Professor Barbora deCourten

Prof de Courten has a PhD in Epidemiology, a Master of Public Health and extensive training in clinical trials from the National Institutes of Health in the USA. She has expertise across the translational research continuum from basic science to human mechanistic studies to clinical trials through to public health interventions and clinical practice. She is also Business-focused Executive MBA delivering practical processes through translational strategy, commercialization, value proposition, and leadership.

She is passionate about research into holistic approaches to the prevention and treatment of chronic diseases by promoting health through safe, low-cost and easily scalable interventions with the potential to have an immediate public health impact to prevent and treat chronic diseases. She believes this will impact not only the health of individuals but also be beneficial to our society and the environment we live in.

Prof de Courten's vision is to establish new strategies for the prevention and management of chronic diseases, specifically obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Her goal is that her research findings will ultimately translate into treatment guidelines, reduced diabetes and cardiovascular morbidity and mortality and reduced healthcare costs.

She has worked in a variety of international settings, as reflected by my appointments at prestigious institutions in the USA (National Institutes of Health), Australia (Baker IDI, Monash University, The Alfred Hospital and Monash Health) and Europe (University of Copenhagen, Comenius University and Steno Diabetes Centre). She has held fellowships from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), National Heart Foundation (NHF), Fogarty (USA) and Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP). She enjoys an active national and international research network with >160 collaborators. She has attracted >$9.5 million in research funding, published more than 198 peer-reviewed scientific articles and was awarded 15 research awards. Her work has been cited in 7 international policy documents incl. World Health Organization, World Bank and National Institutes of Health.

Prof de Courten promotes the breakdown of information silos in research and supports collaboration across disciplines to achieve major advances in health in shorter timeframes.

Reporting to the Dean, she leads the applied discipline teams across Psychology, Pharmacy, Nursing and Medical Radiation.

She is responsible for:

• Updating the curriculum for all healthcare workers to reflect modern workforce requirements including programs in leadership, business management & basics of accounting, design thinking and digital health.
• Mapping the department's staff key skills and capabilities to ensure we understand what strengths we can draw upon and where we may need to address any unmet capabilities.
• Developing a detailed research strategy and creating our vision and mission for the next 3 years.
• Leadership of a transdisciplinary research program across Design, Engineering, IT and Health.
• Ensuring all courses meet the required accreditation standards.

• Global Executive Master of Business Administration - Strategy, Globalisation, Innovation & Transformation, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia– 2020-2021
• Master of Public Health, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia – 2010- 2012
• Fellow of Royal Australasian College of Physicians, Royal Australasian College of Physicians, Australia – 2010
• Specialty Degree, Internal Medicine, Slovak Medical University, Slovak Republic – 2003
• PhD, Epidemiology, Faculty of Medicine, Comenius University, Slovak Republic – 2002
• MD, Medicine and Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, Comenius University, Slovak Republic – 1992- 1998

• Advisory Board Member, Lancet Healthy Longevity Journal 2022 – current
• Member Monash Health Digital Health Management Committee 2020 – current
• Member, Women in Science Discovery Medicine, Monash University 2018 – current
• Elected Councillor Australia & New Zealand Obesity Society 2018 – current
• Elected Lead Fellow Council Royal Australasian College of Physicians 2018 – current
• Advisory Board Member Australian National Diabetes Audit Benchmarking Program 2015 – current
• Member, Pfizer Advisory Group – 2020
• Member, Nutritional Science and Metabolism Working Group, American Diabetes Association – 2018 – current
• Member, Eli Lilly Innovation Advisory Group - 2014-2015
• Medical Advisor, Nutromics (MedTech Start-up) - 2021-2022
• Member, Diabetes Australia Research Trust Research Advisory Panel - 2015-2019
• Advisory Board member, Biogrid - 2018-2019