Madhuri is the Head of Strategic Partnerships and Commissioned Research at The George Institute for Global Health India and leads research management and capacity building initiatives. She is an India Research Management Initiative (IRMI) Fellow, supported by the DBT/Wellcome Trust India Alliance. Madhuri is part of the global CORE unit and works with colleagues from other regional offices of the institute.

She has a PhD in life science and a decade of research management experience from her previous positions at the DBT/Wellcome Trust India Alliance, Public Health Foundation of India and Indian Institute of Health Management Research. She has contributed to several courses, workshops and training programmes in research skills, for early career researchers. Madhuri is interested in creating institutional processes that facilitate quality research and an enabling research environment.

Dr Sultana Shajahan is a Research Fellow at The George Institute for Global Health and the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney. After completing her medical degree in Bangladesh, she earned a Master of Public Health (Research) degree with High Distinction at Macquarie University, Sydney. She then pursued a PhD at The George Institute for Global Health and UNSW, which was awarded in 2026. Her doctoral research focused on high-level evidence synthesis and advanced analyses of large international datasets (including  ADVANCE, PROGRESS, and SCAPIS) to investigate the associations of a wide range of clinically important blood pressure measures with cognitive decline and dementia. For her PhD research, she was awarded the Young Investigator Award at the European Stroke Organisation Conference (ESOC) in 2023. She has also worked several years at The George Institute, leading projects in stroke, women’s health and sex differences. Her research interests lie in systematic reviews, meta-analyses, clinical trials, stroke, vascular dementia and cognition, and women’s health.

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. 

A/Prof Laura Downey leads The George Institute’s global program for Universal Health Coverage (UHC). She is a conjoint Associate Professor in health economics and policy in the School of Population Health at UNSW, and an Advanced Research Fellow in the School of Public Health at Imperial College London, UK.

Dr Downey's research is focused broadly on evaluating health system performance in relation to UHC goals, and developing innovative solutions to support equitable access to high quality, affordable care for the world's most at-risk populations. She is a passionate advocate for health equity, and in particular gender equity, where she uses data to champion greater visibility of women's health issues and more inclusive and participatory evidence to policy processes. She is a Senior Investigator and the Capacity Strengthening co-lead of a £10million NIHR Global Health Research Centre for Non-Communicable Diseases and Environmental Change, where her research focuses on community-driven multisectoral intervention design, delivery, and evaluation to strengthen health systems to protect populations in India, Indonesia, and Bangladesh from environmental issues such as extreme heat and air pollution. She is an active invited advisor to the World Health Organisation (WHO) and currently a member of the WHO advisory group for the use of Glucagon-like Peptide Receptor Agonists (GLP1-RAs) for the management of obesity. She was an invited expert member of the Health Economics advisory group to the UK Infected Blood Inquiry (2020-2024), whose work directly informed recommendations made by the Inquiry Chair to the UK Government on behalf of the tens of thousands of individuals who were infected with HIV and Hepatitis A, B, and C by the National Health Service. She was an advisor to the Indian federal government between 2015 -2019 to support the establishment of a core Health Technology Assessment (HTA) function within the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and remains an active advisor to the Indian Institute of Public Health, the Indian Council of Medical Research, and numerous State governments across India.

Dr Downey has active research collaborators across Asia, Africa, and Europe and has worked in partnership with global institutions such as the World Health Organisation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, The Asian Development Bank, and the World Bank. She has held previous positions with the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) UK, the Centre for Global Development Europe, and University College London.

Dr Kumar is a Public Health researcher pursuing his PhD in the area of ICD-coded sepsis disease burden at the Critical Care Division of the George Institute for Global Health, and working as Research Associate with the Australian Sepsis Network.

Dr Kumar is a physician having a postgraduate degree in clinical pharmacology and an experienced medical researcher with more than 14 years of cumulative academic-industry experience. In addition to his academic achievements, he has worked extensively in various roles ranging from early-to-late phase clinical and medical research. He has extensive clinical trials management and operational experience including large multinational studies. 

Lachlan is an Intensive Care Specialist who works at Royal North Shore Hospital, Sydney. He holds appointments as Honorary Research Fellow at The George Institute, and Senior Lecturer at the University of Sydney.

Lachlan is an early career researcher having completed his PhD in 2025 (UNSW). He has an interest in Acute Kidney Injury research, as well as sepsis, neurocritical care, burns injury and the quality of ICU survivorship for patients and their carers. He previously completed a masters focused on analytical bias in meta-analysis.  

Niveditha is a medical doctor, trained in clinical research and applied statistics with over 15 years of experience in clinical and public health research. She completed her Masters in Clinical Trials from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and PhD from Deakin University, Australia. She is a recipient of the prestigious DBT/Wellcome Trust–India alliance Intermediate Clinical and Public Health fellowship (2020) for the design and evaluation of a technology-based post knee arthroplasty rehabilitation monitoring strategy. She has been involved in the design and analysis of several multicentre randomised controlled trials in maternal health and cardiovascular disease.

