Discover our plenary speakers: global experts and thought leaders bringing cutting-edge science, innovation, and insight to the 36th ISUOG World Congress.
Dr Simon Meagher is a consultant sonologist in the Perinatal Department at Mercy Hospital for Women in Melbourne and Medical Director of Monash Ultrasound for Women, where he leads a multidisciplinary team of around 50 sonologists, sonographers, genetic counsellors, phlebotomists and administrative staff delivering tertiary-level ultrasound services across south-eastern Melbourne.
He currently serves as a Trustee of the International Society of Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology (ISUOG), contributing to the governance and strategic direction of the Society alongside his role on its Board.
Over more than 30 years in this role, he has made a substantial contribution to education and training in obstetric and gynaecological ultrasound, both in Australia and internationally, delivering over 800 lectures across 43 cities in 17 countries. In 2015, the Australasian Society for Ultrasound in Medicine (ASUM) named him Sonologist of the Year, recognising his teaching, his commitment to hands-on clinical training at Mercy Hospital for Women, and his long service to the Society.
His clinical research centres on early-pregnancy ultrasound, fetal development and prenatal imaging. He has published more than 100 peer-reviewed articles and described five original sonographic fetal markers used in the first and second trimesters, and his current research interests include embryonic development between seven and ten weeks' gestation and advances in prenatal ultrasound assessment.
Dr Meagher has held a number of leadership roles across his career, including Chair of ASUM's Standards of Practice Committee, examiner and Executive Board member for the Diploma of Diagnostic Ultrasound, member of ASUM Council, and Chair of the Victorian Obstetric Sonologists Group, alongside contributions to several committees and subcommittees of ISUOG. He has also authored multiple textbook chapters in obstetrics and gynaecology, and wrote the ISUOG Fetal Cardiac Imaging Handbook, a freely downloadable resource produced as part of ISUOG's Every Little Heart Matters campaign.
Field: Obstetrics and Gynaecology
Specialties: Prenatal Diagnosis. First and Second Trimester Fetal anomaly screening. Aneuploidy screening and diagnosis. NIPT and prenatal Exome sequencing. Maternal and Fetal Doppler Ultrasound. Invasive Prenatal Procedures. Ultrasound and Infertility. Tubal Patency Testing.
Languages: English
Pushing medicine to the edge
What we learn from the past: reproductive health and birthing among the Maya
Vera Tiesler, PhD., is an internationally renowned Mexican bioarchaeologist. Coming from an anthropological, archaeological and medical academic background, she studies the ancient Maya, diving into understanding their world and history through their body modifications, demography and mobility. Tiesler is staged in Mérida, Yucatán, where she works as a research professor at the Autonomous University of Yucatan. Since 2000, she is in charge of the Laboratory of Bioarchaeology, the largest institutional facility of its kind in the Maya area. After twenty years of robust and culturally informed interdisciplinary research, collaboration and partnerships, this engagement has accrued systematic skeletal documentation of 200+ archaeological sites and some 6,000 individuals across the Mesoamerican landscapes. Their joint decoding has invigorated knowledge and debate of central aspects of pre-Columbian and colonial Maya living conditions, ancient embodiment and spirituality, violence and mortuary treatments of the body. This includes novel insights on the living experiences among children and women of the past, and on dynastic life and death. Regarding physical appearance and enhancement, Tiesler’s long-term academic involvement with Maya head shaping and dental decorations has targeted enactment, shifting emblematic roles and their religious underpinnings.
Further research by Tiesler and her laboratory covers the peoples of broader Mesoamerica, Columbus’ second voyage in the Caribbean, and Central and South American populations. Tiesler has written two hundred articles and chapters for academic venues and has authored or edited twenty volumes, some of hem together with other colleagues. Noted is her research and TV coverage on the body in Maya religion, on ancestor veneration and posthumous body processing, life-ways and mobility in Mesoamerica. Additional work covers the African diaspora and the embodied identity and health among modern Maya communities.
Implementing change in cancer diagnostic pathways to improve outcomes for all
Sudha Sundar is a gynaecological cancer surgeon and a clinical academic. Her research programme focusses on improving cancer diagnostics, cancer surgery and addressing inequalities in cancer outcomes. Sudha’s research has led to change of NICE guidance to recommend maximum cytoreduction surgery for ovarian cancer. She has recently completed her term as the President of the British Gynaecological Cancer Society (2019-2022), the first women gynaecological oncologist to be elected to this post.
She is now National Ovarian Cancer audit surgical lead (2023 – to date) and is spearheading the innovative use of routinely collected data to drive outcomes for women with ovarian cancer.
She has co-chaired the International Gynaecological cancer society conference Scientific program committee in 2024 and is on the International advisory board of Lancet Oncology (2025-)