Key Staff
Staff and research students involved in global health research
Quick links:
Staff
Convenor: Professor Anthony Zwi -
see full research interests profile >>
Anthony has a longstanding commitment to promoting evidence-informed humanitarian interventions and health system development in resource-constrained and unstable or fragile settings. His research focuses on community, service and policy responses to natural disasters and conflict, and seeks to facilitate service delivery in fragile states; in the last few years with an emphasis on Timor-Leste, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka and Cambodia. He is also engaged in building capacity to conduct research which builds the evidence base to inform healthy public policies and is an active researcher of development in development cooperation, as well as international and global health policy. He is an active writer and reviewer of papers and grant proposals, and is a member of a number of editorial boards (Lancet, Global Public Health, Indian Journal of Medical Ethics). He teaches international health and development, policy studies, and is supervising a number of students undertaking PhDs with a global health focus.
Dr Augustine Asante -
see full research interests profile >>
Augustine is a health economist with experience of developing and examining resource allocation models with a strong focus on promoting health equity. He has worked in Ghana where he examined resource allocation in decentralising systems, and in Australia where he has worked with African migrants in relation to HIV/AIDS.
Dr Catherine Bateman-Steel -
see full research interests profile >>
Dr Ilse Blignault -
see full research interests profile >>
Ilse has over 30 years experience in the Australian and overseas (Timor-Leste, Solomon Islands and Malaysia) health sectors as a clinician, manager, educator and researcher. She has broad experience in research and service/policy development and capacity building, with specialist expertise in mental health and substance abuse. Her extensive cross-cultural experience includes consultancies for AusAID-funded development and research projects, as well as consultancies in indigenous and migrant health. She is presently managing an educational project on mood disorders for health professionals from Sri-Lanka, Fiji, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands for the Black Dog Institute. Her current research investigates mental health and psychosocial policy and services in fragile states; she is also Co-Project Director of the Health Care Seeking Behaviour Study currently being undertaken in Timor-Leste.
Ms Anne Bunde-Birouste -
see full research interests profile >>
Anne is a Senior Lecturer and Convener of the Health Promotion Program in the School of Public Health and Community Medicine. She has a keen interest in conflict prevention and peace building, having recently coordinated the development of the innovative Health and Peace-building Filter, funded by AusAID. Her current research is on mental health in post-conflict countries and social cohesion and refugees. She has substantial oversees experience in leadership, capacity building and innovative approaches to health development and promotion, having developed the Global Program on Health Promotion Effectiveness (IUHPE, Paris France). Recent international consultancies include Kenya, Sri Lanka, the Solomon Islands and Cambodia.
Dr John Dewdney -
see full research interests profile >>
John has had more than forty years experience as a practitioner, consultant, researcher and trainer in health service development in general and human resource planning and development in particular. Under contracts with the World Bank, WHO, DFID, ADB, AusAID he has participated in IO-funded health development projects in more than thirty countries. His computer based health workforce planning model has been employed in the development of national health workforce plans in countries in Africa, Asia, Central America, Europe and Oceania.
Ms Sophie di Corpo -
see full research interests profile >>
Sophie's main interests are in the design of learning environments, curriculum development and evaluation. As an Education Consultant for AusAID, she worked at the University of Papua New Guinea in the Division of Public Health and Nursing Studies (2001-2004), on the design, development and evaluation of courses in the Master of Public Health Program and an Infection Prevention and Control Module. Other overseas work includes conducting Learning Materials Workshops for academic staff in the Faculty of Health Sciences in the Maldives (January 2001), designed and coordinated the development of training modules for health facility managers in Laos, and delivery of workshops on distance education for overseas academics, including Bangladesh Open University.
Ben Harris-Roxas -
see full research interests profile >>
Ben is an Australian leader in the development of health impact assessment (HIA). He has been involved in almost thirty HIAs and has active links with HIA practitioners and researchers throughout the Asia Pacific, notably in Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Lao PDR and New Zealand. He has also trained over 200 practitioners in HIA’s use.
Professor Mark Harris -
see full research interests profile >>
Mark is Foundation Professor of General Practice at UNSW and Executive Director of the Centre for Primary Health Care and Equity. He has recently commenced a Department of Health and Ageing Professorial Fellowship. He has substantial experience in the areas of primary health care systems development and chronic illness, especially Diabetes and Cardiovascular disease. He has over 140 publications in peer reviewed journals and an average of over $8m in research grants over the past 5 years. He has worked in Malaysia (Sabah) and Vanuatu and has done short term consultancy work for WHO in China, Cook Islands, Micronesia, Vanuatu and Vietnam on Non Communicable Disease prevention and control.
