Fellowship

The Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences elects the best and brightest minds in the field of medical and health sciences as Fellows.

Fellows are elected in recognition of their outstanding achievements and exceptional contributions to the sector. The Fellowship are acknowledged for their clinical, non-clinical, leadership, industry and research contributions.

About Fellowship with AAHMS

Find Fellows of the AAHMS

To find Fellows of our Academy either use the search form below or download the full list of current Fellows here.

Name

Position

Level

Elected

State

Executive Director, Queensland Centre for Mental Health Research
The University of Queensland
2015
QLD

Professor John McGrath’s research aims to explore nongenetic risk factors for schizophrenia. He has forged productive cross-disciplinary collaborations linking risk factor epidemiology with developmental neurobiology. He has won several national and international awards including the Premier’s Award for Medical Research (ASMR). In 2007 he was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM). In 2013 he was awarded a prestigious John Cade Fellowship, by the NHMRC. His research is highly cited (H = 74, over 21,000 cites). He is a member of the NHMRC Research Committee and the Australian Health Ethics Committee. He is a Director of Research Australia.

Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research); Professor Microbiology and Immunology
Melbourne Research, The University of Melbourne
2015
VIC

Professor James McCluskey is a leader in the immunogenetics and biology of the Human Leucocyte Antigens (HLA) of the major histocompatibility complex. His discoveries have illuminated the biochemical basis for HLA selection of antigens, genetic control of cellular immunity and the structural basis of T cell recognition, providing a paradigm for the basis of HLA associations with human disease. He identified the mechanisms of determinant spreading in systemic autoimmunity, developed novel autoimmune diagnostics and strongly influenced transplantation matching. He has exerted a broad range of professional and research leadership including the development of Melbourne’s Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity.

AO FAA FTSE FAHMS
Professor
UNSW Sydney
2015
International

Professor Mattick’s achievements include delineation of the molecular architecture of the multifunctional enzyme that synthesizes fatty acids, the molecular genetics of surface structures used by bacterial pathogens to colonise epithelial surfaces, and the demonstration that most of the human genome is not junk but specifies an RNA-based regulatory system, which has fundamentally changed our understanding of the genetic programming of complex organisms. He founded the Institute for Molecular Bioscience at the University of Queensland and the Australian Genome Research Facility, and is currently Director of the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, acquiring technology to sequence human genomes at practical cost.

Director
Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute
2014
VIC

Professor Tom Marwick completed training in medicine and cardiology in Australia, before undertaking an Imaging Fellowship at Cleveland Clinic, a PhD at the University of Louvain, Belgium and a Masters in Public Health at Harvard. He is currently Director of the Menzies Research Institute in Hobart, and has divided his career mostly between Australia (former Professor of Medicine and Head of Cardiovascular Imaging Research Centre, UQ) and the USA (former Head of Cardiovascular Imaging at Cleveland Clinic).

His main contribution has been in clinical research and research training, and has supervised about 30 research higher degree students – mainly clinical – including 22 completed PhDs. He was one of the initiators of stress echocardiography, and has made contributions to the prognostic evidence underlying echocardiography.

His main current research interests relate to the detection of early cardiovascular disease and cost-effective application of cardiac imaging techniques for treatment selection and monitoring.

He has published about 600 papers, reviews, chapters and editorials, and is an Editor at JACC and JACC-Cardiovascular Imaging. Professor Marwick has been the recipient of more than fifty significant research grants and several awards, including the Simon Dack Award from the American College of Cardiology, 2009 and the RT Hall Prize (2006) and Kempson Maddox Lecture (2011) of the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand.

FAA FASSA FAHMS
Senior Scientist, Genetic Epidemiology
QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute
2015
QLD

Professor Nick Martin is a human quantitative geneticist interested in complex traits of medical importance. In 1978 he founded the Australian Twin Registry as a resource for biomedical and behavioural research. In recent years has moved to genome wide association studies (GWAS) to locate genes influencing a wide variety of complex biomedical traits as diverse as depression and blood cell counts. He developed statistical methods for multivariate genetic analyses which are widely used. He has won international awards, published over 1000 papers, and is a fellow of the Australian academies of both science and social science.

AC FRS FAA FAHMS
Co-Director, Marshall Centre for Infectious Diseases
The University of Western Australia
2015
WA

Professor Barry Marshall is an Australian physician, Nobel Prize Laureate in Physiology or Medicine, and Professor of Clinical Microbiology at the University of Western Australia. Marshall and Robin Warren showed that the bacterium Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) plays a major role in causing many peptic ulcers, challenging decades of medical doctrine holding that ulcers were caused primarily by stress, spicy foods, and too much acid. This discovery has allowed for a breakthrough in understanding a causative link between Helicobacter pylori infection and stomach cancer.

