Dr Parisa Glass is the Director of Innovation and Enterprise for The George Institute for Global Health. In this role, she leads Health 10x Accelerator in partnership with UNSW Sydney. Health 10x accelerator supports startups developing affordable and scalable solutions to some of the most pressing unmet medical needs, globally. 

Parisa also leads UNSW Clinical Research Unit (CRU) which is collaborative program with The George Institute. UNSW CRU supports clinical researchers across UNSW network with operational and academic expertise, systems and tools to conduct high quality and impactful research efficiently and in accordance with best practice guidelines.  

Parisa has a PhD in Biomedical Science and a Masters Degree in Business Administration (MBA). Parisa also holds a Senior Lecturer position with UNSW Sydney.

Parisa joined The George Institute for Global Health in 2008. She has over twenty years’ experience in health and university sectors in an operational and academic capacity. Her expertise is in operational leadership & optimisation, strategic planning, coaching & mentoring, managing change, financial management, program development and management, contract negotiations, stakeholder management and recruiting and developing top talent.

Professor Simon Finfer AO is a Professorial Fellow in the Critical Care Division at The George Institute for Global Health, Adjunct Professor at the University of New South Wales and Professor of Critical Care, School of Public Health, Imperial College London. 

Simon leads the Sepsis Research Program at The George Institute which is focussed on the design and conduct of robust high-quality RCTs that will reduce death and disability due to sepsis in Australia and around the world. 

Simon has obtained over $50M in research funding and authored or co-authored over 250 peer-reviewed papers with 20% of those in the highest-ranking medical journals. He served as a guest editor for the New England Journal of Medicine from 2012 to 2014 and is currently an editor of the Oxford Textbook of Critical Care and the Critical Care Section Editor of the Oxford Textbook of Medicine. 

Simon was a founding member and is a past-Chair of the Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Society (ANZICS) Clinical Trials Group, past chair of the International Sepsis Forum, and past Vice President of the Global Sepsis Alliance. He is the Director of the Australian Sepsis Network and Asia Pacific Sepsis Alliance. 

A Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences, Simon was appointed an Officer (AO) in the Order of Australia in the Queen's Birthday Honours List 2020 for "distinguished service to intensive care medicine, to medical research and education, and to global health institutes." 

Professor Sophia Zoungas is Executive Director of The George Institute for Global Health Australia and a practising endocrinologist.

A clinician scientist and trialist, she is internationally recognised for her leadership in diabetes, cardiorenal health, and healthy ageing, and for research that has shaped clinical practice and public health policy globally.

Her work focuses on large-scale clinical trials and cohort studies addressing the prevention and management of chronic disease, with particular impact on global clinical guidelines for blood pressure and glucose control in diabetes.

Professor Zoungas has led major international initiatives, including the ADVANCE and ADVANCE ON studies, and serves as lead of the Australian Diabetes Clinical Quality Registry, which promotes best-practice diabetes care.

She is a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians and the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences, with prior senior academic leadership roles at Monash University.
 

Prof Stephen Jan is Director of Health Systems Science at the George Institute for Global Health, Conjoint Professor of Health Economics at the University of New South Wales, and Professor of Health Systems at Imperial College London. He holds Adjunct Professorships at City University of Hong Kong and Walter Sisulu University in South Africa and is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences. His areas of expertise are health systems, economic evaluation, health financing, choice experiments and health sector priority setting.

Dr. Zhang Puhong, Senior Research Fellow, Associate Professor and doctoral supervisor of the University of New South Wales.

He is currently the Associate Director of The George Institute for Global Health(China). The main research areas are diabetes management, nutrition and lifestyle, maternal and child health and digital health.

He is currently a member of the Standing Committee of big data branch of Chinese Nutrition Society, a member of the Standing Committee of medical and industrial integration of Chinese Institute of Command and Control, and China leader of Action on Salt China Unit.

In the past 10 years, as the project leader, he has been funded nearly 20 research projects by Global Alliance for Chronic Diseases (GACD), the International Diabetes Federation (IDF), the State Ministry of Science and Technology, the British Medical Research Council (MRC) and the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), Australian Medical Research Council (NHMRC) and other institutions, with a total scientific research fund of 170 million. The projects cover the vast majority of provinces, cities and autonomous regions in China.

