Dennis Mazingi is a medical doctor and general surgeon with a special interest in paediatric injury prevention, global surgery, and surgically correctable NCDs. He has worked in clinical medicine and surgery in southern Africa for almost a decade and is currently pursuing a DPhil in the University of Oxford’s Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences in the global surgery group.

His work focuses on trauma surveillance and quality improvement in paediatric trauma care in Zimbabwe. He is ably supervised by Professor Kokila Lakhoo and Professor Ashok Handa at the Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences and Professor Godfrey Muguti at the University of Zimbabwe.

Prior to joining The George Institute Dennis obtained his undergraduate medical degree at the University of Malawi, College of Medicine and an MMed (Master’s in Medicine) in General Surgery at the University of Zimbabwe, College of Health Sciences. He holds a first-class degree in International Health and Tropical Medicine (IHTM) from the University of Oxford and is a fellow of the College of Surgeons of South Africa as well as a Beit Trust Scholar.

He has worked in various research collaboratives in the field of global surgery, paediatric surgery, and general surgery. Dennis’s other interests lie in clinical surgery, surgical education, disruptive health technologies, frugal innovations, health systems and implementation research.

Dennis wants to see a healthier, more prosperous, more equitable world through surgical care and research. His mission is to help accelerate progress towards SDG target 3.6: to halve the number of deaths and injuries from road traffic accidents by 2030 in Zimbabwe and globally; and to scale up quality surgical and anaesthesia care to the 5 billion people who need it through 2030 and beyond.

Professor Simone Pettigrew is the Head of Food Policy. She has qualifications in Economics, Marketing, and Consumer Psychology. Her broad areas of expertise include behavioural psychology, health promotion, health policy, communications, social marketing, and intervention research.

Along with nutrition, her substantive areas of research include obesity, physical activity, alcohol consumption, smoking, active transport, and healthy ageing. Simone sits on numerous advisory committees and regularly performs research consultancies for NGO and government entities. To date, she has published more than 400 peer-reviewed papers and produced more than 160 technical reports for NGOs and government departments.

See Professor Pettigrew's full CV here.

Chhavi Bhandari is Co-Director, Impact & Engagement at The George Institute for Global Health, where she leads a global programme of advocacy and stakeholder engagement to maximise the impact of our health and medical research. Her work focuses on multilateral partnerships and advancing community engagement and involvement.  She also serves as Community Engagement and Involvement Lead for the NIHR Global Health Research Centre on NCDs and Environmental Change, co-chairs the WHO NCD Lab on Women and Girls, and contributes to global health policy through WHO civil society groups. With an MBA and international healthcare experience across India, the UK, Australia, and beyond, Chhavi brings a globally informed yet locally grounded approach to advancing equitable health systems.

Keziah is a Torres Strait Islander woman and Director of Guunu-maana (Heal) Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Program at The George Institute for Global Health. Keziah is a Future Women Emerging Leader, and sits on the Association of Australian Medical Research Institute's Gender, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion committee. Keziah chairs the George Institute's Global Research and Impact Committee and has chaired the Research Committee for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health since 2017. She leads the development and implementation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health research strategy, policy, stakeholder partnerships and Indigenous research coordination within a global research institute.

Keziah has extensive experience in social and cultural determinants of health, Indigenous methodologies, and knowledge translation and impact measurement that privilege Indigenous knowledges, as well as applying decolonising methods to organisation and systems change. Keziah is a recognised leader in implementation of strategic organisational activities to increase cultural safety and capability within global health research.

Dr Julieann Coombes identifies as a Gumbaynggir woman and highly skilled career professional with over 27 years nursing experience working in Aboriginal Community Health. She now focuses on improving health inequalities and outcomes for First Nations people and communities through research using Indigenous Knowledges (knowing, being and doing) and methodologies which empowers First Nations people’s voices in all her work. She has extensive experience in social and cultural determinants of health research, Indigenous methodologies and applies decolonising methods to all her research projects. Julieann has a commitment to ensure that all research with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is conducted in an ethical correct way and research integrity should be underpinned by equity, transparency, and self-determination.

Her work in Indigenous research methods, public health knowledge and qualitative research, work which is published, has been cited in policy, media, and academic publications.

Julieann received her PhD at University of Technology, Sydney and is a Senior Research Fellow for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Program at The George Institute for Global Health.