Dr Sultana Shajahan is a final-year PhD candidate at The George Institute for Global Health and the University of New South Wales, Sydney. After completing her medical degree in Bangladesh, she earned a Master of Public Health (Research) degree with High Distinction at Macquarie University, Sydney.

Her doctoral research focuses on high-level evidence synthesis and advanced analyses of large international datasets (including ADVANCE, PROGRESS, and SCAPIS) to investigate how a wide range of clinically important blood pressure measures are associated with cognitive decline and dementia. This work aims to generate new insights to guide the design of future cohort studies and clinical trials targeting dementia prevention, a growing global health challenge. For her PhD research, she was awarded the Young Investigator Award at the European Stroke Organisation Conference (ESOC) in 2023.

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. Previously, she gained extensive experience at The George Institute for Global Health, contributing to projects in stroke, women’s health, sex differences, and multimorbidity. She brings expertise and interest in systematic reviews, meta-analyses, clinical trials, cohort studies, blood pressure measurement, dementia prevention, cognition and stroke.

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.

Elizabeth Dunford is a Project Consultant for The George Institute for Global Health’s Food Policy Division, Adjunct Senior Lecturer at the University of New South Wales and an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of North Carolina.

She is known internationally for her work in monitoring the global food supply and in the development of novel technologies to support this work in both developed and developing countries. She led the development of the Australian and US FoodSwitch food composition databases which are used to monitor changes in the nutritional composition of the food supply. The Australian database she developed in her PhD was used to create the FoodSwitch smartphone application; an innovative tool that helps consumers select healthier food choices. FoodSwitch has been downloaded >1,000,000 times and has been launched in multiple countries.

Elizabeth has an undergraduate degree in Human Nutrition, a Masters degree in Public Health, and a PhD in Public Health from The University of Sydney. In the 10 years following the completion of her postgraduate qualification in Public Health, Elizabeth has published 100+ peer-reviewed journal articles and has authored multiple commissioned policy documents for the World Health Organization, Access to Nutrition Initiative, World Bank and Unicef.