Dr. Ekinci (MBBS FRACP PhD) is a clinician researcher. In April 2015, she commenced her role as the Sir Edward Dunlop Medical Research Foundation Senior Fellow in Metabolic Medicine at the University of Melbourne, Austin Health, relinquishing her NHMRC Early Career Fellowship. She is the Director of Diabetes at Austin Health where she co-ordinates the clinical care of inpatients and outpatients with diabetes.

She heads Diabetes and Obesity clinical trials at Austin Health and The University of Melbourne where she is Chief Investigator in numerous clinical trials. She is a Senior Research Fellow at the Menzies School of Health Research and Consultant Physician and a Research Fellow at BakerIDI. Dr Ekinci has been productive with 48 publications in the following journals: Diabetes Care, Diabetes, Diabetologia, Clinical Science, Diabetic Medicine, AJKD, Kidney International, MJA. She has co-authored more than 90 abstracts at various national and international meetings. She is currently supervising 4 PhD students and has supervised 16 Scholarly Selective students to completion at the University of Melbourne.

She is also responsible for mentoring endocrinologists, endocrine registrars, residents, interns, medical students and 10 clinical trials staff. She has obtained a total of $1.8 million of research funding including NHMRC Scholarship and an NHMRC Early Career Fellowship, Royal Australasian College of Physicians Fellowship, Australian Diabetes Society (ADS), Viertel Charitable Foundation Clinical Investigatorship, The University of Melbourne Early Career Research Grant, Sir Edward Weary Dunlop Medical Research Foundation and Diabetes Australia Research Trust project grants.