Dr Rakib Islam is an epidemiologist specialising in non‑communicable diseases and population health. He currently teaches across several core public health disciplines, including epidemiology, biostatistics, population health, chronic disease prevention, evidence‑based practice, and foundations of public health within a social model of health.

As an epidemiological lead, Dr Islam has co‑designed and analysed large‑scale observational studies involving more than 20,000 Australian participants aged 18 to 94 years, including refugee communities in Melbourne. He also manages databases for major clinical trials and is a co‑recipient of competitive funding from the NHMRC and the Australian Heart Foundation, alongside several investigator‑led projects in women’s health and public health. In addition, he is co‑leading the Bangladesh Longitudinal Child‑Adolescent Development, Education, and Environmental Study (BLADES), funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada.

Dr Islam has published more than 125 peer‑reviewed papers in high‑impact journals such as The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, BMJ, and JCEM. He was an invited speaker at an international workshop in Berlin to develop the first global consensus position statement on testosterone therapy for women, where he presented and explained the major meta‑analysis he conducted. For this contribution, he received the prestigious Australasian Menopause Society Scientific Prize in 2020.

He earned his PhD from the School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine at Monash University and completed his first postdoctoral year at the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute in collaboration with the CDC in the United States.