Her research is primarily focused on the determination and quantification of major and modifiable risk factors for chronic disease and sex and ethnic disparities in these relationships. She has published more than 180 research articles, has a Google Scholar H-index of 62 and > 18,000 citations. She currently holds several competitive NHMRC and Heart Foundation research grants in areas related to women’s health, obesity and diabetes.

Co- Chairman, the Australia India Leadership Dialogue; and the India Australia Israel Food and Water Security Dialogue

Board member of the Australia India Institute;the Australian Friends of ASHA; and the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne. Ross was formerly a consultant with McKinsey & Co., and he has an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Professor Jeffrey has spent a total of five years since 1995 conducting anthropological fieldwork in western Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. He is the author of numerous journal articles as well as six books, including Timepass: Youth, Class and the Politics of Waiting in India (Stanford University Press, 2010) and Keywords for Modern India (with John Harriss; Oxford University Press, 2014). Oxford University Press have recently commissioned Craig Jeffrey to write A Very Short Introduction to Modern India, part of its prestigious Very Short Introduction series.

Professor Jeffrey is currently working with Dr. Jane Dyson on an Australian Research Council funded project on youth and prefigurative politics in north India. Professor Jeffrey was recently elected a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and, in addition to his academic work, is a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4, Times Literary Supplement, The Guardian, Sydney Morning Herald, Australian Financial Review and The Conversation.

Prior to his appointment, Laurie led the development of UNSW’s China and India Priority Country Strategies which resulted in a range of major outcomes including the establishment of the $100 million Torch Innovation Precinct at UNSW as part of a groundbreaking partnership with Chinese industry. Laurie has also served as the Executive Director of the International Office and the Director of the Confucius Institute at UNSW.

Before joining UNSW, Laurie was the Chief Executive Officer of the Australia China Business Council where he led the Council’s strategic engagement with the Chinese and Australian Governments and represented the collective interests of major industry stakeholders in the Sino-Australian trade and investment relationship.

Travis is an experienced senior government official with broad experience across international, agriculture and education issues. Travis started his career working on water policy, one of Australia’s most critical resource challenges for the future. Since then he has worked extensively on agricultural policy issues, including food regulation, trade issues, natural resource management, biofuels and research and development.

From 2009-2012, Travis was the Minister Counsellor in the Australian Embassy in Rome. As a part of this role, Travis served as the Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation and as a member of the Australian Delegation to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). In these roles, Travis worked with partner countries from around the world to improve global food security and agricultural development issues.

Travis holds a Bachelor of Science (Resource and Environmental Management) from the Australian National University and is a graduate of the Australian Rural Leadership Program. He joined the Department of Education in late 2017 in the Quality Framework Branch, International Group. His branch is responsible for the regulatory frameworks and systems that underpin Australia’s well‑respected international education sector. Travis’s branch also leads on our partnerships with India and other South Asian countries as well as North America, Europe, Japan and Korea.

Governor Dessau was born in Melbourne in 1953, and was educated at St Catherine’s Girls’ School, matriculating in 1969, before attending the University of Melbourne, where she gained the degree of LLB (Hons). In 1975 she was admitted as a barrister and solicitor of the Supreme Court of Victoria.

In her early years as a lawyer, the Governor practised in commercial litigation and family law as a solicitor at Wisewoulds, later specialising in family law after signing the Roll of Counsel at the Victorian Bar in 1978.

In 1982 she married fellow Victorian barrister, Anthony Howard, and together they took up roles as Crown Counsel, and later Senior Crown Counsel in the Hong Kong Attorney-General’s chambers, where they prosecuted criminal trials.

Soon after returning to Australia in 1985, the Governor was appointed a part-time member of the Small Claims and Residential Tenancies Tribunals, taking her first judicial appointment as a Magistrate in 1986, at the age of thirty-three. In that role, she served in the Children’s Court, Coroners Court and Melbourne Magistrates’ Court where she ultimately headed the Civil division and later the Committal Court.

During her time as a Magistrate, the Governor coordinated a significant criminal case management project, culminating in the Pegasus Report, implemented across the three tiers of courts to help reduce cost and delay in the criminal justice system. In 1994 she was awarded the Percy Baxter Churchill Fellowship to further her study in criminal case management in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom.

In June 1995, the Governor was appointed a Judge of the Family Court of Australia, where she served for 18 years until July 2013. During that time she chaired or participated in various national projects within and outside the Court in relation to child abuse, family violence, mediation, less adversarial trial procedures and case management, and represented the Family Court on the Commonwealth Family Law Pathways Advisory Group. She was a Board member of the US based Association of Family and Conciliation Courts, a Council member of the Legal Aid Consultative Committee, and a Board member of the Australian Institute of Judicial Administration.

The Governor was actively engaged in the area of judicial education, including as a Director of the National Judicial College of Australia, and as a long-standing faculty member and facilitator of the National Judicial Orientation Program. For many years she helped create and teach judgment writing courses on behalf of the National Judicial College of Australia, the Judicial College of Victoria, and for courts and tribunals throughout Australia.

Outside the law, the Governor was engaged in a broad range of community organisations, including as founding Chair of the Essendon Football Club Women’s Network, President of Middle Park Primary School Council, Vice-President of Wesley College Council, a Board member of Turning Point Drug and Alcohol Centre, a member of the Royal Children’s Hospital Ethics Committee and the La Trobe University Professional Consultative Council, and a Patron of the Epilepsy Foundation and One Umbrella (food recycling charity).

Immediately before her appointment as Governor, she was President of the Melbourne Festival, Chair of the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Victorian Regional Committee and a national Board member of the Trust, a Commissioner of the Australian Football League, a Trustee of the National Gallery of Victoria, a Board member and former Chair of AFL Sportsready and Artsready, a Board member of the Unicorn Foundation, and a Patron of Sports Connect.