Professor Anushka Patel is CEO and Director of The George Institute for Global Health and Scientia Professor at UNSW, Sydney. She is a cardiologist with research interests in the prevention and management of common chronic conditions through large-scale clinical trials and implementation science. 

Anushka undertook her medical training at the University of Queensland, with subsequent postgraduate research degrees from Harvard University and University of Sydney. Anushka is a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians and of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences and is a Director and Trustee of the Pulmonary Vascular Research Institute.

Bala Venkatesh is Director of Intensive care at the Wesley Hospital, Pre-Eminent specialist in Intensive Care Medicine at the Princess Alexandra Hospital, Brisbane, Professor of Intensive Care Medicine at the University of Queensland, and at the University of New South Wales, and Professorial Fellow at the George Institute for Global Health, Sydney Australia. He is the Chairman of the Queensland Health Statewide Sepsis Steering Committee. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences. 

He has completed Fellowship training in Internal Medicine, Anaesthesia and Intensive Care Medicine. He then undertook a research degree from the University of Birmingham, UK which led to the award of an MD. He pioneered the development of a continuous blood gas monitoring system which reached clinical application. 

He served as the President for the College of Intensive Care Medicine of Australia and New Zealand between 2014–2016. He led the international taskforce on gender equity in Intensive Care which influenced guidelines in the World Federation of Intensive Care. As President of the College of Intensive Care, he led the task force on bullying and discrimination which have informed College policy. 

He led the NHMRC funded multi-center international ADRENAL trial which is the largest septic shock trial to date. This was published in the New England Journal of Medicine and ranked in the top 12 articles of 2018. He has served on several Data Safety Monitoring Committees and on the Management committee of RCTs in sepsis. His research interests include glucocorticoid physiology in critical illness including the development of the idea of the "sick euadrenal state," sepsis and vitamin D in critical illness. 

In 2020, following the Covid-19 pandemic, he contributed to the REMAP-CAP steroid trial design and development and was on its writing committee recently reported in JAMA, which influenced guideline development. He was instrumental in the development of the George Institute's Covid-19 research program in India and played a key role in the set up of the COVID Steroid 2 trial in India which was also published in JAMA. He is currently investigating the role of fludrocortisone in septic shock. 

He has published more than 250 papers, 40 book chapters, and edited 2 books. He has supervised 8 PhD students. He is now a Level 3 NHMRC Investigator Fellow. 

Professor Neal is a UK-trained physician who has 25 years’ experience in clinical, epidemiological, and public health research with a focus on heart disease, stroke and diabetes. 

He has a longstanding interest in high blood pressure and diabetes and the potential for both clinical interventions and changes in the food supply to deliver health gains.  His work has been characterised by its focus on collaboration, quantitation, translation and impact.  

He holds professorial appointments at UNSW Sydney, Imperial College London, and an honorary appointment at the University of Sydney.  He has published some 450 scientific papers and since 2016 has been identified by Thomson Reuters as one of ‘The World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds’ - an acknowledgement bestowed on just a few thousand researchers across all disciplines worldwide.  

He has deep expertise in the conduct of large-scale clinical trials addressing cardiovascular disease but has also done a significant body of work addressing food policy issues related to sugars, fats, portion size and food labelling.

Frances Bass works part-time at The George Institute for Global Health as Program Manager in the Critical Care Program. She also works at Royal North Shore Hospital as an Intensive Care Clinical Research Manager.

Frances is a Registered Nurse having completed a Bachelor of Nursing, Graduate Certificate in Critical Care, and Masters of Science (Research). She has extensive experience in the management of critical care clinical trials operations including investigator-initiated, collaborative group and commercially sponsored trials. 

Frances sits on a number of scientific management committees. She is Secretary for the Australian College of Critical Care Nurses (ACCCN) NSW/ACT Branch Management Committee and a member on the ACCCN Research Advisory Committee. She is Deputy Chair of the Northern Sydney Local Health District, Human Research Ethics Committee.

Professor John A Myburgh AO, MBBCh (University of Witwatersrand), PhD (University of Adelaide), FCICM FAHMS FAICD, is Professor of Intensive Care Medicine, University of New South Wales; Director of the Professoriate and Immediate-Past Director of the Critical Care Research Program at the George Institute for Global Health, Sydney, Senior Intensive Care Physician and Director of Research at St George Hospital, Sydney.

He is Leadership Fellow of the National Health and Medical Research Council and honorary Professor at the Monash University School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine.

He has delivered over 45 years of clinical practice, designed and conducted over 75 basic science and clinical trials in fundamental areas of Intensive Care Medicine, including catecholamine pharmacology, traumatic brain injury, fluid resuscitation, acute kidney injury, endocrine dysfunction and sepsis.

He has published over 350 peer-reviewed research publications,(including 17 papers in the New England Journal of Medicine and 7 in JAMA) and 45 book chapters and monographs. His h-index is 78, calculated from 244 publications yielding over 23700 citations, with a citation trajectory of 900 to 2570 citations per annum from 2010 to the present.

From the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council, he has been awarded 2 Practitioner and 2 Leadership Fellowships; 17 Project Grants and 2 Enabling Grants as Chief Investigator; 6 Project Grants and 1 Centre of Research Excellence grant as Associate Investigator for a total of over A$68M since 1998. In addition to 5 Medical Research Future Fund grants, 15 international, 26 institutional peer-reviewed grants and 5 unrestricted commercial grants, his total cumulative career research funding is over A$125M.

