Professor Ferreira is NHMRC Investigator Fellow, Professor of Musculoskeletal Health and Program Head, Musculoskeletal Health, at The George Institute for Global Health, where she conducts research on the mechanisms, prognosis and management of musculoskeletal disorders with a focus on low back pain. Before joining The George Institute, she was Professor of Musculoskeletal Health at the University of Sydney, where she was inaugural chair of the Musculoskeletal Priority Research Area (+80 researchers) at the Kolling Institute, and co-chair of the Musculoskeletal Clinical Advisory Group of Sydney Health Partners (an NHMRC, Sydney University and health district research translation partnership). With +320 scientific publications, and +AUD30M in research funding, she is the 2nd highest ranked researcher in the world for ‘low back pain’ (of a total of 33,000 authors worldwide – Expertscape). She currently leads multiple randomised controlled trials of musculoskeletal interventions, including the first placebo randomised controlled trial of spinal surgery, an NHMRC-funded study that will establish the efficacy of decompressive surgery for lumbar spinal stenosis. 

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. 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.