Rate My Professor Karen Simmer

Professor Simmer holds an MBBS with First Class Honours from the University of Sydney (1979), PhD from the University of London (1986), FRACP (1987), MRCP(UK) (1984), FRCPCH(UK) (1997), Graduate Diploma in Health Service Management from Edith Cowan University (2003), and Graduate Certificate in Tertiary Education from Flinders University (1998). Her research specializations include neonatology, perinatal and infant nutrition with emphasis on enteral and parenteral nutrition for preterm infants, human milk banks and breastfeeding, long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids and child development, neonatal infection, innate immunity, late-onset sepsis, and strategies to improve growth and development of preterm infants. She has over 200 peer-reviewed publications with an h-index of 50 and 8,536 citations. Key publications comprise "Peritoneal drainage versus laparotomy as initial treatment for surgical necrotising enterocolitis or spontaneous intestinal perforation in preterm very low birth weight infants" (2025), "Early versus late parenteral nutrition in term and late preterm infants: A randomised controlled trial" (2024), "High-Dose Docosahexaenoic Acid in Newborns Born at Less Than 29 Weeks' Gestation and Behavior at Age 5 Years: Follow-Up of a Randomized Clinical Trial" (2024), "Current parenteral nutrition practice and clinical outcomes of term and late preterm infants: A retrospective study" (2023), and "Neonatal Docosahexaenoic Acid in Preterm Infants and Intelligence at 5 Years" (2022). She has supervised more than 20 PhD students to completion. Awards include Officer of the Order of Australia (2015) for service to medicine in neonatal paediatrics and nutrition, and Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences (2017). Her leadership has resulted in excellent clinical outcomes for newborn care in Western Australia and international recognition for the team.