Newsletter | Term 2, 2025
Head of School update
I’d like to start by thanking Professor Rebecca Ivers for her incredible leadership of the School of Population Health. During Rebecca’s tenure as Head of School, the school went from strength to strength – you’ll read about our latest successes in research and education in this newsletter. We’re pleased Rebecca will stay close to the school with her new appointment in the Faculty of Medicine & Health as Deputy Dean, Global Engagement and External Education. Some photos of Rebecca’s farewell morning tea are included below.
In other big news, the school will be relocating to the new Health Translation Hub (HTH) in September. It’s exciting to be part of this integrated space, where we will be co-located with fellow researchers, industry partners and clinicians. This will be a new way of working for the school, and we look forward to meeting with our conjoints, adjuncts and emeritus professors in the HTH after we have settled into the new space.
The CAPHIA Teaching and Learning Forum 2025 is coming up, hosted locally at University of Technology Sydney on November 6 – 7. This is a great opportunity for our staff to engage with peers face-to-face. More information about the .
I am also extremely pleased to announce that we have four new senior lecturers in the school – Blessing Akombi-Inyang, Jane Hwang, Paul Simpson and Luna Xu! It’s great to see the dedication and excellence of our staff recognised with these promotions.
Finally, I’d like to extend our thanks to our partners in Northern Sydney Local Health District and NSW Health for hosting Masterclasses in Term 2. These are high value opportunities for our students to learn from leaders working in their areas of study. You can read more about the Masterclasses below. I’d also like to call out Dr Cherie Lucas who developed a Student Professional Development Program in Term 2, and will be extending this to other Medicine & Health Students in Term 3.
Professor James Wood
Head of School
July 2025
Education highlights
Masterclass: Northern Sydney Local Health District
Our students participated in a Health System and Service Improvement Masterclass, co-hosted by hosted by Northern Sydney Local Health District. Highlights included presentations from Chief Executive Adjunct Professor Anthony Schembri, and Executive Director, Office of the Chief Executive, Mr Simon Radmore, who shared their experiences of leading health services. The Masterclass topics aligned to the Health Leadership and Management core coursesÌýHealth Leadership & WorkforceÌýManagementÌý²¹²Ô»åÌýEvidence-Informed Decision-Making.
Masterclass:ÌýThe Special Commission of Inquiry in Healthcare Funding
The School of Population Health hosted a Masterclass led by Amanda Larkin, Lead Special Commission of Inquiry. Amanda was joined by a panel of experts involved in the Special Commission (Sally Lee, Lucy Pinnock, Alana McCarthy, Lucy Blair) who provided valuable insight into the establishment of the Special Commission, the structure and function of the Special Commission, the role of key stakeholders, and the recommendations of the final Report and the implications for NSW Health. The Masterclass was attended by School of Population Health students and staff, and health service colleagues. Professor David Greenfield chaired the event.
Student essays published
Congratulations to master’s students Sam Templeman and Shreyas Iyer. Working with A/Prof Bridget Haire, they reframed their final essays as debates and published in the journal Sexual Health.
Engagement and impact
Strengthening community cause of death data
In June, Prof Rohina Joshi attended the Third Ministerial Conference on Civil Registration and Vital Statistics in Asia at the United Nations Conference Centre in Thailand. The meeting was hosted by the United Nations’ Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific. Â鶹Éçmadou held a side event with the CDC Foundation on strengthening community cause of death data using verbal autopsy. Prof Joshi moderated the panel Prof Joshi.
Third Ministerial Conference on Civil Registration and Vital Statistics in Asia
Third Ministerial Conference on Civil Registration and Vital Statistics in Asia
Third Ministerial Conference on Civil Registration and Vital Statistics in Asia
Cardiometabolic Medicines Consumer Workshop
The Cardiometabolic Medicines team (A/Prof Michael Falster, Dr Tamara Milder, Dr Juliana de Oliveira Costa, Melisa Litchfield) facilitated a Consumer Workshop of people with diabetes, obesity, heart and/or kidney disease. There were fantastic learnings on pain-points for accessing novel medicines (e.g. Ozempic) and use of data to shape better care pathways!
