Steve McDonald is a Senior Research Fellow and Co-Director of Cochrane Australia. He is responsible for leading the learning and education program of Cochrane Australia and regularly teaches on evidence synthesis courses in Australia and South East Asia. He has extensive experience in conducting systematic reviews for Cochrane, as well as a range of government agencies, including Australia’s National Health & Medical Research Council. 

Steve has a background in information science and his research interests include innovations to enhance the efficiency of evidence synthesis through automation; information retrieval methods and search strategy design; and methods for conducing overviews of reviews. Steve was a co-lead on Project Transform, a three-year flagship health evidence project funded by NHMRC and Cochrane, that developed machine classifiers to improve the efficiency of study identification. He is currently evaluating the application of these new technologies to support living systematic reviews and living guidelines through a part-time PhD.  

Steve graduated in Social and Political Sciences from the University of Cambridge in 1991. He has a Masters in Information Science from Loughborough University and a Graduate Diploma in International Health from Monash University. In 2015 he graduated from the Asialink Leaders Program. As part of Cochrane Australia's international responsibilities, he has helped establish and support Cochrane networks in South East Asia and East Asia. He was an elected member of Cochrane's Board of Directors from 2008 to 2015, and previously managed Cochrane’s international training program.