Professor Barbora de Courten, MD PhD FRACP MPH is a National Heart Foundation Future Leader Fellow and a specialist physician with a PhD in epidemiology, extensive training in clinical trials (NIH) and a Master of Public Health (Monash University). She has expertise across the translational research continuum from epidemiology, human mechanistic studies to clinical trials and public health interventions through to practice.

She is passionate about research into holistic approaches to 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 health of individuals but also be beneficial to our society and environment we live in. 

Her vision is to establish new strategies for 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 her appointments at prestigious institutions in the USA (NIH), Australia (Baker IDI, Monash University) and Europe (University of Copenhagen and Steno Diabetes Centre). She has an active national and international research network in her respective research disciplines.