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Making room around the table: bringing Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander leadership to research

National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children’s Day is a day all Australians are urged to celebrate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and learn about the impact that culture, family and community plays in the life of every child.

• InFocus
• 4 August 2025

Recognising high quality health and medical research

The Guunu-maana (Heal) Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Program at The George Institute for Global Health drives meaningful, ethical research and advocacy to transform the health and wellbeing of Indigenous peoples and communities. Recipient of the 2025 NHMRC Research Quality Biennial Award, Guunu-maana is committed to research quality, being led by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ways of knowing, being and doing to generate evidence that privileges Indigenous knowledges and research quality within the field.

• InFocus
• News
• 13 July 2025

Recognising outstanding contributions to Australian health and medical research

Professor Emily Banks AM, recipient of the 2025 NHMRC Outstanding Contribution Award, is a public health physician and epidemiologist working towards improving health and healthcare, at an individual and population level. With interests spanning chronic disease, tobacco control, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health and healthy ageing, Professor Banks’s extensive research into population health is changing public behaviours, guiding healthcare professionals and having a significant impact in the community.

• InFocus
• 31 May 2025

Recognising excellence in developing a world-first Indigenous wellbeing index

Ngiyampaa/Wongaibon social epidemiologist and recipient of the 2023 NHMRC David Cooper Clinical Trials and Cohort Studies Award, Professor Raymond Lovett has focused his career on improving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health. As an Associate Director of Yardhura Walani (Australian National University) and Director of Mayi Kuwayu: The national study of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander wellbeing, Professor Lovett’s research has influenced policy at state and national levels, as well as empowered communities at the local level. He is now aiming to take this to the global stage through the development of a world-first Indigenous wellbeing index.

• InFocus
• News
• 20 May 2025

Centering Indigenous research excellence now and into the future

NHMRC is committed to improving the health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples through funding research of the highest quality, integrity and excellence. We also encourage applications across our grant funding program that address Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health.

• InFocus
• News
• 6 November 2024

Celebrating a 25-year legacy of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health research with NHMRC

Professor Yvonne Cadet-James, the pioneering researcher, academic, mentor, registered nurse and midwife is celebrating a 25-year legacy of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health research at the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC).

• InFocus
• News
• 12 July 2024

Research Excellence: Advancing health equity of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population

Associate Professor Odette Pearson is of Eastern Yalanji and Torres Strait Islander descent and coleads the Aboriginal Health Equity Theme, South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute. Her research focus is improving chronic disease and ageing outcomes of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples through policy and guideline development and implementing and evaluating real world health and social interventions. Aboriginal leadership, governance and community and cross sector partnerships are foundations of her research. A/Prof Pearson has received the Lowitja Institute Patricia Anderson Leader in Aboriginal Research (2023), UniSA Alumini Award for Research in Aboriginal Health (2022) and The Diane Ranck, SAHMRI award for Leadership in Research (2022).

• InFocus
• News
• 8 July 2024

Community-designed and delivered suicide intervention

Warning: Some people may find parts of this content confronting. If this material raises any distress, contact Lifeline on 13 11 14, Call 13YARN or Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800.

A self-described grassroots Aboriginal researcher, Professor Maree Toombs is responsible for developing the first Indigenous-led and designed suicide intervention training program in Australia, creating space for connection to traditional lands and culture as part of life-saving support.

• InFocus
• Ten of the Best
• 14th Edition
• 24 January 2024

Mentors inspire an Indigenous research career with impact

Professor Cath Chamberlain, a Palawa woman of the Trawlwoolway clan (Tasmania), received an NHMRC Early Career Fellowship in 2014 to find culturally safe ways to improve cardiometabolic health outcomes in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander mothers.

• InFocus
• Ten of the Best
• 14th Edition
• 3 January 2024

Delivering a legacy of culturally safe maternity care

Professor Rhonda Marriott AM, a descendant of Nyikina people of the Kimberley, has devoted five decades to nursing and midwifery in clinical, academic and research roles.

• InFocus
• Ten of the Best
• 14th Edition
• 6 December 2023

Research Excellence: Supporting healing and recovery for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander survivors of childhood sexual abuse

Dr Graham Gee is an Aboriginal-Chinese man, also with Celtic heritage, originally from Darwin. His Aboriginal-Chinese grandfather was born near Belyuen on Larrakia Country. Dr Gee is a clinical psychologist and has worked at the Victorian Aboriginal Health Service for 11 years before taking up a research position at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. His early career research focused on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander mental health, social and emotional wellbeing, resilience and complex trauma. In 2022, Dr Gee commenced working in partnership with several Victorian Aboriginal services dedicated to healing child sexual abuse. Read more to find out more about Dr Gee’s research, in his own words.

