Danusha Jayawardana is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Health Economics, Monash Business School. Her broad research interests are in the economics of child and adolescent development and the economics of mental health.

Her work on child development focuses on understanding how children can thrive regardless of their socioeconomic background, including the factors that shape cognitive and non-cognitive development. She also examines outcomes for children involved in the child protection system, with a particular focus on the effects of out-of-home care. This work examines how placement into care influences children’s wellbeing and what policies can help improve outcomes for vulnerable children.

Her research on mental health examines the socioeconomic determinants and economic costs of mental health, as well as inequities in access to mental healthcare. She is currently a Chief Investigator on an Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Project on 'Mental healthcare pricing and socioeconomic inequities in access to care'.

Danusha received her PhD in Economics from the University of Adelaide in 2020 and was awarded the Dean’s Commendation for Doctoral Thesis Excellence. Prior to joining Monash, Danusha was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Queensland.