After completion of her Masters, Sudha started her career in clinical research at Clinigene International Ltd, sister concerns of Biocon. She has worked in clinical research industry for the past five and a half years and was part of George Clinical for nearly four years.

Sudha has had experience in working on academic trials and seeks to pursue higher education and training in public health research, especially in the areas of non-communicable diseases including mental health and injuries.

She is currently involved in a study where mobile-based technology is being used to provide basic mental health care to scheduled tribe villages in rural Andhra Pradesh. 

Dr Siddhardh Devarapalli works in Public Mental health at The George Institute for Global Health in India. He is trained in population studies with a Master’s Degree from the International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS) in Mumbai. He also has an MPhil/PhD in Population Studies from Jawaharlal Nehru University. His previous work experience includes teaching Medical Humanities at the University of Hyderabad and conducting research in Health Systems at the Institute of Health Systems in Hyderabad, and on the Sociology of Health at the Dr B R Ambedkar Open University. At The George Institute Siddhardh has worked on mental health in rural and Scheduled Tribe areas which includes adolescent mental health in slums.

Dr Julieann Coombes identifies as a Gumbaynggir woman and highly skilled career professional with over 27 years nursing experience working in Aboriginal Community Health. She now focuses on improving health inequalities and outcomes for First Nations people and communities through research using Indigenous Knowledges (knowing, being and doing) and methodologies which empowers First Nations people’s voices in all her work. She has extensive experience in social and cultural determinants of health research, Indigenous methodologies and applies decolonising methods to all her research projects. Julieann has a commitment to ensure that all research with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is conducted in an ethical correct way and research integrity should be underpinned by equity, transparency, and self-determination.

Her work in Indigenous research methods, public health knowledge and qualitative research, work which is published, has been cited in policy, media, and academic publications.

Julieann received her PhD at University of Technology, Sydney and is a Senior Research Fellow for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Program at The George Institute for Global Health.

Marino Festa is an Honorary Fellow in the Critical Care and Trauma Division of The George Institute. He is a senior staff specialist and co-lead for Kids Critical Care Research at The Children’s Hospital at Westmead (CHW) in Sydney.

He is a fellow of the College of Intensive Care Medicine and has completed a Doctor of Medicine (Research), Imperial College, London 2011. He represents CHW on the paediatric study group of the ANZICS Clinical Trial Group and is principal investigator for the SAFE EPIC global point prevalence study.

He has active research interests in the areas of paediatric fluid resuscitation, microvascular adaptation to shock, and human factors research in critically ill and simulated patients.

With a PhD in Biomedical Sciences and MSc in Biostatistics, Jason received post-doctoral training in nutrition epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health. He is a Professor and the Head of the Nutrition Science Program at the George Institute for Global Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of New South Wales. His research and teaching focuses on reducing diet-related diseases through implementing innovative ‘Food is Medicine’ interventions, modelling the impact of population-level food policies, and determining the role of dietary factors for cardiometabolic diseases prevention and treatment. Jason's research has been published in top medical and nutrition journals including Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, BMJ, Circulation, and American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. He has over 150 publications and has received many highly competitive awards, fellowships and grants, with total research funding of more than $14million to date.

Namrata Nath Kumar is a Clinical Research Associate for the Renal and Metabolic Division. She has worked in the division since 2013, and is passionate about clinical trials to help improve patients’ quality of life. Her work on the SHARP-ER study introduced her to clinical research operations, where she was involved in coordination of site finance, patient surveys and data linkage processes with MBS and PBS datasets. She currently manages sites across Australia and New Zealand for the PRESERVE study, a double-blinded randomised controlled trial in the Cardiology setting. Through this study Namrata has become familiar with HREC and Governance processes across both countries, in addition to investigational product accountability, central labs and safety processes. In 2016 Namrata commenced on the STARRT-AKI study, which has widened her knowledge base to include Intensive Care clinical research. Her monitoring role on this project takes on responsibilities in site feasibility, start-up, initiation, and data management. While learning and growing in the clinical research field, Namrata sees herself pursuing further studies in public health and managing research projects in the near future.

Dr Xia Wang is a Doctoral Research Fellow at The George Institute who specialises in analyses of large-scale randomised controlled trials and conducting epidemiological study. She has a Master of Medicine in Epidemiology and Statistics from the Peking Union Medical college.

Prior to joining The George Institute, Xia worked at Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention where she was involved in national HIV drug resistance surveillance and national epidemiological studies.

Dr Xiaoying Chen is a Heart Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow and a Senior Research Fellow in the Global Brain Health Program at the George Institute for Global Health. She leads the stroke and technology themes in the Brain Health Program at the George Institute. She has over 19 years’ experience in international multicenter clinical trials and 15 years in designing and conducting large international clinical trials. She has led and been pivotal to the success of multiple international randomised controlled trials which have had significant impact on guidelines, and decision-making in clinical practice. Her research program focuses on treatment in acute stroke care and stroke recovery by designing and implementing innovative large international clinical trials, developing new tools and measures to support stroke care, especially for remote and underserved population.