He is a Foundation Member and Past-Chairman of the Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Society Clinical Trials Group. In 2006, he was instrumental in the establishment of the Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Research Centre at the Monash University School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine.

In 2006, he established the Division of Critical Care and Trauma at the George Institute for Global Health and has developed programs of research including new opportunities for clinician-researchers for over 20 PhD, post-doctoral and masters’ students and over 50 honorary appointments. He has delivered over 500 presentations at national and international scientific meetings since 1994, including over 50 plenary presentations at major scientific congresses.

He has received five major research awards including the International Sepsis Forum Award in 2007 and two University of New South Wales Research Excellence awards in 2010 and 2013. He was listed on the Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Society Honour Roll in 2013 and the National Health and Medical Research Council Peer Review Honour Rolls from 2015-2026. He served on the Council of the World Federation of Societies of Intensive and Critical Care Medicine for six years and as Secretary-General from 2017-2019.

He has reviewed manuscripts for over 35 national and international journals and sits on 2 journal editorial boards. He has assessed grants for 12 funding agencies including the National Health and Medical Research Council, the Medical Research Council of the United Kingdom and the Canadian Institute for Health Research.

In addition to his research profile, he has made a substantive contribution to education in Intensive Care Medicine, both at undergraduate and postgraduate levels over the last 30 years. He was instrumental in establishing the College of Intensive Care Medicine, serving as a Fellowship examiner for twelve years, on the Board for ten years and as the first elected President from 2010-2012.

In the 2014 Queen’s Birthday honours, he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for distinguished service to medicine as an intensive care medical practitioner, educator and researcher, and as an international innovator in patient management.

In 2015, he was made a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Science.

In 2017, he was awarded the College of Intensive Care Medicine Medal.

In 2019, he was awarded a Doctor of Science from the Faculty of Medicine, University of New South Wales.

Dr Kelly Thompson is a National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia Emerging Leader with The George Institute for Global Health. Concurrently she is Director of Research Operations at Nepean Blue Mountains Local Health District. 

She holds a Doctor of Philosophy and Master of Public Health from the School of Population Health within the Faculty of Medicine at UNSW, Sydney. She is a Registered Nurse, with a Bachelor of Nursing from the University of Newcastle, with clinical experience in intensive care. 

Kelly's primary research interest is in health equity in the clinical area of infection and sepsis. She uses population level data to understand and improve equity in health outcomes for survivors of sepsis and critical illness.  

Manoj continues to practise as an Intensive Care Physician and is based part-time at St. George Public Hospital in Sydney, playing a key role in the intensive care research program with Professor John Myburgh. He is also a Conjoint Lecturer at the Faculty of Medicine, UNSW.

His postgraduate qualifications include Fellowship of both the Royal College of Physicians in the United Kingdom and Australia and Fellowship of the College of Intensive Care Medicine.

Research interests include large scale clinical observational and randomised trials. Further specific areas of research interest include the role of fever in severe infections and acute brain injury, Intensive Care Unit Acquired Weakness and Early Mobility, and Outcome Evaluation in Critical Care Medicine research.

Associate Professor Naomi Hammond is an internationally recognised critical care and sepsis nurse research leader. She heads the Critical Care and Sepsis Australia Programs at The George Institute for Global Health and serves as Executive Director of Research for Northern Sydney Local Health District in Sydney, Australia. Naomi holds multiple academic and leadership appointments, including Honorary Professorial Nurse Research Fellow in the Malcolm Fisher Department of Intensive Care Medicine at Royal North Shore Hospital, NHMRC Emerging Leader Fellow, Conjoint Associate Professor at UNSW Medicine & Health, Treasurer of the Asia Pacific Sepsis Alliance, and Chair of the Australian Critical Care Nurses Research Advisory Panel.

With over $30 million AUD in competitive research funding (including over $8 million AUD as CIA), Naomi has successfully led national and international research programs and multidisciplinary teams across healthcare and academic settings. She has collaborated and led research that has resulted in more than 200 peer-reviewed publications, including in NEJM, NEJM Evidence, JAMA, and Intensive Care Medicine. She has been recognised as Australia’s leading researcher in Critical Care by The Australian Research Magazine in 2024, 2025 and 2026. Her work focuses on improving outcomes for sepsis and critically ill people through evidence-based interventions.
 

Pallab leads Research department at The George Institute for Global Health, India. He trained as a psychiatrist at All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, received training in public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, as well as Johns Hopkins School of Public Health where he pursued his Masters and Doctoral training, respectively.

Professor Maulik has worked with the World Health Organisation (WHO), Geneva on Project Atlas and other mental health programs, and clinically as a psychiatrist in India and Australia. He has worked for more than 25 years in global mental health and has research network across multiple countries and institutions where he is affiliated with and with whom he collaborates on many projects.  

His particular research interests include social determinants of health, especially mental health services, mental disorders, international mental health, and intellectual disability. He is a Principal Investigator or co-investigator on many large mental health projects in India and abroad. He primarily focuses on delivering affordable and accessible mental health care for disadvantaged and marginalized communities in India, while using technology-enabled solutions to enable the health system to function more efficiently. He also leads a significant programme of work on stigma related to mental health. He was an Intermediate Career Wellcome Trust/DBT India Alliance Fellow from 2014-19 and currently is a Senior Fellow of the Wellcome Trust/DBT India Alliance.