Our travel scholarships continue to attract high calibre applicants, which might make the selection process a little hard sometimes, but also makes announcing the recipients a great joy, because we know these health care professionals — from nurses, to researchers, to allied health professionals — will go on to do great things in the field of bone marrow and stem cell transplant care.

Our most recent travel scholarship recipients

It is with great pleasure that we announce our three newest recipients of travel & conference scholarships who have been awarded funding to assist with their attendance at the next meeting of the European Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation (EBMT) in Florence in April 2025: Laura McMahon, Milani Visweswaran, and Maddie Gilsenan.

The EBMT is a worldwide community of healthcare professionals, involved in clinical haematopoietic cell transplantation and cellular therapy, dedicated to improving the lives of those living with blood disorders, and attending this conference will provide each of these health care professionals opportunities to meet with and learn from their colleagues from around the globe.

Laura McMahon, RN and Clinical Nurse Educator from St Vincent’s Hospital, Darlinghurst

Laura McMahon recently completed her masters in cancer and haematology nursing through the University of Sydney, and now continues her work caring for patients pre- and post-transplant at The Kinghorn Cancer Center at St Vincent’s Hospital in Darlinghurst. Laura has a deeper experience of transplant than many nurses: she was a stem cell donor for her brother who was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. She knows first-hand the impact a transplant has on patients and their families, and she is looking forward to keeping abreast of best care practices from around the world and bringing insights from the conference back to her team at St Vincent’s to ensure the best quality of life for stem cell transplant recipients and their loved ones.

Malini Visweswaran, Postdoctoral Researcher, St Vincent’s Hospital, Darlinghurst

Malini’s post-doctoral research has investigated immunological changes post-autologous stem cell transplantation in people with Multiple sclerosis (MS), recently on their immunometabolism. The Annual EBMT Conference is highly regarded for research in transplant immunology, and presenting her work there will showcase her research to a global audience, comprising eminent researchers and clinicians. This exposure, and the networking opportunities that a conference such as this affords, will hopefully lead to future research collaborations, and ultimately greater progress in the work of those who aim to improve outcomes for bone marrow and stem cell transplant recipients. Malini says. “I am confident it will benefit my professional development, learning about cutting-edge research in MS and transplant immunology. I am extremely honoured and grateful for travel support from Jazz Pharmaceuticals via Arrow Foundation towards attending EBMT conference.”

Maddie Gilsenan, Nurse Practitioner, the Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne.

We are particularly pleased to be able to support Maddie in her attendance at EBMT 2025 where she will present a poster about her work as a paediatric BMT and Cellular Therapy Nurse Practitioner, a speciality that Maddie is passionate about and which she considers a privilege. Maddie is the first Nurse Practitioner specialising in BMT and cellular therapies to work in a paediatric setting in Australia and has seen great success in implementing this model of care, particularly for out-patient services. Maddie is looking forward to opportunities to share knowledge, network with other clinicians and to seek opportunities to collaborate on international research projects, all with a view to improving outcomes for BMT and cellular therapy patients.

Maddie says, “I am incredibly grateful to have received a travel scholarship through the Arrow Foundation to support my attendance at the European Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation (EBMT) 2025 conference in Florence” and she is hoping that her poster presentation may inspire other nurses and healthcare leaders around the globe to add the role of BMT and Cellular Therapies Nurse Practioner to their services.

Thank you to our generous supporters

We wish to thank Mrs Driscoll and the Driscoll family, and also Jazz Pharmaceuticals for their continued support of our travel & conference scholarships. Their generous donations allow us to continue offering opportunities for our best and brightest health care professionals to meet with their colleagues from around the world, leading ultimately to improvements to outcomes for the patients under their care.