Our Board

Médecins Sans Frontières Australia’s constitution provides for a maximum of ten elected members on the board. The Association votes each year at the Annual General Meeting to set the Board size and to vote in new members. The current Board has nine elected members and one is nominated from Médecins Sans Frontières France.  

The Médecins Sans Frontières Australia Association votes each year at the Annual General Meeting to set the Board size and to vote in new members. The current Board has ten elected members and one is nominated from Médecins Sans Frontières France. All members of the board, except for the President, are volunteers and are not remunerated for their work for Médecins Sans Frontières Australia. 

MSF Australia board members

Kerry Atkins

Kerry was elected to the Board in May 2019, and holds a Graduate certificate in Humanitarian Leadership. She has done field missions in Libya and Nigeria with MSF and has also worked for the MSF Australia office in financial management roles. Kerry has worked for many locally focused NGOs within Australia including the Black Dog Institute and the Sunrise Project, as well as with Oxfam supporting programs in Timor Leste and Mount Isa. She has experience and skills in capacity building, leading teams, implementing change, initiating strategic processes, operational planning, and governance. Kerry is currently Director of Finance and Operations, and Company Director at The Nature Conservancy Limited.

Mohamad-Ali Trad

Mohamad-Ali (Ali) is an Infectious Diseases physician who started with MSF in 2008 and first joined the Association in 2009. His 10 field placements have seen him work as an MD, Project Medical Referent and most recently as Project Coordinator in Yemen last year. In addition to a strong academic background in teaching and research, Ali brings governance experience through several professional roles in healthcare settings. Ali is multilingual and has lived and worked in South East Asia and the UK. Ali is currently an Infectious Diseases physician in Launceston General Hospital and honorary senior clinical lecturer at the University of Tasmania.  

Maria Cartwright

Maria Cartwright was elected to the Board in May 2021.  She is a nurse and midwife and has a Degree in Social Sciences. Her first field mission with MSF was in Ethiopia in 1996. Fifteen missions followed in both the African and Asian context, including as Head of Mission and Medical Coordinator. She also spent 3 years in the MSF Australia office as Field Human Resources Director. In the 8 years since her last mission, she has been the MSF Association Network Coordinator for Victoria. In recent years she has been volunteering with the Oro Community Development Project in PNG as Medical Team Leader.

Maria has held nursing and midwifery positions in large Australian hospitals, community-based refugee health programs and in indigenous communities. She has also had academic roles at ACU and Deakin University. 25 years of involvement with MSF at many levels has given Maria extensive knowledge of MSF’s field-based activities and challenges, human resource management and insight into the issues that most concern association members.Maria had been working in the emergency department of the Royal Women’s Hospital in Melbourne prior to her recent retirement.

Thomas Schaefer

Thomas was appointed to the Board of MSF Australia in December 2021. He currently works as Clinical Lead for Amity Health, a not-for-profit organisation in Western Australia providing rural health care and outreach for indigenous communities in remote regions of WA. Thomas is a multi-lingual, orthopaedic surgeon with significant experience in general orthopaedics. Thomas has completed 5 field placements in Gaza and Haiti with MSF since 2019.