Worlds Collide: Growing up in non-Western culture & effect on thinking about global health
Podcast
Sarah Suwasrawala
Profile
Sarah Suwasrawala is a psychologist and public mental health researcher working at the intersection of women's health, mental health, and community-based care. She currently serves as a Research Fellow at The George Institute for Global Health in India, where she contributes to multidisciplinary research on women's health and well-being across diverse healthcare settings. She holds a Master's degree in Clinical Psychology and has extensive experience designing and implementing trauma-informed, rights-based psychosocial interventions with marginalised populations, particularly youth.
Her work is grounded in culturally responsive and equity-oriented approaches, with a focus on gender-based violence, mental health disparities, and strengthening accessible mental health services in low-resource contexts. She is particularly interested in integrating mental health within broader public health frameworks and advancing community-driven models of care that address the social determinants of health.
Preety R Rajbangshi
Profile
Preety R. Rajbangshi is a Senior Research Fellow at The George Institute for Global Health, India, where she leads India's Global Women's Health Programme. She holds a Master of Public Health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, United States.
Her research focuses on women's health across the life course and strengthening health systems for primary care. With nearly two decades of experience as a researcher and practitioner, she has worked on maternal health, anaemia, and endometriosis. She has prior experience working with government health programmes at national and state levels in India.
Preety brings extensive field experience in community engagement with tribal communities, internally displaced populations, and women workers in tea plantations. Her work aims to address health inequities and generate practice-based evidence to inform action.
CREST - Research training
Our globally recognised Research Training Programs blend academic rigour with practical, real-world application to build research capacity and drive evidence-based healthcare. Developed and delivered by experts at The George Institute for Global Health, these programs empower early career researchers, clinicians, public health professionals, clinical trial staff, and policymakers to lead impactful research across diverse health systems. Offered face-to-face, online, or in blended formats, each course is designed to be globally informed while tailored with regional context to ensure practical relevance. Whether undertaken individually or as part of a broader training pathway, these programs foster innovation, strengthen expertise, and support meaningful collaborations that advance global health outcomes.
Our programs are ideal for:
Clinicians and allied health professionals new to research
Research managers and coordinators
Policy makers and public health practitioners
Upcoming events at the 79th World Health Assembly
News
Critical care
Research Program
George Institute welcomes new WHO guidance on potassium-enriched salt
News
Dr Katie Harris
Profile
Dr Katie Harris is a Senior Research Fellow in the Professorial Unit at the George Institute for Global Health. Her areas of expertise include Biostatistics and Clinical Epidemiology, awarded a PhD in Biostatistics from the University of Leeds, UK. She also holds a Conjoint Senior Lecturer position at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.
Katie has extensive experience working with big data, including population-based, linked and non-linked datasets, and clinical trials data. Her current research interests are in sex and gender differences, cardiovascular disease and hypertension, and dementia and cognitive decline.
Clinical trial design immersion: a hands‑on training
Event
Women Deliver 2026: Connecting Climate, Chronic Disease and Gender Equality
News
Prof Jason Wu
Profile
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.
Dr Megan Gow
Profile
Dr Megan Gow is a Senior Research Fellow with both Food Policy and the Women’s Health Program at The George Institute for Global Health, in Sydney, Australia. Her PhD investigated various dietary interventions in the prevention and treatment of type 2 diabetes. Her research at The George Institute is centred on a Food is Medicine program of work, where she is a lead on two clinical trials, investigating how Produce Prescription interventions can be implemented within the Australian healthcare system to address diet-related disease and food insecurity, specifically for adults with type 2 diabetes, and pregnant women at risk of gestational diabetes.