Professor Danielle Mazza holds the Chair of General Practice at Monash University and is a nationally and internationally recognized leader in women’s health, implementation research and knowledge translation in the general practice setting. Over the course of her career Danielle has advanced general practice through her significant, sustained and ongoing contributions as a researcher and educator in the field of women’s sexual and reproductive health, as a proponent of evidence-based quality improvement and through her leadership of and contribution to the development and implementation of key general practice guidelines used nationwide. 

Professor Mazza is ranked among the top general practice academics in the country, with an impressive track record in competitive research. Over the course of her career, she has acquired more than $33 million in competitive funding ($12 million as CIA). Of this, $26 million was awarded in the last 5 years ($18 million from Category One funding (including NHMRC 3 x project grants, 1 x MRFF grant, 3 x partnership projects, 1 x Dementia Research Team Grant, and 3 x CREs). Additionally, Danielle has published over 178 peer-reviewed publications. 

As a leading clinician researcher, advocate and educator on women’s health care, Professor Mazza has an unflagging commitment to improving the quality of sexual and reproductive health care provided to women by GPs. Her vision is one where Australia’s 5.5 million women of reproductive age receive high quality, accessible, and evidence-based sexual and reproductive health care in general practice. This is the core focus of her academic endeavour and of SPHERE, the NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence in women’s sexual and reproductive health in primary care, which she was awarded in 2018. Her work and that of SPHERE, is centred on preconception care, contraception, and abortion. These are critical and interconnected issues in women’s lives that require a comprehensive approach in general practice and the adoption and integration of advances such as long-acting reversible contraception (LARCs) and medical abortion (MTOP), which despite their availability have not yet been widely taken up by Australia’s 35,000 GPs. 

Professor Mazza's contributions have improved the day-to-day clinical practice of general practitioners nationally and internationally. She is one of the few Australian academic GPs to have sole-authored a textbook in a clinical area of general practice. Women’s Health in General Practice – first published in 2004 and revised then republished in 2011 – is a recommended text for GP registrars, cited in the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) women’s health core curriculum, and used in exam setting for the FRACGP and Australian Medical Council.

Over the past 20 years, Professor Mazza has received a number of prestigious national and international awards. Most recently in 2020 she was awarded the Bridges-Webb medal from the Australian Association of Academic Primary Care, in recognition of her outstanding and continuing career in academic primary care. Also in 2020 she was inducted into the Victorian Honour Roll of women as a change agent recognising her contribution for driving global change and impact in primary care and women’s health. In 2019, she received a Churchill Fellowship award to focus on reducing inequities in access to medical abortion through better integration into primary care. She has also held an impressive number of positions that reflect her leadership and prominence in her field and long-held commitment to advocacy for better women’s health and improved health outcomes for Australian women. These appointments, testament to her highly respected position amongst her peers, span local, state, and national levels across professional organisations such as the Public Health Association of Australia and the RACGP, government and non-government organisations such as Cancer Australia and major programmatic and policy initiatives such as the MBS Review and National Cervical Cancer Screening Program Renewal. Danielle continues to inform policy and practice through the provision of expert advice as chair or member on many such committees.

Professor Mazza is active, dedicated, and highly likely to make significant further contributions through her research, research-informed teaching, clinical work as a general practitioner, and wider service. She continues to work clinically in the Bayside area of Melbourne, is a current board member of the South East Melbourne Primary Health Network and was previously on the board of the Bayside Medicare Local, Central Bayside Division of General Practice and the Victorian Metropolitan Alliance (a regional general practice training provider). In addition, after serving for 11 years on the RACGP’s Expert Committee on Quality Care, she now serves on the RACGP’s Expert Committee on Research.