Bronwyn Graham is the Director of the Centre for Sex and Gender Equity in Health and Medicine at the George Institute for Global Health, and a Professor in the School of Psychology at UNSW Sydney.

Bronwyn is a behavioural neuroscientist, a clinical psychologist, and a globally recognised expert in women’s mental health. Bronwyn leads an interdisciplinary research team that examines how female-unique factors, like fluctuating sex hormones over the menstrual cycle and pregnancy, impact the development of anxiety and other affective disorders. She employs a bench-to-bedside translational methodology, in which she investigates endocrine regulation of the brain and behaviour in preclinical studies, and then tests the application of these findings in clinical populations. Her work has led to new practice guidelines for treating anxiety disorders in women, and RACGP accredited training programs for mental health care professionals.

Bronwyn has held numerous fellowships, including an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Research Award, a UK-based MQ Fellowship, and an American Australian Association Neurological Fellowship. She is Chief Investigator on multiple Australian Research Council Discovery Projects, and an NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence, has published over 75 peer-reviewed articles and chapters, and has supervised over 40 honours and postgraduate students. 

Bronwyn serves on the MQ Foundation and Lancet Psychiatry Standing Commission on the COVID-19 Pandemic and Mental Health, as well as the Editorial Board of multiple journals spanning different disciplines, including Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, and Neurobiology of Learning and Memory. Bronwyn’s awards include a Psychological Science ‘rising star’, a NSW Young Tall Poppy, and the Biological Psychiatry Aubrey Lewis Award. Bronwyn regularly appears in the media (ABC Lateline, Catalyst, and radio), and she disseminates her findings to health professionals and people with mental health conditions through collaborations with organisations including AnxietyUK.

Dr Sultana Shajahan is a final-year PhD candidate at The George Institute for Global Health and the University of New South Wales, Sydney. After completing her medical degree in Bangladesh, she earned a Master of Public Health (Research) degree with High Distinction at Macquarie University, Sydney.

Her doctoral research focuses on high-level evidence synthesis and advanced analyses of large international datasets (including ADVANCE, PROGRESS, and SCAPIS) to investigate how a wide range of clinically important blood pressure measures are associated with cognitive decline and dementia. This work aims to generate new insights to guide the design of future cohort studies and clinical trials targeting dementia prevention, a growing global health challenge. For her PhD research, she was awarded the Young Investigator Award at the European Stroke Organisation Conference (ESOC) in 2023.

Beyond her PhD, Dr Shajahan undertook a three-month international research exchange program at Linköping University, Sweden, funded by The Swedish National School for Research in General Practice. She was also a Site Physician in the recently completed RECALL-Pilot trial, which tested an online intervention to reduce dementia risk through blood pressure management. Previously, she gained extensive experience at The George Institute for Global Health, contributing to projects in stroke, women’s health, sex differences, and multimorbidity. She brings expertise and interest in systematic reviews, meta-analyses, clinical trials, cohort studies, blood pressure measurement, dementia prevention, cognition and stroke.