Dr Courtney McDonald is a NHMRC Cerebral Palsy Alliance Early Career Research Fellow, working in the Neurodevelopment and Neuroprotection Research Group at The Ritchie Centre. She is a stem cell biologist, who completed her PhD at Monash University in 2013. Her research focuses on trying to understand how umbilical cord blood stem cells can be used to prevent or treat perinatal brain injury. She is also investigating which stem cell types are found in umbilical cord blood, how these populations change with disease and how these cells can reduce inflammation and contribute to brain repair.