I am an environmental epidemiologist and anthropologist with a distinguished career in research, teaching and supervision, and academic leadership over 25 years and at three distinct institutions. 

I am nationally and internationally recognised for my work on climate change and health, in particular in adaptation strategies for building resilience, from small community-led interventions to multi-nation cross-sectoral plans.

I regularly consult and provide expert advice for governments in Australia and overseas on climate and health risk assessment and adaptation and I have worked as an international consultant to develop regional strategies for national health systems resilience and adaptation for the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

I led the health impacts assessment for Australia’s only national assessment of climate change to date, the Garnaut Climate Change Review (2008) and the Climate Adaptation Strategy for Health for Samoa (2013).

In 2022 I served as an expert witness in the pivotal decision of the Queensland Land Court to disallow a coal mine expansion on the basis of the health and human rights impacts on First Nations communities and on children and young people.

I am an expert reviewer for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) Assessment Reports, and I have served as an expert witness in three Commonwealth parliamentary inquiries and have variously led/contributed to/reviewed several Australian State health adaptation plans.

I have worked throughout Australia (urban, rural, and remote, including Torres Strait and other First Nations communities), the Pacific (Samoa, Kiribati and Fiji), Ethiopia (informal communities), and Asia (Cambodia, Lao PDR, Timor-Leste).

I have over 180 research publications (h-index 30, i-10 index 81) and I have been a lead investigator in around $11 million successful research funding. My doctoral thesis (ANU, 2003) took a life course perspective on health, examining sociopolitical history, child growth and subsequent risk of adult diabetes in a First Nations community.

I am an award-winning researcher and teacher, sought-after public speaker and media commentator. In June 2016 I was appointed to Australia’s independent Climate Council and I have served as a non-Executive Director on the Research Committee of The Australia Institute since 2012.