More than 80 scientific research papers have been published in journals including The Lancet, BMJ, PLoS Medicine, Hypertension, Nutrients and JMIR.

He has led the establishment of more than 20 information systems, including “Salt Reduction Promotion”, “EduSaltS Cloud classroom”, “Food prophet”, “SmartDiabetes”, “1000 days”, “mHealth-based Integrated Management for Children with Illness” and Mobilephone-based electronic data collection system”, which are used to support public health education, disease management and the improvement of scientific research.

Mark Woodward is Chair of Statistics, Epidemiology and Women’s Health at Imperial College London and Professor of Medical Statistics at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. He is also a visiting /honorary professor at the universities of Dundee, Glasgow and the West Indies. He is an Associate Fellow of Green Templeton College, University of Oxford. Mark was Professor of Statistics and Epidemiology at the University of Oxford from September 2013 to July 2020 and has also been a professor at the universities of New York, Sydney and Johns Hopkins (adjunct). 

He is the author of over a thousand scientific articles and two text-books on statistical methods in medical research, one of which has its fourth edition commissioned for 2025. He was named by Thomson Reuters/Clarivate Analytics as one of ‘The World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds’ in each of the last 11 years. As of June 2025, he has a H Factor of 188 with total citations of 164,594; 16 of his papers have over a thousand citations.

Mark has led four major international studies and directed the analytical research on three landmark collaborative studies, worldwide. His work on cardiovascular risk scores formed the basis of national guidelines in Scotland, and his work on kidney disease was used to produce new staging criteria for this disease. His total career grant awards total over £100 million from 64 successful applications.

He also has extensive experience in student teaching, postgraduate supervision and mentoring, including 14 PhD and 20 MSc students successfully completed. He has given training workshops in Botswana, China including Taiwan, Korea, Thailand, Uganda, Vietnam, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Mark served on the governing council of the Institute of Statisticians and the Royal Statistical Society (RSS) and is a fellow of the RSS, the European Society of Cardiology and the New York Academy of Medicine. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Physicians of Thailand.

He has wide experience of development aid work in Africa and Asia, having undertaken 25 missions for aid agencies, such as the WHO. He has also assessed grants for six national medical research councils (including NHMRC) and served on the editorial boards of seven international journals.
 

Associate Professor Cheryl Carcel is the Head of the Brain Health Program at The George Institute for Global Health. She also works part-time as a clinical neurologist. Cheryl is an NHMRC Emerging Leader Fellow, an Australian and New Zealand Stroke Organisation Emerging Stroke Clinician and Scientist and a World Heart Federation Emerging Leader in Stroke. Other appointments include editorial board member for Stroke journal, guest editor for Cerebrovascular Diseases journal and World Stroke Organization co-chair for the scientific statement on Sex Differences in Stroke. 

A/Prof Carcel’s research focuses on health equity, in particular working on sex and gender differences, women’s brain health and policies encouraging disaggregation of data by sex and gender. She has extensive experience and interest in clinical trials, stroke prevention and treatment, migraine and cognition as well as supervising and mentoring students and junior colleagues.

Blake is a health economist holding positions as Program Lead – Health Workforce economics in the Centre for Health Systems Science at the George Institute for Global Health and Conjoint Senior Lecturer at UNSW Sydney. He is an NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellow with expertise in health economic evaluation, health systems research and discrete choice experiments. Blake’s research examines the better use of economics in health policy, specifically focusing on vulnerable populations around the world. He has health policy experience having previously held positions at the NSW Agency for Clinical Innovation (Senior Economist, 2013-2017) and the NSW Treasury (Policy Analyst, 2011-2013). He currently serves as an Economics expert on the Evaluation Sub-Committee of the Medical Services Advisory Committee providing economic advice on funding applications to Medicare. Blake is involved in a number of international collaborations: he worked on the core team of the Lancet Nigeria Commission and is the lead technical advisor on discrete choice experiments for the health stream of research under the Anti-Corruption Evidence Consortium funded by UK aid.

