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.

Maree is responsible for designing, leading, and delivering a distinctive and vibrant postgraduate, postdoctoral and future leader research experience at The George. Maree and her team provide management and oversight of ‘higher degree by research’ candidates, their supervisors, visiting fellows and work with the training team to co-ordinate postgraduate research training.

Maree also leads a program of research focusing on developing simple, cost-effective strategies to prevent depression and significantly improve the outcome for people with chronic disease.

Maree works one day per week as a Professor of Epidemiology in the Faculty of Health and Wellbeing at The University of Central Lancashire in the United Kingdom.

Dr Katie Harris is a Senior Research Fellow in the Professorial Unit at the George Institute for Global Health. Her areas of expertise include Biostatistics and Clinical Epidemiology, awarded a PhD in Biostatistics from the University of Leeds, UK. She also holds a conjoint lecturer at University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.

Katie has extensive experience working with big data, including population-based, linked and non-linked datasets, and clinical trials data. Her current research interests are in sex and gender differences, cardiovascular disease and hypertension, and dementia and cognitive decline.

Veronica Le Nevez is Head of Impact and Engagement Australia at The George Institute for Global Health, where she leads the Institute’s advocacy and policy engagement activities in Australia and the Pacific region to help increase the impact of the institute’s health and medical research. Programmes of activity include preventive health, food and nutrition, primary care, injury, better treatments for non-communicable diseases, women’s health and critical care, and others.

Veronica has spent her career in public policy, having worked extensively in the environment portfolio and in digital innovation. Prior to joining The George Institute, Veronica was General Manager Policy and Advocacy at the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, and held policy development and implementation roles at the University of Sydney. Veronica has a Bachelor of Science in Resource and Environmental Management, and a Master of Environmental Science from Macquarie University and is currently studying a Masters of Business Administration at the University of New South Wales.

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.

Amanda Henry is Program Head, Women’s Health at The George Institute for Global Health and Professor of Obstetrics in the Discipline of Women’s Health, School of Clinical Medicine, UNSW Medicine and Health. Her professional background is as a Clinical Academic and Obstetrician, with a clinical practice focussed on high-risk pregnancy at St George Hospital, Sydney.

Her research focus, including her current NSW Health Early-Mid Career Cardiovascular Fellowship, is on how pregnancy complications, particularly hypertensive disorders of pregnancy and gestational diabetes, can affect women’s lifelong health.  She leads a program of work on early intervention and improving systems of care to advance long-term cardiovascular health outcomes for women after a hypertensive pregnancy. Amanda is also an active researcher and research supervisor in the areas of high-risk pregnancy and pregnancy/postpartum clinical trials, and teaches pregnancy care to both undergraduate and postgraduate students. Amanda has a strong emphasis on collaborative research projects to drive improvements in Women’s Health, and in addition to her role with the George Institute, researches collaboratively with medical, midwifery and Allied Health colleagues, as well as consumer and community partners, both locally and nationally. She also promotes Women’s Health research translation into guidelines, policy and practice through her professional society roles, including as Councillor for the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the Society of Obstetric Medicine of Australia and New Zealand.