Professor Ram Nataraja is a dual-qualified General Paediatric Surgeon (UK & Australia) based at Monash Children’s Hospital in Melbourne, Australia. He has a broad range of clinical interests, including Minimally Invasive Surgery, Thoracic Surgery, Upper and Lower Gastrointestinal Surgery, and Oncology Surgery. He is a strong advocate for equitable access to advanced surgical techniques, believing that every child deserves the best possible chance at recovery through state-of-the-art care.

Ram joined Monash Children’s Hospital in 2015, following consultant roles at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital and The Royal London Hospital in the UK. He is also a Professor of Simulation-Based Education in the Department of Paediatrics at Monash University and serves as Director of Monash Children’s Simulation. In this role, he leads national and international simulation-based education initiatives aimed at improving both surgical and medical outcomes in low resource settings.

He is the postgraduate and undergraduate lead for paediatric surgery at Monash Health and Monash University. A pioneer in paediatric minimally invasive surgery and surgical simulation, he developed the first validated paediatric surgical bench trainer model in 2002 at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London. This innovation has continued with the incorporation of novel and emerging technology to increase the impact of education.

Ram has an extensive academic and research portfolio, with over 150 peer-reviewed publications including RCTs in the British Journal of Surgery and Annals of Surgery, 120 international conference presentations, three textbooks published by Wiley-Blackwell, and 13 book chapters. His contributions have been recognized with numerous awards, including the 2024 Dean’s Award for Excellence in Research Enterprise and the 2020 Dean’s Award for Excellence in Education from the Faculty of Medicine, Nursing & Health Sciences. He also received the prestigious Monash University Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Innovations in Learning and Teaching. He is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, acknowledging his commitment to educational excellence.

His research has earned accolades such as “Most Cited Article,” “Most Downloaded Article,” and “Article of Interest.” Notably, the Myanmar Simulation-Based Education (SBE) program he led received the Project Innovation Award from Simulation Australia in 2022.

He is a Member of the Academy of Surgical Educators at the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons and a Fellow of the Faculty of Surgical Trainers at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. He also holds multiple positions on committees for various organisations with the aim to improve surgical education in both high and low resource settings.

Ram is deeply committed to educational reform in low- and middle-income countries. Over the past decade, he has coordinated multiple educational projects in Myanmar, Fiji, Samoa, Vanuatu, Tonga, the Solomon Islands, Bhutan, Cambodia, and Vietnam. From 2021 to 2024, he served as Consultant in Surgical Education to the World Health Organization’s Western Pacific Office. He is also a member of the steering committee for the Global Health Section at the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons and collaborates with several international organizations.