Addressing health inequity in chronic disease management
A partnership between Â鶹Éçmadou Sydney and McGill University aims to enhance and reshape preventive healthcare research for multicultural communities in Australia and Canada, supported by a Â鶹Éçmadou Global Research and Impact Program grant. As part of this project, SPH staff have engaged in cross-national knowledge exchange. In April Dr Sabuj Kanti Mistry, with Adjunct Lecturer Dr Uday Narayan Yadav, visited Flemingdon Health Centre in Toronto, Canada, and Associate Professor Alayne Adams from McGill University visited Â鶹Éçmadou Sydney in May.
Nepal Health Research Council visit
In July the school hosted delegates from the Nepal Health Research Council. Dr Pramod Joshi and Dr Meghnath Dhimal presented insights from their work on the burden on non-communicable disease burden in Nepal and evidenced based responses. Prof Rohina Joshi chaired the session.
Media Publications
Read the latest media publications from the School of Population Health (Note: SPH contributors are listed here, please click on the links to see all authors).
The Conversation
ÌýBridget Haire
ÌýBridget Haire
ÌýSamuel Cornell.
ÌýAnita Heywood
ÌýSamuel Cornell, Amy Peden.Ìý
ÌýSamuel Cornell.
ÌýEmaediong I. Akpanekpo PhD Candidate, Tony Butler.Ìý
ÌýSamuel Cornell.Ìý
ÌýPeter Chisholm, Conjoint Associate Lecturer.Ìý
ÌýSamuel Cornell.Ìý
Â鶹Éçmadou Newsroom & other media
ÌýMaree Toombs
How to get emergency departments and bilingual patients talking the same language.ÌýPadmanesan NarasimhanÌý
Research highlights
Grants
Professor Maree Toombs
Prof Maree Toombs was awarded $845,000 for the ‘Healing our spirit: Indigenous youth-led model of care’ project. The study will pilot a therapeutic model of mental health care developed by Yolngu people aged 15-24 years for Indigenous young people with depression and/or anxiety, and will assess acceptability and feasibility in a remote Indigenous community.
Pippa McDermid
First-year PhD student Pippa McDermid, with supervisory team and associate investigators, was awarded the ESCMID Individual Research Grant 2025 of 20,000 euros. The grant will support her PhD activities which aims to reduce infections. This includes developing interventions to enhance patient and visitor hand hygiene practices in hospitals using co-design workshops, testing the intervention in a mixed-methods pilot study in Prince of Wales Hospital, and evaluating the clinical effectiveness of the intervention in a cohort study. Pippa is supervised by A/Prof Holly Seale and Dr Md Saiful Islam, with A/Prof Jason Kwong at Austin Health.
More highlights
CHIPP project
The (CHIPP) project was a play-based, culturally appropriate, evidence-based program on Water Safety, Road and Pedestrian Safety and Â鶹Éçmadou Safety developed and delivered in partnership with Goonimoo playgroup at Walgett Aboriginal Medical Service. The evaluation found that the program was feasible, accessible and acceptable and highlighted the importance of a co-design approach to collaboratively develop a program to prevent unintentional injuries among Aboriginal children.
Authors: Amy Townsend, Rona Macniven, Nellie Pollard-Wharton, Melanie Andersen, Madeleine Powell, Sallie Cairnduff, Ruth McCausland, Christine Corby, Kathleen Clapham, Rebecca Ivers.
Award of Excellence: Risk of Trees project
A project funded by NSW Department of Planning received the 'Award of Excellence – Research Award', for the Risk of Trees project at the Parks and Leisure Regional Awards of Excellence. This project is led by Blacktown Council with key partner Prof Xiaoqi Feng.
DrawingFree viritual exhibition
The recently published virtual exhibition, "DrawingFree," contains art works and stories about lived experience of incarceration, and highlights the benefit of the arts-based research in medicine for knowledge translation, healing and as a research method.
Read more about this work:
Research team: Dr Patricia Morgan, Dr Jane Hwang, A/Prof Adrienne Withall, Dr Paul Simpson, Prof Prue Vines, Louisa Gillings, John Killick.