Professor Vlado Perkovic

Dean, Faculty of Medicine, UNSW Sydney

Vlado Perkovic is the Dean of Medicine at UNSW Sydney having commenced in October 2019. Prior to this, he was the Executive Director of The George Institute since 2011. He is Staff Specialist in Nephrology at the Royal North Shore Hospital. Vlado’s research focus is in clinical trials and epidemiology, in particular in preventing the progression of kidney disease and its complications. He leads several international clinical trials, and has been involved in developing Australian and global treatment guidelines. He has played a central role in the development of an affordable dialysis system, which was a Eureka Prize finalist in 2017. Vlado is the President of the Association of Australian Medical Research Institute and is on the Board of the Australian Clinical Trials Alliance. He is Chair of the International Society of Nephrology Advancing Clinical Trials (ISN-ACT) group; and is a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, and the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences. He serves on the Editorial Boards of a number of leading specialist and general journals, including the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, Circulation, and the New England Journal of Medicine.

Professor Emily Banks

Professor of Epidemiology and Public Health, ANU College of Health and Medicine

Professor Emily Banks is an epidemiologist and public health physician. Her research uses large-scale population data to identify potentially modifiable factors affecting individual and population health in different settings, to inform improvements in health and health care.  She is recognised nationally and internationally for her work on cancer, cardiovascular disease, smoking, medication safety and Aboriginal health. She currently leads the Epidemiology for Policy and Practice Group at the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, Australian National University, is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences and a Visiting Professor at the University of Oxford.

Professor Evelyne de Leeuw

Professor of Public Health, Director of the Centre for Health Equity Training, Research and Evaluation

Evelyne is, since 2015, Professor of Public Health and Director of the Centre for Health Equity Training, Research and Evaluation (CHETRE). CHETRE is part of the University of New South Wales, South Western Sydney Local Health District (the healthcare and health promotion provider to the most diverse and most health challenged population in the Greater Sydney basin), and Ingham Institute (a charitative health research institute connecting industry, community and the profession). With CHETRE’s mission ‘to co-create intelligence for better health’ Evelyne believes she has landed her best job ever, working with people, problems, and politics for health equity. CHETRE’s stakeholders recognise ‘the best job’, too – Evelyne was appointed Director of the Healthy Urban Environments (HUE) Collaboratory, a research, development and advocacy centre across three universities (UNSW, WSU, UTS), two health districts, local governments and developers. Evelyne has several parallel jobs. She is Editor-in-Chief of the peer reviewed journal Health Promotion International (IF 2), sits on the Executive Board of the International Union for Health Promotion and Education IUHPE, advises WHO, and is the chair of the Global Scientific Committee for IUHPE2022. Much of this is driven by Evelyne’s commitment to worldwide Healthy Cities – she has been involved with the European movement since its start (1986) and did evaluations and consultations with many local governments – including in Japan, El Salvador, Korea, Kazakhstan, and The Netherlands. Work with local health policy has driven her to argue for a ‘new’ scientific discipline – health political science, bridging public health, health promotion, policy studies, administrative, and political science. Finally some metrics. More than 200 peer reviewed articles and eight books. H-index 27. 50 online lectures and videos at Vimeo.

Professor Jason Grebely

Professor Viral Hepatitis Clinical Program, Kirby Institute, UNSW Sydney

Jason Grebely is a Professor in the Viral Hepatitis Clinical Program at the Kirby Institute at UNSW Sydney. His research focuses on the epidemiology, natural history and therapeutic strategies for enhancing testing and treatment for hepatitis C infection, with a focus on people who inject drugs. Jason has a BSc in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and a PhD in Pharmacology and Therapeutics, both from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. He completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship in Clinical Epidemiology at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. He has published over 240 peer-reviewed publications and has current research funding from Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council and the US National Institutes of Health. Jason is a Senior Editor for the International Journal of Drug Policy. He is also the President of the International Network for Hepatitis in Substance Users, an international body for improving knowledge translation, education and advocacy for HCV among people who inject drugs.

Adjunct A/Professor Mary Haines

Director, Mary Haines Consulting (MHC)

Mary Haines is the Director of Mary Haines Consulting (MHC), a boutique consultancy company. Mary has over 20 years’ experience working in senior positions across the government, corporate, academic, and not-for-profit sectors. Mary’s expertise lies in strategy, implementation, research and evaluation in the health, human services and research sectors. Mary has held senior executive service (NSW Health) and governance committee/Board positions in the NSW Government (SLHD, CEC, ACI). Additionally, Mary has been an executive NSW government research funder in her role as a Director of Strategic Research Investment at the Cancer Institute NSW.  Mary also has is a depth of expertise in the university sector. Mary is an Adjunct Associate Professor at the School of Public Health, Menzies Centre for Health Policy at the University of Sydney.  Mary is a Senior Adviser at the Sax Institute.  Maryhas a PhD in Public Health from University College London, UK and was a Fulbright Scholar based in the USA at the Rand Corporation/ UCLA/ Veterans Health Administration, focusing on evaluation and implementation.

Dr Janani Shanthosh

Global Health Lawyer and Research Fellow in Health, Economics and Law, The George Institute for Global Health, UNSW Sydney

Dr Janani Shanthosh is a global health lawyer and Research Fellow in Health, Economics and Law at The George Institute for Global Health. Janani leads a public health law research stream within the Health Economics and Process Evaluation Division of the Centre. This work aims to develop empirical research tools that policy makers and researchers can use to evaluate public health law (in terms of power, effectiveness, acceptability and sustainability), and to inform the design of legislative reform. Janani holds a concurrent position as Academic Lead of the Health and Human Rights Program at the Australian Human Rights (AHR) Institute, University of New South Wales. The Program works toward the progressive realisation of human rights at national, regional and global levels by improving the generation and translation of evidence about the linkages between human rights and health outcomes. Janani’s research interests are at the intersection of health systems and international human rights and include women’s health rights in the Asia Pacific region, Indigenous participation in the design and implementation of public health law, and non-communicable disease (NCDs) prevention and the law. She has published extensively in journals including the Lancet, BMJ Global Health and The International Journal of Drug Policy.