Theme Leader, Healthy Mothers, Babies and Children
South Australia Health and Medical Research Institute
2015
SA

Professor Makrides is an international leader in maternal-infant nutrition and is recognised for her work investigating the health effects of dietary fatty acids, iron and novel dietary ingredients in the perinatal period. Her work has made significant contributions to changes in the composition of infant formulae and on changing international food laws (Codex Alimentarius), which determine the minimum safe composition of infant foods. Her multi-disciplinary research group, with over 30 staff, conducts large scale randomised controlled trials, with a focus on optimising the cognition, growth and immune development of children. Through these trials, her group has directly engaged with over 10,000 families.

Professor of Ophthalmology, Centre for Ophthalmology and Visual Science
Lions Eye Institute, The University of Western Australia
2015
WA

Professor David Mackey is a world leader in the translation of genetic eye disease research into treatment. Gene discovery allows accurate diagnosis, predictive testing and genetically guided treatment. David has also evaluated the ethics and cost effectiveness of gene based testing. He is President of the International Society of Genetic Eye Disease and Retinoblastoma; a member of the NHMRC Human Genetics Advisory Committee; teacher and examiner for the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Ophthalmologists; wrote the genetics chapters for the American Academy of Ophthalmology basic text books. He has trained ophthalmology registrars, fellows and supervises medical, Masters and PhD students.

Senior Principal Research Fellow
Neuroscience Research Australia
2015
NSW

Professor Lord has pursued work in the areas of applied neurology, instability, falls and fractures in older people and clinical groups. He has made major contributions in these fields with studies spanning basic physiology, risk factor identification, development and evaluation of randomised controlled trials and guideline and policy development. His evidence-based risk assessment tools are now used widely in clinical settings for identify high risk populations and guiding optimal intervention strategies. He has published over 350 papers (H index 65) and is one of the top 1% most cited researchers worldwide for the field of social science.

AO FAA FAHMS
Director, Centre for Cancer Biology
SA Pathology and University of South Australia
2015
SA

Professor Angel Lopez is an outstanding Australian scientist with an international reputation in human cytokines or growth factors, particularly on studies of cytokine families with a shared receptor subunit. He has made several breakthroughs that have illuminated how these cytokines exert their biological activities and revealed new paradigms that apply to the cytokine superfamily at large. His unique insights into cytokine function, receptor recognition and signalling, together with his leadership in translation into public health benefits, have paved the way for the development of novel drugs for the treatment of usually fatal myeloid leukaemias and debilitating chronic inflammatory diseases.

Our Fellows sit at the heart of everything we do. They represent Australia’s leading minds in health and medical sciences, having been recognised for their clinical, non-clinical, leadership, industry and research contributions.

To be considered for election to the Academy’s Fellowship, a candidate must show exceptional professional achievement in a field related to health and/or medicine.

Fellows contribute to the projects and activities of the Academy and must be willing to be active participants.

Successful Fellowship candidates will have shown:

  • Outstanding leadership in their field.
  • Significant and ongoing involvement with issues of health care, prevention of disease, education, research, and health services policy and delivery.

Candidates for Fellowship should meet the following criteria:

  • National and International recognition for excellence in health and medical science
  • Significant, sustained and ongoing contributions to advance health and medical science in Australia (relative to opportunity)
  • Contribution to the profession through leadership and mentorship
  • Raised public understanding and promoting health and medical science in the broader community

Download criteria for Fellowship

Each year, current Fellows of the Academy are invited to nominate up to four new candidates who meet the criteria and fulfil the required expectations.

Nominations by a Fellow of two new candidates must ensure that at least one nomination is a woman. Nominations by a Fellow of four new candidates must ensure that at least two nominations are women.

How to make a nomination

Fellows wishing to nominate a candidate for Fellowship should contact the secretariat to confirm candidate eligibility and receive and instructions on how to submit the completed nomination documentation online. 

Fellows wishing to nominate a candidate for a Corresponding Fellowship should contact the secretariat for more information.

Secretariat contact details
Email: [email protected]

Phone: 07 3102 7220

Nomination guidelines for ordinary Fellowship

October 2023
Newly elected Fellows of 2023 are inducted at the Annual Meeting.

18 September 2023- 30 November 2023
Nominations are invited from existing Fellows until the closing date of 30 November.

December 2023
Nominations allocated to Selection Committees.

January – April 2024
Referees’ reports sought.

Early May 2024
Selection Committees meet to consider nominations and provide final recommendations to the Council.

Early-to-mid-July 2024
Council meets to finalise recommendations.

Late July 2024
Full Fellowship invited to comment on recommended new fellows.

August 2024
Election results are shared with proposers and candidates (under embargo).

October 2024
Newly elected Fellows of 2024 inducted at the Annual Meeting.

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