Emerging Thought Leaders

Our Emerging Thought Leaders are early-mid career researchers and operational subject matter experts, selected for their passion to improve health and their drive to expand the reach of their insights in order to influence change.

2024 cohort

Alice Witt

Research and Policy Fellow, The George Institute for Global Health

Alice Witt is a Research and Policy Fellow based in the UK office. She works on the MESSAGE (Medical Science Sex and Gender Equity) project, a policy initiative to improve how biomedical, health and care research accounts for sex and gender. Through this work, she engages with stakeholders across the UK research sector to co-design key policy documents and support research funders to implement new sex and gender policies. The long-term goal of this work is to embed proper accounting of sex and gender dimensions as the norm for all research practice, thereby addressing critical sex and gender gaps in the evidence base and improving health outcomes for all people. Alice holds an MA in Social Anthropology of Development from SOAS, University of London and a BA in Modern Languages from the University of Oxford.

Balaji Gummidi

Senior Project Manager, The George Institute for Global Health

Balaji is a Senior Project Manager and PhD scholar under NIHR-GHRC (National Institute for Health and Care Research- Global Health Research Centres) program at Manipal university, India.

His focus lies in understanding the complex interplay between environmental exposures, social determinants of health, and the development and progression of chronic kidney disease (CKD) in vulnerable populations. He leverages robust statistical modelling techniques and geospatial analysis to identify trends and disparities in CKD burden, aiming to inform public health interventions and policy decisions. Over the past six years, his research has focused on unveil the underlying causes of developing the chronic kidney disease of unknown origin and developing innovative prevention and treatment strategies.

Growing up in a resource-scarce community in India, Balaji witnessed the impact of inadequate healthcare facilities and believes everyone deserves access to quality healthcare. His long-term goal is to contribute to building accessible and affordable healthcare systems, ensuring everyone can live a healthy life.

Balaji began his academic journey in 2009 with a Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS) from NTR University of Health Sciences, India. He pursued a Master of Public Health (MPH) in 2011. Currently, Balji is enrolled as a PhD Scholar at Manipal University of Health Sciences under the prestigious NIHR Global Health Research Centre (NIHR GHRC) program.

Benjamin Talbot

Research Fellow, The George Institute for Global Health

Ben Talbot is a nephrologist and clinical research fellow in the Cardiovascular Division of The George Institute for Global Health. He has worked in clinical medicine in both the UK and Australia and completed a PhD at the University of New South Wales investigating different data approaches to improving global chronic kidney disease treatment and outcomes. Ben’s current program of research focuses on better understanding how to measure and reduce the carbon footprint of health interventions and clinical research, with the long-term goal of contributing to the decarbonisation of health care. Ben is currently based in the UK and holds a conjoint senior lecturer position at the University of New South Wales, Australia.

Damian Maganja

Research Fellow, The George Institute for Global Health

Damian is a Research Fellow in the Food Policy Division. His research and advocacy looks at policies and processes to improve the healthiness of food environments, with a focus on better regulation and governance of harmful food, beverage and alcohol industries. His goal is to see the food system put people, communities, and the environment before profit.

Before joining the academic sector, Damian worked in health policy and programs across various government and non-government organisations. He is currently completing a Doctor of Philosophy program at the University of New South Wales, and has previously completed a Master of International Public Health from the University of Sydney and a Bachelor of Economics and Social Sciences (Political Economy) from the University of Sydney.

Isabella Tan

Research Fellow, The George Institute for Global Health

Dr Isabella Tan is a Research Fellow in the Cardiovascular Program. She has made a couple of transitions in her career, from developing software for translational hearing research to a PhD on effects of heart rate on aortic stiffness, then shifting research focus from biomedical engineering to public health. She is currently involved in several blood pressure related clinical trials at The George Institute. Isabella would like to see more health partners work together to achieve multidisciplinary care pathway in an efficient and cost-effective manner, particularly through combined health screening in at-risk populations.

Jane Troup

Clinical Research Associate, The George Institute for Global Health

Jane Troup is a Clinical Research Associate and Clinical Trial Coordinator at The George Institute for Global Health Sydney. She has a Master of Research in Molecular Biology and is a graduate of the selective PRAXIS Australia Clinical Trial Coordination Internship in 2023. Jane is passionate about the translation of innovative research into interventions that that improve quality of care for patients and their communities. She is looking to develop her understanding of the clinical research environment in Australia and internationally, and the crucial points in the research translation pipeline. Jane has a particular interest in the importance of participant engagement and communication in the context of clinical trial design and conduct.