Dr Peter Harris -
see full research interests profile >>
Mr Alan Hodgkinson -
see full research interests profile >>
Alan has extensive experience in working in the pacific countries. He has led teams in the Open Learning Health Network (WHO) and Executive management and leadership (AusAID) in the Solomons. He worked in the Fiji health management reform project for three years as training adviser, where he assessed training needs, contacted training and evaluated impact of training. He has 20 years experience as a clinician and health services manager and 15 years coordinating and teaching postgraduate programs in public health and health services management. He has also worked in Mongolia (health workforce planning), and has ongoing involvement with the Cambodian MoH.
Dr Husna Razee -
see full research interests profile >>
Dr Husna Razee has over 15 years of experience in Public Health and Health Promotion in the Maldives. This involved health policy development, strategic planning for social sector, management of public health programmes, health workforce planning, health professional education, capacity building and promoting gender equity. Dr Razee has worked extensively with World Health Organization, UNICEF and other UN agencies as well as Asian Development Bank and AusAID as a national counterpart and a consultant. Her work with WHO, UNICEF and UNIFEM included health planning and policy development, and promoting gender equity within a South Asian context. She completed her PhD at the University of New South Wales. Her research focused on the cultural and social determinants of mental health of Maldivian women and the implications for mental health promotion and mental health service. Her current research in Australia explores the socio-cultural barriers and enablers to physical activity and healthy eating among women with recent experience of gestational diabetes mellitus. She currently teaches in both the postgraduate public health programme and undergraduate medical programme at UNSW School of Public Health and Community Medicine. Dr Razee’s strengths include strategic planning and programme management, capacity building, qualitative research, health promotion and gender, culture and health.
Associate Professor Rohan Jayasuriya -
see full research interests profile >>
Rohan has over 25 years experience in working at a senior advisory level in Health Planning and health sector reform, Health Information Systems development ( Sri Lanka) , Strategic Human Resource Management ( PNG) and Program Evaluation in many low and middle income countries. He has worked in 14 countries in the Asia-Pacific region. He has worked for WHO, UNICEF, AusAID, the Asian Development Bank and World Bank on projects such as the Integrated Community Health Services Project in the Philippines, Health Systems Support Project (AusAID) in Papua New Guinea, Health Sector reform in Mongolia (ADB), the Philippines Area focus project (AusAID) and as an advisor for health policy development and management for the Ministry of Health , Sri Lanka. He is an internationally recognised expert in the field of health information systems development and was on the WHO Expert Panel and is a consultant for the Health Metrics Network. He is currently the Director (Technical) of the Human Resources for Health Knowledge Hub at UNSW.
Professor John Kaldor (and NCHECR) -
see full research interests profile >>
Dr Linda Kurti -
see full research interests profile >>
Linda Kurti is a Director of Social Research with Urbis Pty Ltd, and in that role leads a team of researchers undertaking policy and evaluation research across Australia. Linda has experience at executive and strategic levels in the non-government sector, and has worked in health service development and research in the academic, government, non-profit and commercial sectors. Her doctoral research examined policy implications of faith-based NGOs working in government-funded international development programs. Linda's research interests include health and organisational system development, knowledge management and capacity building, global health issues, health inequality and equity of access, and faith-based non-governmental organisations operating in the international development sector.
Associate Professor Lisa Maher -
see full research interests profile >>
Lisa is a Program Head at the National Centre in HIV Epidemiology and Clinical Research, Associate Professor in the School of Public Health and Community Medicine at the University of New South Wales and an Honorary Fellow of the Centre for Harm Reduction at the Burnet Institute. She has international experience in research, program development and service delivery with injecting drug users, sex workers, PLWHA, youth and homeless people and in the social and cultural contexts of disease prevention/harm reduction and the epidemiology of blood-borne viral and sexually transmitted infections. She has worked with migrant populations in Australia and ethnic and cultural minorities in North America and with affected communities in South East Asia (Thailand, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia) and the Pacific.
Professor Raina MacIntyre -
see full research interests profile >>
Raina MacIntyre is Head of the School of Public Health and Community Medicine, at the University of New South Wales. She is an expert in infectious diseases epidemiology, and involved in numerous influenza and respiratory virus research studies. Her most significant research is on the transmission and control of infectious diseases, particularly those spread by the respiratory route. She has current research projects encompassing clinical trials and epidemiologic studies of face masks, vaccines, antivirals and other preventive measures in communicable diseases control. She also has projects in special risk populations such as health care workers, immunosuppressed, refugees and the frail elderly. She has numerous interests in relation to global and international heatlh with current projects on emerging infectious diseases in China and Thailand.
