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About our research

Since 2009, the Foundation has funded Australian researchers to investigate the causes, find means of prevention and best practice bereavement care of those impacted by stillbirth.

Each year the money we raise is awarded to successful grant applications. Our 2019 grants were awarded to a clinical trial for a wearable patch to monitor babies’ movements in utero, best-practice bereavement care guidelines for parents and clinicians, and a brand-new study on birth and labour through grief.

Our 2020 grant grants have been awarded to a world-first study into the endometrial environment in women who experience a preterm birth or preterm stillbirth; and a population study of more than 1.5 million Australian women, examining and identifying pregnancies that have a higher risk of ending in an early stillbirth. Both projects will support the development of practical prevention measures aimed at ending preventable stillbirths. Read the full media release about the grants here.

The Foundation are philanthropic partners and work closely with the Stillbirth Centre of Research Excellence (Stillbirth CRE), which is an Australia-wide initiative, hosted by the Mater Research Institute, within The University of Queensland Faculty of Medicine. The Stillbirth CRE’s research program is funded by the National Heath and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) of Australia, and is co-directed by Professor Vicki Flenady and Professor David Ellwood.

 

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Scientific Assessment Committee

  • Johnathan Morris

    Chair

    Johnathan Morris

    Chair

    Professor Jonathan Morris is a graduate of the University of Edinburgh and completed his Obstetric and Maternal Fetal Medicine sub specialty training in Sydney. He completed his PhD in Oxford and returned to Sydney in 1998 at the Royal North Shore Hospital. Since then he has built a perinatal research group that extends from basic science to population health.

    Jonathan is currently Director of the Kolling Institute for Medical Research. His major research interests are the prediction, prevention and management of pregnancy complications. Jonathan has been a director of Stillbirth Foundation Australia since 2008.

  • Miranda Davies-Tuck

    Member

    Miranda Davies-Tuck

    Member

    Dr Miranda Davies-Tuck is a Research Fellow and Executive Committee member of the Stillbirth Centre of Research Excellence, with a focus on perinatal and clinical epidemiology. She obtained her PhD from the School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University in 2010 where she worked on a number of large prospective cohort studies developing epidemiological and bio-statistical expertise.

    Her main research areas include understanding ethnic differences in maternal and perinatal outcomes, stillbirth, improved antenatal detection of small babies, assessing the effectiveness of current antenatal and intrapartum interventions and home birth.

    She lives in the Mornington Peninsula with her young family.

    You can read more about Miranda here.

  • Sean Seeho

    Member

    Sean Seeho

    Member

    Dr Sean Seeho is an obstetrician in Sydney with an interest in high-risk and complicated pregnancies. He is also Co-Head of the Discipline of Obstetrics, Gynaecology and Neonatology at the University of Sydney and a Fellow of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. Sean completed a PhD with the University of Sydney and is actively involved in medical research into stillbirth and other obstetric complications.  

    Sean joined the Stillbirth Foundation Board in May 2020. He brings over 15 years’ experience in both clinical and research best practice to the Foundation.  

    Sean lives in Sydney with his wife and young son Oliver.Â