Professor Kirsten Howard is an internationally acknowledged leader in health economics. She is Co-Director of the Menzies Centre for Health Policy and Economics, and leads a health economics group with internationally recognised expertise in patient and community preference elicitation, quality of life and wellbeing measurement, and economic evaluation. With research funding as CI in excess of $40million, including being invited to lead the health economics programs of 4 CREs, 2 capacity building grants and 28 project grants (also leading the health economics of another 19 clinical trials, as AI); she also leads / co-leads a program around measuring and valuing quality of life and wellbeing in children and in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults and youth.

Professor Howard holds multiple high-level policy relevant appointments, including the Australian Government’s Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee (PBAC) (as only health economics member), Chair of the Economics Sub-Committee of the PBAC, and member of MBS reviews Taskforce Renal Clinical Committee. She has led the growth of health economics at the University of Sydney from 1 research fellow to a team of 11 academics and PhD students, with more than a dozen PhD completions.