Professor Cathy Mihalopoulos is head of the inaugural Health Economics Group (HEG) within the School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine at Monash University. She is nationally and internationally recognised for her expertise in the use of economic evaluation techniques (both within trial and modelled), particularly within the context of mental health. Within Australia, she leads the largest group of academic health economists specialising in the economics of mental health and psychosocial care, consisting of staff funded entirely on research income.  She has over 200 publications and has been an investigator (including a lead investigator) on both Category 1 (including NHMRC and MRFF) as well as Category 2-4 grants totalling more than $75M. She has been invited to sit on committees of national and international significance, including the Medical Services Advisory Committee – Evaluation Subcommittee (MSAC-ESC) (current position), and has held positions on the Economics Sub-Committee of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee (PBAC) and the Executive Committee of the Society for Mental Health Research. She has extensive academic teaching experience within the discipline of health economics and in 2023 and 2024 was the course coordinator of two Monash University Masters programs - Master of Health Management and Masters of Health Administration.

Cathy is frequently invited to present keynote and plenary sessions at national and international conferences and meetings and has won various prestigious awards, including the 2021 Research Australia Health Services Research Award — Highly Commended, and Cathy and Health Economics Group researchers won the inaugural 2023 Australian Clinical Trials Alliance HEAT Excellence in Trial Based Health Economics Award for their economic evaluation of the Target-D program.