Associate Professor Mary-Louise McLaws -
see full research interests profile >>
Associate Professor McLaws work in clinical epidemiology focuses on patient safety. She has conducted research into healthcare workers behaviour related to patient safety and healthcare associated infections in Australia, Iran, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and China. Recent World Health Organization (WHO) appointments have included advisor to the Chinese MoH to develop a national patient safety surveillance system associated with infection and the Malaysian MoH to review the Malaysian system. She contributed to the WHO guidelines Clean Care is Safer Care and reviewed the Beijing SARS outbreak with the Deputy Chief of Beijing Health Bureau.
Dr Lois Meyer -
see full research interests profile >>
Lois has taught at undergraduate and postgraduate level in HRD and worked in the area of organizational learning for over twenty years in public and private organisations particularly in the areas of management, program design and workplace learning. She has a strong research interest in capacity building through learning and development strategies at individual, organizational and system levels. Lois was part of the team that undertook the AusAID funded MHMS Executive Management & Leadership Training program.
A/Professor Lisa Jackson Pulver -
see full research interests profile >>
Professor Robyn Richmond -
see full research interests profile >>
Robyn’s research over 26 years has focused on smoking reduction including evaluating pharmacotherapies; reducing risky alcohol consumption; reducing cardiovascular risk factors among high risk groups including Indigenous people, the mentally ill and prisoners; and investigation of the cardiovascular health of centenarians. Her research has led to fundamental and long standing impacts on policy, clinical practice, teaching and training. Her global research work includes a series of studies extending over 12 years in which she has developed and evaluated teaching programs on tobacco and smoking cessation techniques which have been implemented in medical schools globally. Robyn was invited in 1991 to join the Tobacco Prevention Section of the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease as Australian representative. She was elected Deputy Chair (1994-1996) and elected Chair (1996 to 1998). This position led to running of training workshops in many countries including Thailand, Turkey and France. Locally, Robyn teaches at UNSW at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, supervises PhD students and trains health professionals in smoking cessation.
Associate Professor Jan Ritchie -
see full research interests profile >>
Dr Mohamud Sheikh -
see full research interests profile >>
Mohamud is an NHMRC Public Health Research Fellow at the School of Public Health and Community Medicine with over 17 years of experience in infectious diseases and tropical medicine. He has academic qualifications in Medical Laboratory Sciences (majoring in Medical Microbiology, Virology, Parasitology and Medical Entomology), and graduated from University of Sydney with Master of International Public Health, Master of Health Science (clinical data management & clinical trials), and a doctorate in public health. Mohamud comes with a rich clinical and non-clinical expertise. He has various trained in Public Health Anthropology, Health Programs Evaluation, and Data Management, amongst others. Recently, Mohamud has had outstanding achievements and attained several key awards that included; Public Health Education Research & Training, Cross Cultural Public Health Research Award and 4 years fully funded NHMRC research fellowship. His research interests include, infectious diseases research (such as TB, Malaria, HIV/AIDS, Vaccine Preventable diseases & other), International Health Development, Refugee Health, Human Rights and Public Health, Tropical Diseases Surveillance and Control among other. He has had several peer-reviewed publications and reviews for several international health journals.
Professor Derrick Silove -
see full research interests profile >>
Derrick has extensive engagement in population mental health in Australia and internationally. He was actively involved in East Timor from 2000-2005 where he led PRADET and helped establish the National Mental Health Program, funded by AusAID. He has undertaken consultancies, service evaluation, research and training in Cambodia, Vietnam, Timor-Leste, Solomon Islands, former Yugoslavia, and in a range of refugee camps in Central Africa. He is actively involved in local developments in policy, programming, services, clinical, research, training in refugee, post-conflict, migrant and trans-cultural mental health.
Professor Daniel Tarantola -
see full research interests profile >>
Daniel’s international career spans over a period of thirty years, most of which was devoted to the development, implementation and evaluation of public health policies, programs and services in the Asia-Pacific Region as a senior staff member of the World Health Organization and a consultant to UNICEF, UNAIDS, UNDP and the World Bank. A strong focus of his professional activity under the auspices of these organisations and later at the Harvard School of Public Health has been placed on such issues as child health, communicable diseases, and HIV. His current position at the UNSW as a Professor of Health and Human Rights and Chair of the Health and Human Rights Initiative at UNSW. The Initiative is actively facilitating cross-disciplinary collaboration on researching and enhancing the availability, accessibility, acceptability and quality of health services. Additionally, Daniel chairs the UNSW Initiative for Health and Human Rights (IHHR), a multidisciplinary research, teaching, service and advocacy initiative founded collectively by the Faculties of Medicine, Arts and Social Sciences and Law. The IHHR advances Health and Human Rights as both an area of study and a new, composite method of research applicable to: (1) Building the evidence of the synergy between health, development and human rights; (2) Improving Governance and its impact on health and rights; (3) Focusing on vulnerable populations; and (4) Exploring the interface between health, development, human rights, poverty and globalization. He also has interest and expertise in global and national policies and practices relevant to infectious diseases (HIV, hepatitis C, Pandemic influenza preparedness and response), vaccines and immunisation.