Jagnoor Jagnoor is a global leader in injury prevention and trauma care, serving as Program Lead of the Injury at The George Institute for Global Health. She is Co-Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre on Injury Prevention and Trauma Care.

With a background in injury epidemiology and global health, Jagnoor's research explores the impacts of injury, the social and economic determinants of injury burden, and the effectiveness of interventions to reduce harm and support recovery among populations experiencing vulnerability. She brings deep expertise across injury surveillance, road safety, drowning, falls, burns, whiplash, and mild traumatic brain injury, underpinned by a strong commitment to equity, system strengthening, and data-driven decision-making.

She has made significant contributions to policy reform, including informing compulsory third-party insurance models in Australia and contributing to national injury prevention strategies in Asia and Africa. Her research and advocacy have shaped global drowning prevention efforts and health systems responses to injury in resource-constrained settings.
In 2024, Jagnoor convened the Safety 2024 Conference, co-sponsored by the World Health Organization, bringing together global experts to accelerate action on injury prevention and safety promotion.

In addition to her research leadership, Jagnoor serves on multiple advisory and governance boards, where she contributes her expertise to advance public health, evidence-informed policy, and research equity.

Alexandra Jones is a public health lawyer and researcher leading a program of work on regulatory strategies to promote healthier, more sustainable diets. Her work uses an innovative mix of law and science to generate evidence that supports policymakers to design and implement policies with maximum public health impact. She works closely with UN agencies, national and state governments, public health and consumer organizations, and academic collaborators to translate evidence into effective action.

Ali’s current research interests include food labelling, composition, pricing and marketing policies. She also supports the Institute’s growing work on the commercial determinants of health. Her PhD explored Australia’s Health Star Rating system and similar front-of-pack nutrition labels used worldwide. Its impact can be seen in important reforms to the Health Star Rating system, and in the terms of international food standards being developed in this area.

Ali has previously worked on global tobacco control, and in health and human rights. She holds a PhD in Medicine and Health from the University of Sydney, a Master of Laws in Global Health Law from Georgetown Law (Washington, D.C.), and a Bachelor of Arts/Law from the University of Sydney. Ali is currently supported by an NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellowship.

Emma Feeny is Chief Impact Officer at The George Institute. She leads a global programme of external engagement activities aimed at facilitating the translation and impact of the Institute’s research, spanning advocacy, policy engagement, thought leadership, community engagement, communications, marketing and philanthropy. She also oversees development and delivery of the Institute’s impact agenda and knowledge mobilisation capacity. 

Emma has over 20 years’ experience of driving impact in the research, international development and humanitarian sectors, and of building partnerships with government, multilateral, civil society, private sector and academic stakeholders globally. Before joining The George Institute, she worked as a global policy and advocacy advisor at Oxfam, and previously held policy and communications roles with organisations including the UN World Food Programme and the University of Oxford. 

A former journalist with organisations including Reuters and the Financial Times, Emma holds a Masters degree in the Social Anthropology of Development from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.

Devaki Nambiar is Program Director, Health Equity at the George Institute for Global Health India with appointments at the Manipal Academy of Higher Education, India, the University of New South Wales, Australia, and the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, USA.

She is a Health Policy and Systems Researcher (HPSRer) with over two decades of experience working in India and other Low- and Middle-Income Countries on decision-maker demand-driven research, postgraduate teaching in HPSR, as well as technical assistance with an emphasis on community action for health, social exclusion, health equity and health for all. She is a former Fulbright, Fogarty, and NIH scholar, and Fellow of the Wellcome Trust/Department of Biotechnology India Alliance. She advises the WHO on health inequality monitoring, national programme re-orientation, and guideline development to leave no one behind.

She serves on the Lancet-Chatham House Commission on Improving Population Health post COVID-19, the Lancet Commission on Sustainable Healthcare, and advises Lancet Commissions on Women and Cancer as well as on Reimagining India's Health System. She is a member of the People's Health Movement and the Medico Friends Circle. She also serves on the Board of Health Systems Global and the Research Advisory Board of the Institute of Public Health, Bengaluru, India. Dr. Nambiar received her doctorate in public health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2009 and is a recipient of an Emerging Leader Award from the Royal Society for Tropical Medicine & Hygiene.