Jith JR

Research Fellow, The George Institute for Global Health

Jith is a Research Fellow with the COMPLUS project at The George Institute for Global Health India office, working out of Bengaluru. The project aims to strengthen the participation and voice of communities and community structures in urban pluralistic health systems for better alignment of health system actors around the common goals of accountable, responsive, and inclusive health systems. His main focus is on community participation in public health and the contextual factors influencing evidence-based maternal and child nutrition interventions. A high-level, long-term goal of his is to develop a framework of understanding that integrates the influences of contextual factors, opportunity costs, aspects of safeguarding, and gender in community participation in health. Jith has a Bachelor’s in Economics, a Masters and a Ph.D. in Development Studies.

Kristy Law

PhD Candidate, The George Institute for Global Health

Kristy Law is a PhD Candidate with the Food Policy division and an Accredited Practicing Dietitian who has previously worked in the not-for-profit and government sectors.

Her PhD is focused on ‘Food is Medicine’ research – a social prescription approach that aims integrate food-based nutrition services into the healthcare system to improve health outcomes, particularly for people experiencing health and socioeconomic disadvantage. Specifically, she is helping to test the impact of a medically tailored meals program for people with type 2 diabetes, and exploring the feasibility of integrating such interventions into the Australian context. With experience in community and public health nutrition, Kristy is interested in contributing to the disruption of the status quo in policies and systems, to advance health equity. Her goal is to produce robust research that will help break down the silos between the health, food and community sectors, through practical solutions and co-design principles.

Laura Downey

Senior Research Fellow, The George Institute for Global Health

Dr Laura Downey is a Senior Research Fellow in health economics and policy at the George Institute Australia, a Conjoint Senior Lecturer in the School of Population Health at the University of New South Wales, and an advanced Research Fellow at Imperial College London. Her research is focused broadly on evaluating health system performance in relation to Universal Health Coverage goals, and developing innovative solutions to support equitable access to high quality, affordable care for the world’s most vulnerable populations. Dr Downey is an Investigator, theme lead, and the Research Capacity Strengthening co-lead within a National Institute of Health Research (NIHR)-funded Centre for Non-Communicable Diseases and Environmental Change. Through the work of this Centre, Laura and her collaborators in India, Bangladesh, and Indonesia aim to strengthen primary care delivery in these settings and co-design and deliver multisectoral interventions with local community members to mitigate the detrimental health impacts of environmental stressors in those most vulnerable to the environmental exposures of extreme heat (India), food Insecurity (India), air pollution caused by plastic burning (Indonesia), and highly salinized water (Bangladesh).

Lauren Houston

Research Fellow, The George Institute for Global Health

Dr Lauren Houston, PhD, is a Research Fellow in the Cardiovascular Program at The George Institute for Global Health, Australia and a Conjoint Lecturer in the Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of New South Wales, Sydney.

Lauren is dedicated to conducting research aimed at preventing and treating cardiometabolic diseases. Her research is primarily focused on conducting clinical trials to investigate the efficacy of SGLT2 inhibitor therapy in the prevention of heart and renal complications among people diagnosed with early-stage Type 2 Diabetes, severe kidney disease, and HIV. Lauren’s research is also focused on examining the interactions between cancer and its treatments and the resulting cardiovascular risks in women. Her long-term goal is to broaden women’s access to cardiovascular risk assessment while improving the diagnosis and management of cardiovascular disease in women.

Menglu Ouyang

Research Fellow, The George Institute for Global Health

Dr Menglu Ouyang is a Research Fellow at The George Institute for Global Health in Sydney, Australia, and a Conjoint Lecturer at the University of New South Wales. Her research field is in stroke, including acute care, clinical management, health system and implementation science. She has extensive experience in large international clinical trials and implementation research. Menglu's current research is focused on the implementation of evidence-based interventions to improve the system of care in stroke. Her research aims to fill the knowledge gap in stroke clinical guidelines development, inform implementation strategies and support promoting the care embedded in existing processes in a global context.

Nikita Bathla

Project Manager, The George Institute for Global Health

Nikita is a Project Manager at The George Institute for Global Health, India, and is involved in the operationalisation and management of observational studies and randomised trials in hospital settings. She is involved in several multi-country trials in the areas of COVID-19, Nephrology and Critical Care. Nikita works closely with trial sponsors, steering committees, regulatory authorities, ethics committees and clinical sites across India to conduct trials ethically, and efficiently.

Nikita is a physician with training in public health and health management. She has an undergraduate degree in medicine from Bangalore, India and holds master’s degrees in international public health and health management from the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney.
Her key areas of interest are clinical trial methodology, regulatory affairs, patient safety and social determinants of clinical trial participation.

