Meet the Team













Alesta Stephan

Director of Training

Elizabeth Fussell

Director of Training.
Elizabeth has been the director of stage 3 training since 2019 and is also an Old Age Psychiatrist. She has a background in medical education having worked at the University of Colorado and is also the National Director of Advanced Training for Old Age Psychiatry in New Zealand.





Tony Muller

Tony is a Adult Community psychiatrist who completed his entire RANZCP fellowship training at Waikato DHB. He has completed the RANZCP Certificate of Advanced Training in psychodynamic psychotherapy, and continues to practice and further train in psychotherapy. He is the psychotherapy co-ordinator for UCNI, and is also involved in psychotherapy teaching for the FEC.

Martin Van Zyl

Co-Ordinator of Training Rotorua. Dr Martin Van Zyl has been the co-ordinator of training at Rotorua since 2023 and is an Old Age Psychiatrist.

Duncan Neilson

Co-Ordinator of Training Bay of Plenty Dr Duncan Neilson has been the Training Facilitator for Bay of Plenty since 2019. His clinical role is a Psychogeriatrician with the Mental Health Services for Older People, and he is also a Cohort Tutor with the University of Auckland for 5th and 6th year medical students.





Sharon Francis

Training programme administrator

















Etuini Ma'u

Dr 'Etuini Ma'u is the chair of the training committee, a member of the Scholarly Project subcommittee of UCNI and a member of RANZCP Scholarly Training Committee. He is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Psychological Medicine at the University of Auckland and a Consultant Old Age Psychiatrist at Te Whatu Ora Waikato. He is a member of the Dementia Matewareware Leadership and Advisory group, providing strategic advice to guide government on achieving the vision of the Dementia Matewareware Action Plan 2020-2025 in Aotearoa. 'Etuini was awarded an HRC Pacific Clinical Research Training Fellowship in 2019 and the Alzheimers New Zealand Fellowship in 2022 to support his research into dementia prevention and improving dementia services for Pacific peoples in Aotearoa.