Our Board
Nicole McMahon, Chair
Nicole is the Group owner for National Capability and Federal Government at Telstra Enterprise. She has responsibility for Telstra’s strategy and focus across all tiers of Government, bringing enabling technology and services for a secure and thriving digital economy. She also leads the customer teams in the Federal and ACT portfolio.
Graduating from the University of Colorado in the field of Molecular, Cellular, Developmental Biology and Biochemistry, she started her career as a medical research scientist in the field of cancer and at the Children’s Medical Research Institute (CMRI) in HIV Gene Therapy.
With a diverse career, Nicole has been a journalist, producer and editor in media organisations, in senior business roles for multi-national ICT organisations, and prior to re-joining Telstra in 2020, Nicole was General Manager of a National counselling service for domestic, family violence and sexual assault.
She is a passionate advocate for diversity and women's health. She has two daughters and lives in Canberra. In her down time she loves to mentor others, learn new things, ski or tackle ocean swimming (despite a fear of sharks).
Dr Marc Russo
Marc is a Specialist Pain Medicine Physician in Newcastle, Australia and has been in practice since 1999. He has treated over 20,000 patients in that time.
He first trained and practiced as a GP before training as an anaesthetist, and then as a pain specialist.
He is the President of the International Neuromodulation Society, Medical Examiner for the Faculty of Pain Medicine, Senior Advising Editor of the Pain Medicine Journal, and an Honorary Associate Professor at the University of Hong Kong
Marc runs a large multidisciplinary pain management clinic, research centre, day surgery centre, and pain management program. His focus is on cutting edge treatments to advance the field of pain medicine and research into CRPS.
Dr Romil Jain MBBS, MD, FCICM, FFPMANZCA, FIPP
Dr Romil Jain is the founder and Director of ACT Pain Centre. Dr Jain is a qualified Specialist Pain Medicine Physician and Interventional Pain Specialist. He completed his post graduate qualification (MD) in Anaesthesia from world renowned L.T.M.G Hospital in Mumbai before moving to Australia. He completed his Fellowship in Intensive care (CICM) from Sydney. He then completed his Fellowship in Pain Medicine under mentorship of Prof Sundaraj in Sydney and later Fellowship in Interventional Pain through World Institute of Pain.
“Dr Jain is also a former Director of Pain management Unit at the Canberra hospital and currently works as a Visitor Medical Officer at the same Hospital.. He is clinical Lecturer in Australian National University and involved with teaching of medical students and registrars in Canberra Hospital. Dr Jain is also an examiner with ‘Faculty of Pain Medicine’ and involved in many educational and research activities.
Dr Jain believes in comprehensive care of chronic pain patients in multidisciplinary environment. He is an ‘Interventional Pain Specialist’ and uses Pain Procedures as part of Biopsychosocial model of Pain.
Dr Jain’s area of interest includes Failed Back Surgery Syndrome (FBSS), CRPS and other intractable neuropathic Pain conditions. Dr Jain is well experienced in various Pain procedures including radiofrequency ablation and Neuromodulation. He is also passionate about offering various pain procedure options for intractable Cancer pain including Intrathecal catheter.
Cath Di Dio
Anish Patel
Anish is a senior level executive with over 20 years’ demonstrated success in the consumer health and FMCG sectors in Australia, New Zealand, North Asia, and the UK. He is an accomplished leader with a breadth of strategic and operational experience in senior roles across General Management, Finance, Innovation and Marketing.
Anish is currently ANZ General Manager of leading consumer health company, Haleon, prior to which he was General Manager at Bayer Consumer Health in New Zealand and North Asia respectively.
Anish is passionate about health inclusivity and championing unmet healthcare needs. He is a husband and a father of two boys. Anish grew up in the UK, relocating to Australia over 20 years ago.
Gabriella Kelly-Davies
Gabriella Kelly-Davies is a biographer and during 2021, Hawkeye Books published Breaking through the pain barrier. The extraordinary life of Dr Michael J. Cousins, her biography of Painaustralia’s founder Dr Michael J. Cousins. The book attracted an avalanche of media coverage in Australia and overseas, reflecting the enormity of the issue of chronic pain in our society. Within six weeks of Painaustralia’s book launch event, Amazon Australia ranked Breaking through the pain barrier #12 in medical biographies and #27 in biographies of social activists.
Gabriella has studied biography and life story writing at the University of Oxford and the Australian National University, and she is a PhD student in biography at Sydney University. A former President of Life Stories Australia Association, she convenes a Science and Medicine Roundtable for Biographers International Organization. She also produces a podcast, Biographers in Conversation, which involves fascinating interviews with biographers about the choices they made while researching, writing and publishing their life stories.
When Gabriella was 24 she was pushed from her bicycle, triggering a severe whiplash injury and a lifelong struggle with occipital neuralgia and chronic migraine. After years on the medical merry-go-round, she ended up at the Michael J. Cousins Pain Management and Research Centre in Sydney where Dr Michael Cousins was her pain specialist.
For the next 13 years, Michael tried several treatment approaches, including an interdisciplinary pain management program that helped Gabriella reduce the impact of pain in her life. She learned to pace her workload and exercise, reducing flare-ups, and she started meditating and doing yoga and Tai Chi every day. The program helped Gabriella reduce her fear of pain and the crippling anxiety and depression accompanying each migraine attack.
As an advocate for people living with pain, Gabriella encourages anyone living with pain to search Painaustralia’s National Pain Directory for a pain clinic or pain specialist that offers an interdisciplinary pain management program.