Rajeshree Sanyal

Assistant Research Manager, The George Institute for Global Health

Rajeshree is an Assistant Research Manager and Clinical Research Training Program coordinator for a multi-institutional grant (STOP-Epilepsy) at The George Institute for Global Health, India. She co-leads the planning and implementation of institutional training and capacity building programs for researchers and manages online course development and virtual learning management system at TGI. She has a PhD from the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics, Hyderabad and 3+ years of experience in research management. Digital learning has the potential to maximize research impact, strengthen stakeholder engagement in research, and provide avenues for outreach. Building on her experience, Rajeshree aims to understand how digital learning platforms and tools can be leveraged as a pathway for promoting health systems strengthening through capacity building, health awareness, and stakeholder collaboration.

Sreya Majumdar

Research Fellow, The George Institute for Global Health

Dr. Sreya Majumdar is a Research Fellow at The George Institute. Her area of expertise is in qualitative research, and she has worked on the design of research methods for implementation evaluation and intervention. She has been part of the in the SMART Health Pregnancy, SMART Health V3 platform research, PRAMH, and SMART Health ChatGPT projects. Sreya engages with communities and stakeholders using qualitative methods such as interactive, participatory, and ethnographic approaches. She wants to develop interventions that improve the availability of reproductive choices for birthing women in India. Sreya has a Ph.D. in sociology and social anthropology and is a Fulbright Fellow who worked with professional midwives and community doulas both in India and the US.

Tristan Bouckley

PhD Candidate, The George Institute for Global Health

Tristan Bouckley is a PhD Candidate with the Health System Science division at The George Institute for Global health. He has extensive experience in government policy, working on the design and implementation of health system reforms. Informed by his experience working across levels of the health system in both domestic and global health, Tristan’s PhD explores how health system reforms can better prioritise health equity and address health inequities. His research approach draws on multi-method, collaborative, and community and stakeholder informed research design. Throughout all his work, Tristan is dedicated to promoting pro-active and adaptive health systems that ensure diverse community needs are addressed. To achieve this, Tristan is working with a team of experts to identify and present the evidence and tools to enable policy and decision makers, and programme managers to embed health equity promoting strategies into health system design and implementation.

Vivian Lee

Research Fellow, The George Institute for Global Health

Dr Vivian Lee, PhD, is a Research Fellow at The George Institute for Global Health and a Conjoint lecturer at the University of New South Wales.

Vivian is interested in the prevention of non-communicable diseases, with a particular emphasis on leveraging physical activity. Currently, she is dedicated to investigating strategies to reduce the long-term risk of disease using a comprehensive approach involving pharmacotherapy and physical activity in postpartum women. Her research interests include cardiovascular health, exercise and physical activity, prevention, public health, CALD population, women’s health and miscarriage.

Yang (William) Zhao

Senior Research Fellow, The George Institute for Global Health

Dr Yang Zhao is currently a multimorbidity epidemiologist, working as a Senior Research Fellow and Academic lead within Digital Health and Stroke Program at The George Institute for Global Health, and as Conjoint Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Medicine at University of New South Wales.

Yang aims to conduct research that improves behavioural lifestyles and reduces the burden of cardiometabolic multimorbidity. Yang’s research is focused on effective and efficient health service delivery and health promotion strategies which address the growing burden of cardiometabolic diseases and multimorbidity globally.

Yang would like to develop, progress and amplify multimorbidity studies as an Emerging Thought Leader. His work will contribute to the TGI ‘Better care’ and ‘Healthier societies’ research goals, aligning with the ‘Multimorbidity Strategy’. Through his research, Yang aims to develop innovative strategies for coordinated care for multiple chronic conditions.

Yang finished his PhD degree in Epidemiology and Public Health Service from The University of Melbourne in Australia in 2019 and MPH from Peking University in China in 2015.

Zien Zhou

Research Fellow, The George Institute for Global Health

Zien is a Research Fellow in the Neurological Program at The George Institute, Conjoint Lecturer of the Faculty of Medicine UNSW, and a NSW Cardiovascular Elite Postdoctoral Researcher. His research focuses on several important and closely related health issues in the elderly, such as cardioembolic stroke, cognitive impairment/dementia, and cerebral small vessel disease. He is currently leading a pilot trial funded by NSW Health to explore the value of brain images for optimal antithrombotic management in people with atrial fibrillation. Zien obtained his MD degree from Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine (China) in 2011 and his PhD degree from UNSW in 2022 (UNSW Scientia Scholarship awardee). Before joining The George Institute, he worked as a radiologist in China. Zien hopes to build up a team of medical imaging studies at the George Institute in the near future.