Associate Professor Anna Whelan -
see full research interests profile >>
Anna has researched culture, gender and reproductive health for over twenty years. She founded GenderHealth@UNSW in 2006 and convened the recent 9th IAWG meeting on reproductive health in crisis situations at UNSW. GenderHealth@UNSW with IPPF has commenced a project aimed at improving the reproductive health response in crisis with over $2.8 million funding from Ausaid. Anna has researched the health dimensions of Women at Risk in refugee settings and drawn attention to the particular features of women’s experiences which place them in vulnerable positions in emergencies. Anna was the team leader for a UNFPA-funded multi-country evaluation of reproductive health services in refugee settings, working in a number of refugee and internally displaced settings to examine how agencies and affected communities have experienced the implementation of RH services in their settings. Anna also has extensive experience in management training and leadership development in many countries in the Asia-Pacific. She has worked as a consultant for WHO, AusAID, the World Bank, Ministries of Health and non-government organisations, and has conducted evaluations in several countries, in particular in Vietnam.
Kolitha Wickramage -
see full research interests profile >>
Kolitha is a conjoint lecturer at the School of Public Health and has experience in implementing various community development and health promotion programs for Refugees and internally displaced communities. His international experience has been within conflict affected zones in Sri Lanka, where he worked with the World Health Organization in 2004/5, and with Merlin, the British Medical relief agency in 2006/7. Kolitha is currently completing his PhD in community participation within Maternal and Child health programs in resource limited settings. Kolitha has presented at various International Public Health conferences and has published in international peer-reviewed journals on humanitarian intervention and health promotion within war-affected settings. In 2005 Kolitha co-edited two WHO Sri Lanka Publications “Health System in the Tsunami affected areas of Sri Lanka” and “Sri Lanka Tsunami response - 6 months and beyond”. He is the current chairperson of the Asia Pacific Academic Consortium for Public Health (APACPH)'s Early Career Network in Public Health, and is the founding director of “CyberYouth” a successful charitable venture that assists vulnerable Refugee women and youth in Western Sydney.
Associate Professor Heather Worth -
see full research interests profile >>
Heather is Director of the International HIV Research Group located within the School of Public Health and Community Medicine. She has worked in HIV social research since 1994, with her interests primarily in the area of HIV, gender, and sexuality research, with a recent emphasis on the international scene, in particular HIV and global politics. Her research spans a wide range of topics in this field, and encompasses projects in Sri Lanka , Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, China, Timor Leste and a number of countries in the Pacific.
Current PhD Students
Janaka Abeysirigunawardana
Topic: Assessing needs for computer decision support to improve health care quality and patient safety in Sri Lankan primary care.
Supervisor/s:
Khabir Sayyed Ahmad (email)
Topic: Investigating human rights and equity in eye care in Pakistan.
Supervisor/s: Professor Daniel Tarantola and Professor Anthony Zwi
Kristen Mai Beek (email)
Topic: Training to aid effectively? Evaluating the impact of training on regional capacity in sexual and reproductive health for crises in East Asia, SE Asia & The Pacific.
Supervisor/s:
Michael Gerard Robinson Burke
Topic: Factors influencing participation in prevention of mother to child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV programs in Tanzania, East Africa.
Supervisor/s:
Anne Wells Bunde-Birouste (email)
Topic: Health promotion in migrant community through capacity building sports program.
Supervisor/s:
Sarah Katherine Chynoweth (email)
Topic: The impact of sexual and reproductive health programming in crisis situations in East, Southeast Asia and the Pacific
Supervisor/s:
Amy Mai Collins (email)
Topic: The impact of integrating peace building into sexual and reproductive health interventions
Supervisor/s:
Heidi Kever Coupland (email)
Topic: Prevention and management of hepatitis C in Indo-Chinese injecting drug users.
Supervisor/s: Associate Professor Lisa Maher and Dr Carolyn Day (The University of Sydney)
Renee Du Toit
Topic: Evaluation of Mid-Level Eyecare Personnel: The Bridge Between Training & Functioning in a V2020 Programme.