Dr Chen is an early career researcher in Clinical trials and stroke. She has vast experience in large scale stroke trials and has been pivotal to the success of multiple world-class large international clinical trials, including as one of the Lead PIs of A multi-faCtorial, mulTi-arm, multi-staGe, randomised, gLOBal Adaptive pLatform trial for stroke (ACT-GLOBAL) aiming to be executed through 300+ hospitals in 20+ countries, Global Project Lead of landmark trial - The third, INTEnsive care bundle with blood pressure Reduction in Acute Cerebral haemorrhage Trial (INTERACT3) with 7000+ stroke patients enrolled from 120+ centres from 10 countries, Senior Project Lead of INTEnsive blood pressure Reduction in hyperacute Cerebral haemorrhage Trial (INTERACT4) with 2200+ stroke patients enrolled from 50+ centres in China, Senior Project Lead of Second Enhanced Control of Hypertension and Thrombectomy Stroke Study (ENCHANTED2) with 800+ stroke patients enrolled from 50+ centres in China, Global Project Lead of other large international clinical trials, including ENCHANTED, INTERACT2 and SAVE.

John’s career started in science, with a PhD in nuclear physics from the University of Melbourne. This was followed by a number of IT leadership roles in various industries, including insurance, ISP, defense and aerospace and global professional services.

Sanne Peters is an Associate Professor at The George Institute for Global Health and a Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London. She holds a joint appointment as Associate Professor at the University Medical Center Utrecht.

Dr Emily R Atkins is a Senior Research Fellow in Health Systems Science at the George Institute for Global Health and a Conjoint Senior Lecturer at UNSW Sydney. She has expertise in economic evaluation, cardiovascular trials, and linked data analysis. Dr Atkins' recent focus has been on the health economics of blood pressure lowering medicines. She is interested in affordable and equitable improvements in cardiovascular medicines use globally. Dr Atkins is the health economist leading the economic evaluation of the NEXTGEN-BP randomised trial.

Dr Atkins is an Executive Committee member and Scientific Advisory Committee member of the Australian and New Zealand Alliance for Cardiovascular Trials (2018-present). She was a National Heart Foundation Australia Postdoctoral Research Fellow (2018) and World Heart Federation Emerging Leader (2017) working on blood pressure lowering clinical trials and access and affordability of cardiovascular medicines, including a feasibility study of adherence clubs for hypertension.

Emily completed her PhD (2015) at the University of Western Australia using linked administrative hospital morbidity, deaths, and pharmacy data to investigate the cost-effectiveness of cardiovascular medicines for secondary prevention of atherothrombotic disease.
 

Hueiming Liu is a clinician-researcher (BA, MBBS, MIPH, PhD, FAFPHM) and worked as a medical officer before completing her Masters in International public health, and embarking on public health research at George Institute for Global Health (TGI) in 2008 as the program manager of Kanyini Vascular Collaboration (between Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Sector and academics).  She developed the concept on strengthening health systems using process evaluations (PE) for her PhD funded by a NHMRC scholarship. 

As a post-doctoral research fellow in 2019, Hueiming led the new Process Evaluation stream, in the Centre of Health Systems Science at The George Institute for Global Health, building capacity in implementation science, and facilitating knowledge exchange across collaborative interdisciplinary teams.  This includes provision of technical expertise to > 25 projects, across different fields and countries, 9 workshops on implementation research across countries(~550 attendees), being an invited panel member as an implementation scientist, at the World Heart Federation and Lancet Regional Health Roundtable.  She was an invited editor, for a special collection 'Process Evaluations of Clinical Trials' and was invited by Prof Hirschhorn to co-author a chapter, in Practical Implementation Science, Moving Evidence into Action edited by Weiner, Bryan Jeffrey, Cara C. Lewis, and Kenneth H. Sherr, eds. 2023, an award-winning textbook. She is faculty for the Global Alliance for Chronic Disease advanced implementation science course in 2025, and faculty for the World Heart Federation Emerging Leader program in 2022. She has a career total of 90 peer-reviewed publications, 2 book chapters, is a CI on 12 peer-reviewed grants, totalling > $ 14 million. She has completed supervision of 6 PhD students, and 2 UK Masters students, and is currently supervising 1 PhD student at UNSW, 3 PhD students at University of Sydney. 

She re-entered clinical training in 2020 and was awarded her public health physician RACP fellowship in 2023. During the pandemic years of 2020-2022, she worked parttime as a TGI senior research fellow and parttime in the health system, initially at Sydney Local Health District community paediatrics department, and then at NSW Ministry of Health as a medical advisor in Health protection supporting the roll out of the COVID vaccination program. These additional responsibilities reduced her time and capacity for research outputs, but it has been a privilege for her to serve the community during a challenging time.

Currently, she is Program Lead, Implementation research for health equity at The George Institute for Global Health, Associate Professor at UNSW and Conjoint Senior Lecturer at University of Sydney, and a 2024 Emerging Leader with World Heart Federation. She is a honorary public health physician at Sydney Local Health District, partnering with end-users on implementation and evaluation of culturally-safe intersectoral models of care that address social determinants of health. She is a mother of three and was greatly supported in her career journey as a Franklin woman Mentee, and in 2024 as a Franklin woman Mentor. She is passionate about improving health system resilience, and in strengthening the health and medical research ecosystem to improve health equity.