Christa Lam-Cassettari is a Senior Research Associate in the School of Psychiatry, UNSW, Academic Unit of Child Psychiatry South West Sydney (AUCS), National Clinical Trial Coordinator, Watch Me Grow Integrated Approach – WMG-I: Changing practice to improve universal child health and developmental surveillance in the primary care setting. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness and economic cost of the digital Watch Me Grow – Integrated (WMG-I) intervention and to explore stakeholder and community requirements of child developmental checks in the preschool years.  

Her research interests include: the role of digital screening solutions and family centred interventions in improving child outcomes; quantitative and qualitative differences in infant-directed speech (IDS) input and the role of IDS in supporting early language, emotional availability and social-emotional development in children from 0-5 years of age; and the effect of postnatal depression on parent-child communication. Lam-Cassettari obtained her PhD examining the influence of infant hearing loss on mother-infant interaction: Implications for infant-directed speech, infant responsiveness and vocabulary development. 

Christa was the interim Academic Leader BabyLab, at The MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, Western Sydney University 2018-2020. She holds an Adjunct Fellowship at The MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development.