2026 MRI Safety Day Speakers

Wendy Strugnell, BSc(MIT), FISMRT
Cardiac MRI Services and Research Manager, Queensland X-Ray
ISMRT ANC Executive Member

Wendy Strugnell is the Cardiac MRI Services Manager for Queensland X-ray. She is the current international Treasurer of the ISMRT and also the Executive Member of the ISMRT Australian National Chapter.

Wendy is a Fellow and Honorary Member of the ISMRT, an International Past President and Past Secretary and was awarded the Crues Kressel Award in 2013.

Robert Parkes
Neurosurgical product specialist, Medtronic

Robert has worked in the medical device industry since 1994 in which he has spent 23 years representing Medtronic. He covers a broad range of technologies used in neurosurgery and allied specialties throughout New Zealand. As part of Medtronic’s neuromodulation therapies, Robert has been involved with Deep Brain Stimulation since the national DBS service was established at Auckland City Hospital in 2008. The role also sees him involved with Spinal Cord Stimulation for chronic pain and Intrathecal Baclofen Therapy for intractable spasticity. Outside of work, Robert has a wife who works in a busy rheumatology practice and a daughter who is a palliative care nurse. Robert enjoys a part time role as a High Performance Referee Coach for New Zealand Rugby.

Jacob Cameron, M.Sc, B.MedImag
Pacific Radiology Canterbury / RHCNZ

Jacob is the Charge MRI Technologist at Pacific Radiology Canterbury and based in Christchurch. He has been a member of ISMRT for well over a decade and involved at a National, A&NZ and International level. He is the current NZ Chapter Past-President, and the Executive member on the International Governing Board.

Beau Pontré , PhD, B.Sc (Hons)
University of Auckland

Beau Pontré is a Senior Lecturer and the Director of the Medical Imaging programmes at the University of Auckland. Beau completed his PhD in Physics at the University of Western Australia in 2006. In that same year, he started working as an MRI Physicist with the Centre for Advanced MRI (CAMRI) at the University of Auckland, where he was responsible for managing research projects in a preclinical MRI facility and providing physics and technical support for CAMRI’s clinical imaging facilities. Since 2013, he has been in an academic role with the Medical Imaging team at the University of Auckland, and has been Programme Director since 2019. In his teaching role, he has a specialist responsibility for coordinating and supporting the physics and technology teaching across all modalities. Beau is also actively working on a number of research projects involving MRI covering a variety of topics including imaging of congenital heart disease, assessing regional lung function, and MRI-guided radiotherapy planning.

Sophia Mortensen, PGDip MRI, B.H.Sc.
Reform Radiology

Sophia qualified as a radiographer in 2009 with a Bachelor of Health Science in Medical Imaging through the Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology. After completing one year at Christchurch Public, she moved to Queensland Australia where she was a senior/charge technologist. In 2016 she returned to New Zealand, Christchurch taking on an MRI training position with Pacific Radiology through the University of Auckland. Sophia Completed her MRI qualifications in 2018 with distinction. She now works for Reform Radiology as a senior technologist and as a casual at the CDHB.

Chris McKee, MB ChB, RANZCR
Auckland Radiology Group / RHCNZ

Dr Chris McKee is an experienced Radiologist, currently practicing at North shore Hospital and Auckland Radiology Group. He is the Director of MRI at North Shore Hospital , overseeing the clinical application of MRIs services, image quality and protocol development. He completed Fellowship training in Melbourne, Australia and is a sub specialist in body imaging, particularly upper GI, bowel and Oncology and participates in several multidisciplinary meeting in these areas. He has previously presented at multiple conferences in New Zealand and Australia on these topics and on MRI.

Julie Manktelow, PGDip MRI, PGDip Nuc Med, ACBD
Pacific Radiology Canterbury / RHCNZ

Julie trained at Auckland Hospital in 1985, leaving for Wellington to do a post grad in Nuclear Medicine. Bouncing back to Auckland to work at Mercy Radiology in 1989. She started in MRI in 1992 on the fist MRI unit in New Zealand. Julie has also been a part time lecturer at Unitech. She immigrated to Australia in 2002 working in MRI at Carbrini Hospital and i-med Melbourne. Julie returned to New Zealand in 2019, to work for Pacific Radiology in Nelson doing locums for the ADHB. Julie moved to Christchurch in 2025 where she is currently employed by Pacific Radiology Group Canterbury.

James Whittaker, PGDip, MRSO
River Radiology

James Whittaker is an MRI Technologist working for River Radiology in Hamilton. James trained in MRI in 1999 at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London, taught not only by knowledgeable MRI Technologists but by physicists, biochemists and other scientists working for the Institute of Cancer Research. He moved to New Zealand in 2007, receiving his post-graduate diploma in MRI in 2009 and his MRSO qualification in 2019. In 2016 he scanned the first patient to have an Auditory Brainstem Implant surgically implanted in New Zealand. In addition to his day job, James is a Technical Expert for IANZ and occasionally hosts an MRI safety podcast called Conditional 1.