Dr Darshini Ayton is a public health/health services researcher and an NHMRC emerging leader fellow (2021-2025). Dr Ayton has strong expertise in qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods research, longitudinal cohort datasets, randomised controlled trials and clinical quality registry projects. She has led the design and analysis of innovative qualitative projects in chronic diseases (dementia, Parkinson’s disease, cardiovascular disease, cancer, depression, and infectious diseases), antimicrobial stewardship, health services project planning, implementation and evaluation, patient reported outcomes, intervention acceptability in trials, and patient experiences of health care and disease. Her extensive collaborations with clinicians, multidisciplinary researchers and patients is reflected in her 63 publications and 7.5 million in CI funding. Dr Ayton’s implementation skills have been demonstrated by adopting co-design approaches and mixed methods data collection and analysis to develop, implement and evaluate complex health service interventions.