field of clinical research.
Recently, Deepti created a poster for ‘your voice, your story’ organised by White Coats Foundation and was completely struck by the foundation’s work as she truly feels clinical trials give hope and save lives.
On the personal front, Deepti is the mother of two young kids. Theatre, event organization and radio talks are her hobbies.