Supervisor/s:
Julian Elliott
Topic: Expanded use of antiretroviral therapy in resource limited settings.
Supervisor/s:
Catherine Esposito (email)
Topic: Mental health and HIV/AIDS in Vietnam.
Supervisor/s: Professor Daniel Tarantola and Dr Zachery Steel
Anna Charisse Farr
Topic: HIV control strategies in the Philippines and Bangladesh.
Supervisor/s:
Anita Elizabeth Heywood (email)
Topic: Epidemiology of travel and treaveller behaviour relevant to the importation and spread of infectious dieseases into Australia.
Supervisor/s: Professor Raina MacIntyre and Dr Rochelle Watkins
Carina Elisabeth Hickling
Topic: Capacity building, organisational development and aid effectiveness: building capacity to respond to emergencies focusing on sexual and reproductive health in East Southeast Asia and the Pacific.
Supervisor/s:
Ponndara Ith
Topic: The implementation of continuum of care for pregnant women during delivery in Prey Veng Province, Cambodia: focus on reducing maternal mortality.
Supervisor/s:
Sarah Larney
Topic: Opioid dependency treatment in closed setting in South East Asia.
Supervisor/s:
Brahmaputra Marjadi
Topic: Designing an infection control system for healthcare associated infections at rural Indonesian healthcare facilities with in-patient services.
Supervisor/s:
Joao Soares Martins (email)
Topic: Redeveloping Malaria control in Timor-Leste since independence.
Supervisor/s: Professor Anthony Zwi and Associate Professor Paul Kelly (Australian National University)
Keith Masnick
Topic: Clearer vision: a competency-based multiple entry and exit approach to the remodeling of eye care services in Thailand.
Supervisor/s:
Jacqueline Milne
Topic: International medical graduates lacking an inter-professional learning orientation: pitfalls and barriers to enabling interprofessional practice and quality and safety in the delivery of health care.
Supervisor/s:
Ngoy Mutombo
Topic: The prevalence, infection intensity, morbidity, response to chemotherapy and spatial distribution of population genetic of S. mansoni in a highly endemic West African region of sub-Saharan Africa, Mali.
Supervisor/s:
Padmanesan Narasimhan
Topic: The epidemiology and transmission dynamics of Tuberculosis (TB) in Southern India with a focus on risk factors and household contact patterns.
Supervisor/s:
Tuan Ann Nguyen (email)
Topic: Medicine prices and pricing policies in Vietnam.
Supervisor/s: Associate Professor Rosemary Knight, Associate Professor Andrea Mant and Dr. Quang Minh Cao
Asela Mangala Olupeliyawa
Topic: Assessing teamwork in the undergraduate medical curriculum, Faculty of Medicine, Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Supervisor/s:
Rebecca Akao Oyomopito
Topic: HIV-1 drug resistance in treatment naive and combination antiretroviral therapy experienced patients in Asia.
Supervisor/s:
Melissa Pearson(email)
Topic: Application of political analysis to the development of strategies to reduce burden of intentional self-poisoning with pesticides in Sri Lanka.
Supervisor/s: Professor Anthony Zwi
Alexander Edmund Rosewell
Topic: Challenges of meeting the minimum core requirements of disease surveillance and response under the international health regulations in Papua New Guinea.
Supervisor/s:
Farhana Shahid
Topic: Behavioural interventions for adherence to iron supplementation among anemic adolescents and pregnant women in Pakistan: Efficacy and cost effectiveness.
Supervisor/s:
Albie Lawrence Sharpe (email)
Topic: Evaluating the potential of Japanese health promote peacebuilding in Sri Lanka
Supervisor/s: Professor Anthony Zwi
Sowbhagya Somanadhan (email)
Topic: Civil society engagement in the development of pro-poor, equitable HIV&AIDS policies, services and improved access to health care for people living with HIV&AIDS
Supervisor/s: Professor Anthony Zwi
Kolitha Wickramage (email)
Topic: Sri Lanka National Study: Community participation in Primary health Care.
Supervisor/s: Professor Anthony Zwi
Somsak Wongsawass
Topic: An investigation of relationships between social factors, environmental factors, individual differences and substance use among adolescents attending school in Bangkok, Thailand.
Supervisor/s:
Luh Putu Lila Wulandari
Topic: Adherence to iron supplementation during pregnancy - South Kuta, Bali.
Supervisor/s: Associate Professor Anna Whelan, Dr Pippa Craig and Ms Sally Nathan
Current Masters Students
Recent PhD Graduates
Satupaitea Viali
Topic: Trends and developments of non-communicable disease indicators and risk factors over 20 years in Samoa.
Supervisor/s:
Additional Links