Our Committee

Bec Stewart

Bec is the Acting President of HMA.  She was born into a hearing-impaired family with a hearing-impaired father, older brother and extended family members. She was diagnosed with a mild hearing loss at 3 and received hearing aids at 5 years old. Due to the progressive nature of Bec’s hearing loss she received a cochlear implant at 25 years old and continues to wear a hearing aid in the other ear.

Growing up with so many hearing-impaired role models Bec developed a passion for social justice and the power of self-education in managing hearing loss. Bec was featured in an episode about deafness on the ABC TV show ‘You Can’t Ask That’ and was interviewed on Triple J about her experiences.

Bec has been working and volunteering with Hear For You in various roles since 2013, helping teenagers with hearing loss to build their confidence and develop skills to thrive in a hearing world. 

Bec also assists her dad, Andrew Stewart, in his company Hearing Connections as the Communications Officer. Bec has a talent for writing about the struggles that can come with hearing loss, and recently started a blog to provide a resource for people to learn more about the challenges navigated by deaf or hearing impaired people living in a hearing world.   

Simone Punch

Simone is the current HMA Vice President.  She was born severely deaf and her experiences growing up wearing hearing aids and accessing hearing services has informed her work in the field of audiology and her personal passion for advocacy and inclusion. 

Simone holds postgraduate qualifications in audiology and public health management. She has more than 20 years of experience in the field Audiology both in Australia and the UK. Simone has experience in adult and paediatric hearing aid fitting and rehabilitation and clinical leadership. She has a particular interest in infant fitting and paediatric audiology and has presented on topics in this area at national and international audiology conferences and seminars. 

She is currently a Clinical Coach and Paediatric Audiologist at Hearing Australia. In addition to this role Simone is an adjunct lecturer for the Masters of Disabilty Studies degree at Macquarie University, and a member of Parents of Deaf Children (PODC)’s professional advisory panel.

For the last 5 years Simone has regularly travelled to Samoa as part of a team providing volunteer audiology services to children. In her free time outside of work Simone enjoys the company of friends and family, travel, and exploring the vibrant food, visual arts, and cultural offerings within her home city of Sydney.

Louise Collingridge

Louise is the current Treasurer and Secretary for HMA.  She qualified as a speech pathologist and audiologist in South Africa, where she spent the first half of her career developing audiology services in disadvantaged communities whilst holding a position at the University of Cape Town.  Amongst the projects she undertook were to establish audiology services in schools for the deaf in very disadvantaged areas, an adult literacy program in the Deaf community and establishing an audiology clinic that was owned and managed by the Deaf community.  

On coming to Australia, Louise worked as a specialist audiologist at Australian Hearing and then as the audiology clinic manager at Macquarie University, where she completed a PhD.  She has 35 years of experience in the audiology field, which serves her well in her current role as the contracted CEO for Independent Audiologists Australia.  She also takes on contractual work as a qualitative researcher in health.  Louise is deeply committed to improving both professional recognition for the audiology field and appropriate funding models for those who are Deaf or hard of hearing.    

In her free time outside of work Louise enjoys reading, the arts, and travel.  She particularly loves exploring the variety and beauty of the Australian countryside.

Christian Carter

HMA Committee Member Christian does not hold office bearing positions, but serve on the HMA committee assisting with all aspects of committee decisions and responsibilities.