• InFocus
• 18 November 2023

Research excellence: understanding the first few weeks of pregnancy

Professor Jose Polo’s work in epigenetics spans diverse fields, including cellular reprogramming, embryogenesis, neurobiology, immunology and cancer. His Synergy Grant brings together a multidisciplinary team who will combine the latest advances in models of early development, genetics and molecular biology to determine how the early placenta produced by the embryo burrows into the uterus and keeps developing during the entire pregnancy.

• InFocus
• 20 July 2023

Communities driving health care research

'It’s about coming with an open mind and heart, and willingness to deeply listen to community… to have any preconceptions challenged and re-learn ways of doing research' - Dr Veronica Matthews , co-lead investigator, STRengthening systems for InDigenous healthcare Equity (STRIDE)

• InFocus
• 14 March 2023

Making a decision to do the hard research, that’s what discovery is about

Deciding to commit to a research life is brave – so is committing to do the hard research. Professor Cath Chamberlain says with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health, in particular, 'we are going to need to take some more risks to do things differently'. 

• InFocus
• 31 May 2022

Internship brings entirely new set of skills

Sharna Motlap has always been interested in creating and implementing evidence-based programs specifically tailored to Indigenous communities. 

• InFocus
• 12 May 2022

HEAL national research network addressing the health effects of environmental change

The Healthy Environments and Lives National Research Network (HEAL) was announced at the end of 2021 with a grant of $10 million over five years, as an NHMRC Special Initiative to provide national and international leadership in environmental change and health research. HEAL formally starts in May 2022; a lot of groundwork has been done to create the foundations for a large and diverse collaboration to deliver its ambitious work plan over the next five years and beyond.

• InFocus
• 7 April 2022

Crossing disciplines to answer complex research questions

University of Adelaide's Professor Ian Olver received the 2021 NHMRC Ethics Award in recognition of his significant contribution to Australian health and medical research ethics over the last decade. As chair of NHMRC’s Australian Health Ethics Committee, and as a valued member of NHMRC Council from 2012 to 2018, his balanced and considered leadership style and willingness to engage sensitively on tough issues supported a wider understanding of the ethical impact of emerging health and medical research innovations and technologies.

• InFocus
• 6 September 2021

Australian research delivers rapid Hep B test for earlier treatment

Hepatitis B is an infectious disease that causes the liver to become inflamed and contributes to increasing rates of liver cancer in Australia and globally.

• InFocus
• 26 July 2021

Improving kidney health for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people

Associate Professor Jaqui Hughes from the Menzies School of Health Research received the 2019 NHMRC Clinical Trials and Cohort Studies Award at NHMRC’s Research Excellence Awards ceremony in March 2020. Kidney disease is a significant health priority among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. The cohort study being led by A/Professor Hughes will describe the long-term changes in kidney function over 10 years. This will provide critical data to inform regional and national policy on identification and care of people with kidney disease.

• InFocus
• 18 September 2020

Aboriginal mental health research and the importance of resilience

Developing better understanding of effective therapeutic practices with Aboriginal clients, in Aboriginal community settings, and with Aboriginal practitioners, across the spectrum of mental health and social and emotional wellbeing outcomes is the goal of Dr Graham Gee.

• InFocus
• 10 July 2020

Blending disability and Indigenous research

‘The rate of disability among Indigenous Australians is almost twice as high as that among non-Indigenous people'1

• InFocus
• 13 December 2017

Bringing innovative research into clinical practice

Now an ear, nose and throat surgeon, Associate Professor Kelvin Kong was destined for health care. Growing up Kelvin and his sisters were always keen to help his mother, a Registered Nurse, whenever she had a one of their mob come around to remove a suture, tend to a cut or get a vaccination.

• InFocus
• 13 December 2017

Protecting premature babies from kidney disease

‘18 per cent of all Indigenous Australian adults have chronic kidney disease—two times as likely as non-Indigenous Australians.’

• InFocus
• 7 September 2017

Extraordinary life of an Indigenous medical researcher

‘I have just felt really privileged for most of my life, I love my work, I love what I do, and I really enjoy the people I work with, and it comes from spending part of my career in medical research. It just gives you a lot of flexibility and opportunities that you don’t get with standard clinical hospital jobs or general practice.’

• InFocus
• 16 March 2017