LEADERSHIP & GOVERNANCE

Sharon McGowan (Chair) MBA, GAICD
Sharon is the Chief Executive Officer of RANZCP. Having spent her career in the health and NFP sector, Sharon has a wealth of leadership and governance experience gained over the past 30 years.

She is an experienced communicator, with a background in health service management, community engagement, advocacy, culture transformation and philanthropy. Originally trained as a registered nurse, Sharon has worked in Australia and the UK with a range of health, public sector and not-for-profit organisations.

She is an experienced Board Director and currently Chair of the Australian Living Evidence Consortium, a group whose vision is to accelerate the application of medical research to actionable guidance for front line clinicians using a “living” approach to evidence synthesis. Prior to joining the College, Sharon was CEO of the National Stroke Foundation for 7 years, growing the Foundations’ revenue and impact. Sharon is the immediate past Chair of the Australian Chronic Disease Prevention Alliance and the National COVID19 Clinical Evidence Taskforce Steering Committee.

Sharon holds a Masters of Business Administration from Cranfield University in the UK, is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and has attended two short courses at Harvard Business School.

Professor Caroline Homer AO RM, MScMed(Clin Epi), PhD, FAAHMS 
Caroline Homer is the leading midwifery researcher in Australia and has an international reputation as a scholar and leader in maternal and newborn health care and service delivery. She obtained her PhD in 2001 and since then has led research and development projects in Australia and internationally especially in relation to health services delivery, reproductive, maternal and newborn care, human resources for health workforce development and midwifery education. She has more than 30 years of experience in the sector – as a clinician, educator, researcher and leader.

Professor Rachelle Buchbinder AO, MBBS (Hons), MSc, PhD, FRACP, FAHMS
Rachelle Buchbinder is an Australian NHMRC Investigator Fellow. She has been the Director of the Monash Department of Clinical Epidemiology since its inception in 2001 and a Professor in the Monash University Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine since 2007. She is a rheumatologist and clinical epidemiologist who combines clinical practice with research in a wide range of multidisciplinary projects relating to arthritis and musculoskeletal conditions.

Other roles include Coordinating Editor of Cochrane Musculoskeletal, Back and Neck; A founding member of the Wiser Healthcare Collaboration; and founding member and Chair Executive Committee, Australia and New Zealand Musculoskeletal (ANZMUSC) Clinical Trials Network which is supported by an NHMRC Centre of research Excellence. As well as supporting clinical trials, ANZMUSC also leads development of NHMRC-endorsed national living guidelines for both adult and juvenile inflammatory arthritis with plans to expand these to other musculoskeletal conditions.

Professor Garry Jennings AO
Garry Jennings is Chief Medical Advisor of the National Heart Foundation of Australia.

He was Executive Director of Sydney Health Partners until November 2020 and Director and Chief Executive Officer of Baker Heart and Diabetes until December 2015. He presently continues to carry out research and clinical activities at Baker and The Alfred Hospital and as Professor of Medicine at the University of Sydney and Monash University.

He was previously Director of Cardiology at The Alfred Hospital, Melbourne and Chair of the Division of Medicine. He has over 600 research publications cited more than 30,000 times and is Associate Editor of the American Heart Association journal of Hypertension.

Professor Jonathan Craig MBChB, DCH, MMed(Clin Epi), FRACP, PhD
Jonathan Craig is Vice-President and Executive Dean of the College of Medicine and Public Health at Flinders University. He is a practising paediatric nephrologist and clinical epidemiologist, and especially committed to improving the health of people with chronic kidney disease, the health of children, and the health and well-being of Indigenous people. He has had continuous NHMRC Program Grant funding for 20+ years, and currently is CIA on a Program Grant (BEAT-CKD), Project Grant, and CRE.

