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Amy Garrett from the Robinson Research Institute’s Perinatal Health and Child Development Research Group attended the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease Conference in Canberra in April 2017.

Amy presented her research on Neurodevelopmental outcomes in children born to mothers following pregnancy complications.

This is what Amy had to say about her experience:

What was a highlight of the conference?

The highlight was Jeanie Cheong’s talk about future outcomes for preterm born children. She talked through short and longer term implications of extreme preterm birth, both of which were very interesting and relevant to my project.

Did you meet any researchers or collaborators of significance? Why are they important to your work?

Dr Will Siero from the longitudinal birth cohort group ActEarly: it was interesting to discuss ideas around creating a database allowing access to information about other longitudinal studies to avoid different cohorts all collecting the same information.

A/Prof Jeffrey Craig from Murdoch University: he shared some of his stories around his research into genetics and twin studies. I hope to do some genetic work as part of my project so it was a great opportunity to discuss his current work.

How will the experience support you and your research going forward?

The experience allowed me to make connections with other researchers about possible future projects and discuss different directions in which I can take my research.

What was the most exciting thing you learned/experienced at the Conference?

I was really surprised by how approachable and responsive more senior researchers were to questions and/or discussions. It was great to be able to openly chat about everything from future research ideas to career pathways.

What was the most interesting or unexpected moment of your travel?

An interesting experience of the conference was having a finger prick test to check Omega 3 levels. Still awaiting the results…