INAC 2026 Programme
Meet our Scientific Committee
Jose Honold
INA President
Jose Honold
Dr Jose Honold is a Professor of Pediatrics at the University of California San Diego.
He has worked as a Neonatologist and ECMO specialist for over 25 years in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and CVICU at Rady Children's Hospital San Diego.
Dr Honold has been the Medical Director of the Neuro NICU since it was developed in 2011. He has trained fellows and nurses to performed neuromonitoring on infants admitted for evaluation of possible Brain injury. His team has been involved in several published Research projects, mostly looking for more efficient anticonvulsants like the NEOLEV study and the Lacosamide Study.
Dr Honold has been a board member of INA soon after it was founded and is now the current President of the International Neonatal Association.
Christian Poets
Co-Chair Scientific Committee
Christian Poets
Prof. Poets graduated from Hannover Medical School in June 1986. He received his medical training at the Dept. of Paediatric Pulmonology & Neonatology, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany, and at the Dept. of Paediatric Respiratory Physiology, Brompton Hospital&National Heart & Lung Institute, London, UK. In 1994, he became director of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and the Paediatric Sleep Lab at Hannover Medical School.
Since 2002, he is Chair and Medical Director, Department of Neonatology, University Hospital, Tuebingen, Germany. In 2008, he became chairman of the newly established Inderdisciplinary Center for Cleft Palate and Craniofacial Malformations at Tuebingen University Hospital. He has (co-)authored over 380 articles cited in PubMed, has contributed to over 120 review articles. His main research interests include the control of breathing, sleep apnoea/intermittent hypoxia, Sudden Infant Death, perinatal epidemiology and outcome research, innate immunity, and the conduct of multicentre clinical trials. With regard to the latter, he was coordinator and Co-PI of NEuroSIS, a large EU-funded multicentre study on inhaled steroids for BPD prevention, and was/is steering committee member of various multicentre trials (e.g., COT, ETTNO). In addition, he serves on the DSMB of 2 large multicentre international trials (DOXA and HiLo).
Ashok Gupta
INA Executive Director
Ashok Gupta
Dr Ashok Gupta,
Professor and Head Department of Paediatrics and Neonatology, SMS Medical College Jaipur, India. Currently the Executive Director of the International Neonatology Association Geneva. Chairperson of the State newborn care and research centre at Jaipur. Granted a patent from IPR India for a semi open system of newborn care. I have done short term fellowships from The University of Illinois at Chicago and a fellowship from the American Academy of Paediatrics video India Gyani fund at Hawaii.
Have chaired and been faculty in many National and international meetings.
The focus in Neonatology is on managing newborn in resource poor situations. In the last few years have focussed on newborn screening and rare metabolic and genetic disorders. I also head the technical committee for rate disease in the State.
Alex Stevenson
Scientific Committee
Alex Stevenson
Alex Stevenson is a Zimbabwean neonatologist, based in Harare Zimbabwe. He trained in Cape Town and Zimbabwe.
He is President of the African Neonatal Association and also PI in the African Neonatal Network.
His research interests include neonatal databases, quality improvement projects in LMIC’s, and understanding why different neonatal units have different outcomes. He practices as a clinical neonatologist in Harare, both in a well-resourced private hospital and a less well-resourced public hospital.
He is married, with three children. He enjoys reading novels, hiking, and spending time in the African bush.
Manon Benders
Scientific Committee & Local Chairperson
Manon Benders
Prof. Manon J.N.L. Benders, MD, PhD is Professor of Neonatal Medicine at the Department of Neonatology at UMC Utrecht and the Wilhelmina Children’s Hospital (WKZ), the Netherlands. She is an internationally recognized expert in neonatal brain injury, with a research focus on early detection, neuroprotection, and regenerative therapies to improve long-term neurodevelopmental outcomes in high-risk infants, including those born preterm or affected by hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy and perinatal stroke.
Prof. Benders has extensive international clinical and research experience. During her career, she worked as a Junior Research Fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), as a Senior Research Fellow at the University Hospitals of Geneva (HUG), and as Senior Lecturer and Consultant Neonatologist at King’s College London and St Thomas’ Hospital, where she contributed to advancing neonatal neuroimaging and neuroprotection research.
Her work integrates advanced neuroimaging, neuromonitoring, and translational clinical trials, including pioneering studies on regenerative therapies for neonatal brain injury, for example stem cell. She leads several national and international research consortia and clinical trials and is committed to translating scientific discoveries into innovative therapies that improve outcomes for children and their families.
Brett Manley
Scientific Committee
Professor Brett Manley
Professor Brett Manley is a consultant neonatologist and inaugural Professor/Director of Newborn Research at the Mercy Hospital for Women in Melbourne, Australia, and a Professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynaecology and Newborn Health at The University of Melbourne. Brett leads and collaborates on large clinical trials to improve the health of preterm and sick newborn infants. Currently he co-leads the world-first PLATIPUS adaptive platform trial that is aiming to change the way we do perinatal clinical research.