Professor Simone Pettigrew is the Head of Food Policy. She has qualifications in Economics, Marketing, and Consumer Psychology. Her broad areas of expertise include behavioural psychology, health promotion, health policy, communications, social marketing, and intervention research.

Along with nutrition, her substantive areas of research include obesity, physical activity, alcohol consumption, smoking, active transport, and healthy ageing. Simone sits on numerous advisory committees and regularly performs research consultancies for NGO and government entities. To date, she has published more than 400 peer-reviewed papers and produced more than 160 technical reports for NGOs and government departments.

See Professor Pettigrew's full CV here.

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.

Sandhya received her doctoral degree in Social Medicine and Community Health from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Her work with The George Institute's mental health programme involves assessing the effectiveness of technology-enabled delivery of mental health care by primary healthcare workers for depression, suicide and stress among adolescents in urban slum communities in Delhi and Vijayawada.

Her research interest includes developing a gendered understanding and analysis of mental health issues in India. Prior to joining The George Institute, Sandhya was at SAHAYOG as the Assistant Coordinator. 

Professor Helena Legido-Quigley joined The George Institute for Global Health, UK and the School of Public Health, Imperial College London in 2023 as Chair in Health Systems Science.

Professor Legido-Quigley also holds an Associate Professorship in Health Systems at Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, National University of Singapore, is an Associate Fellow of Chatham House, a member of the Council of the World Economic Forum and is editor-in-chief of Elsevier’s Journal of Migration and Health.

She is also a member of Women in Global Health, Spain, a role reflective of her commitment to redistributing power in global health, and of her broader emphasis on championing the next generation of global health researchers through mentorship and teaching.

Stephen Jan is Head of the Health Economics and Process Evaluation Program and Co-Director, Health System Science at the George Institute for Global Health and Conjoint Professor at the University of New South Wales.

He is an Honorary Professor at the University of Sydney, a Director of the Sax Institute and an Associate at both the Menzies Centre for Health Policy and the Poche Centre for Indigenous Health. He is a current NHMRC Principal Research Fellow and has previously held posts at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the Centre for Health Economics Research and Evaluation (CHERE) in Sydney. Stephen has over 20 years of experience in health economics, has published over 200 scientific articles and authored two textbooks in health economics.

He has worked closely with various governments of different levels, both in Australia (Commonwealth and State) and overseas, with international agencies such as the WHO and industry. His areas of expertise are economic evaluation, health financing, health sector priority setting, Indigenous and global health issues and the economics of chronic disease. 

Damian Maganja is a Research Fellow in the Food Policy Division. His work looks at policies and processes to improve the healthiness of food environments, with a focus on better regulation and governance of harmful products and industries.

Damian joined the academic sector after working in health policy and programs with various government and non-government organisations. He holds a Doctor of Philosophy (Medicine) from the University of New South Wales and a Master of International Public Health and a Bachelor of Economics and Social Sciences (Political Economy), both from the University of Sydney.