His awards include Matthew Flinders Distinguished Professor Fellow, Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences, International Distinguished Medal of the National (US) Kidney Foundation (2010), TJ Neale Award for Outstanding Contribution to Nephrological Science, and Honorary Membership of the Italian Society of Nephrology (2004). He is the Coordinating Editor of the Cochrane Kidney and Transplant Group.

He is a past Chair of the Steering Group of Cochrane, is a past member of the Expert Advisory Group for the Structural Review of NHMRC’s Grant Program, and non-executive board member of Kidney Health Australia. He is a member of the NHMRC Advisory Group on the Synthesis and Translation of Research Evidence, a member of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee, a member of the Medicare Services Advisory Committee, a member of the Life Savings Drug Program, a member of the International Advisory Panel for Singapore’s Agency for Care Effectiveness, and past member of the WHO expert review panel for global strategy and plan of action on public health, innovation and intellectual property.

Professor Sally Green PhD, B App Sci (Physiotherapy)
Sally Green is Co-Director of Cochrane Australia and Deputy Head (Research) of the School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine at Monash University. She holds a PhD in Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine from Monash and has several competitively funded research projects which aim to improve health outcomes by investigating the most effective and efficient pathway of knowledge from research result to sustained change in clinical practice and policy. Sally is also a member of Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Synthesis and Translation of Research Evidence (SToRE) Advisory Group and is a member of Cochrane’s international Governing Board.

Associate Professor Tari Turner PhD, MBus (eBus&Com), BBiomedSci, PGradCert (Biostats)
Tari Turner is a Professor (Research) at Cochrane Australia and along with her role as Director of ALEC, is Director of the National Clinical Evidence Taskforce, leading development of living guidance for COVID-19 and MPX.

Tari leads research developing and evaluating methods for living evidence syntheses, including living systematic reviews and living guidelines; and translating synthesised evidence into improved healthcare practice and policy. Her passion is supporting evidence-based decision-making to ensure the best possible outcomes, particularly for women and children in low resource settings. She enjoys designing, finding, synthesising and communicating research, and she loves seeing research actually make a difference.

Tari is an Editor for The Cochrane Library and Cochrane Evidence Synthesis and Methods, and a member of the Scientific and Technical Advisory Group to the WHO Department of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Research. She is an Honorary Principal Research Fellow at the Burnet Institute, a Senior Research Fellow for 3ie and a member of the Australian Red Cross Lifeblood Ethics Committee.

Tari holds a Doctor of Philosophy from Monash University, a Master of Business from Swinburne University, a Post Graduate Certificate in Biostatistics from the University of Melbourne and a Bachelor of Biomedical Science from Monash University.

Professor Sophia Zoungas MBBS, FRACP, PhD
Sophia Zoungas is an endocrinologist and a leading clinician scientist and trialist. She is Head, School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University and Professor of Diabetes, Vascular Health and Ageing. Her research focus is on the generation and implementation of evidence for the prevention, screening and management of diabetes and its complications of kidney and cardiovascular disease.

Sophia directs and supports projects and teaching on health care delivery, as well as advising on clinical epidemiological methods and trial design/conduct/reporting. She is a senior staff specialist in Endocrinology and Diabetes at Alfred Health and Monash Health, Victoria where she provides inpatient and outpatient services. Sophia is also the Past President of the Australian Diabetes Society and the Clinical Director of the National Association of Diabetes Centres.

Professor Julian Elliott MBBS, FRACP, PhD 
Julian Elliott is one of the world’s leading researchers in the use of technology for evidence synthesis. He developed the Living Evidence model, was the founding Chair of the Australian Living Evidence Consortium and established the Australian National COVID-19 Clinical Evidence Taskforce, both based at Cochrane Australia within Monash University’s School of Public Health and Preventative Medicine. Julian is also the co-founder and CEO of Covidence, a non-profit technology company that provides the most widely used software platform for systematic reviews globally. In 2017 Julian was the recipient of the Australian Health Minister’s Award for Excellence in Health and Medical Research.