At The George Institute India, she is Program Head of Academic Clinical Trials Unit (ACTU), which aims to expand the capacity to conduct clinical trials for chronic diseases with an emphasis on quality and efficiency. She is also actively engaged in optimising management of clinical trials data using less resource-intensive methods. Prior to joining The George Institute, she worked for the Public Health Foundation of India, as an Associate Professor at the Indian Institute of Public Health-Delhi.

Dr Maddie Heenan is a public health researcher, program manager and policy expert. She is a Project Manager in the Health Systems Science division at The George Institute for Global Health and an Associate of the Australian Human Rights Institute at UNSW. Maddie brings extensive experience in health systems research, program management, strategy development, partnerships and stakeholder engagement, knowledge translation and strategic communication.

Her research interests include public health governance and regulation, policy development and implementation, research–policy partnerships, political economy, food and alcohol policy, and the commercial and social determinants of health. She also has expertise in qualitative evaluation and applied policy research.

Maddie has worked closely with government through policy dialogues, co design processes and commissioned research projects. She has served as an independent evaluator and provided advisory support across a range of public health and policy initiatives. An experienced facilitator, public speaker and negotiator, her career spans academia, policy, advocacy, government relations and program delivery.

Dr Kristy Law is a Research Fellow and Accredited Practicing Dietitian at The George Institute for Global Health, Sydney, Australia. Her research focuses on advancing Food Is Medicine (FIM) approaches to address diet-related chronic disease and food insecurity through rigorous clinical research and implementation science.

Kristy's PhD examined the feasibility, acceptability, and efficacy of Food Is Medicine interventions in Australia, with a particular focus on medically tailored meals. As part of her doctoral work, she co-led Australia's first Medically Tailored Meals randomised controlled trial for adults with type 2 diabetes (n=230), in partnership with Professor Jason Wu. This landmark trial generated critical evidence to inform the design, scalability, and future evaluation of Food Is Medicine interventions in the Australian healthcare context.

Dr Law has experience in developing and implementing nutrition and dietetic services with food‑insecure populations, including women and families in Perth, Australia; at‑risk youth in New Jersey, USA; and rural and remote communities in Western Australia. She has also contributed to public health nutrition initiatives supporting government policies focused on food environments and obesity prevention.

Kristy's background informs her focus on supporting localised implementation and uptake of FIM programs. Her research centres on building multisectoral collaborations to understand how FIM programs can be designed and implemented in ways that respond to community needs and health system contexts. Drawing on real‑world experience, she aims to translate research findings into practical strategies to improve population health and support equitable prevention and management of chronic disease.

Purnima is a Research Officer at The George Institute for Global Health, currently working on the TReAT Trial project for devising effective exercise regimen and education materials for patients after knee replacement—a project to develop the m-health intervention for monitoring the rehabilitation phase of patients who underwent total knee replacement surgery.

She holds a master’s degree in Physiotherapy (MPT) with a speciality in Musculoskeletal Sciences from the Apex Rehabilitation Institute, All India Institute of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Mumbai, and has over seven years of clinical experience in rehabilitation. She has worked at District Hospital Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh and the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi.

She is keen to learn, develop and implement evidence-based clinical practise in rehabilitation.

Dr Eden Barrett is a public health nutrition researcher, academic and dietitian with expertise in nutrition, dietetics and food policy. She is a Senior Research Fellow in the Food Policy division at The George Institute for Global Health, a Conjoint Lecturer at the University of New South Wales, and holds a co-appointment at the Food is Medicine Institute and the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, Boston.

Dr Barrett leads a global research program that uses large-scale food composition data to evaluate the nutritional quality and sustainability of the global food supply. Her work advances the development and evaluation of evidence-based tools and policies, including nutrient profiling systems and front-of-pack labelling strategies, aimed at supporting healthier diets and reducing diet-related disease risk across diverse populations.

She has presented her research at major international conferences and received significant funding and awards, including support from the National Heart Foundation of Australia. In addition to her research, Dr Barrett contributes to academic leadership through active involvement in several national and international committees. Within her institutions, she founded the CRE Human and Planetary Health Early- and Mid-Career Researcher Group at The George Institute and serves on the UNSW School of Health Sciences Research Committee.

Alice is a Research & Policy Fellow at The George Institute for Global Health, based in the UK office. Alice joined The George Institute in early 2023 to work on the MESSAGE (Medical Science Sex and Gender Equity) project, an initiative to develop a UK-based policy for integrating sex and gender considerations into biomedical research.

A social scientist by background, Alice’s research interests sit at the intersection between gender and health. Prior to joining TGI, she worked at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, where her research focused on the influence of social norms on family planning programmes and prevention of gender-based violence. She is particularly interested in how institutional norms and policies can shape women’s health and healthcare, and is passionate about translating research in this area into real-world impact.

Alice holds an MA in Social Anthropology of Development from SOAS, University of London, and a BA in Modern Languages from the University of Oxford.

Veronica Le Nevez is Co-Director, 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.