Paediatrician and research leader
Professor Melissa Wake (MBChB, FRACP, FAHMS, MD) is a
paediatrician, community child health researcher, and Scientific Director of
the Generation Victoria (GenV) initiative. Her “population paediatrics” agenda
spans common childhood conditions and antecedents of diseases of ageing.
Her goals are to speed up children’s research and to test
interventions that change children’s care. Having led numerous
community-based randomised trials, her major focus for this triennium is
building the Generation
Victoria (GenV) and Child
Health CheckPoint platforms for generations of researchers.
Awards include the 2009 Australian Health Minister's Prize
for Excellence in Health & Medical Research and consecutive NHMRC
Excellence Awards (2009-12, 2013-16) as top-ranked Research Fellow in
Australia. Melissa’s projects have twice appeared in the NHMRC's annual 'Ten of
the Best' publication (2008, 2017).
Successes in research translation include securing
the Victorian Infant Hearing Screening Program, which now screens 80,000 babies
annually and is springboarding a continuing program of population-based hearing
research.
Affiliations:
- Scientific Director, Generation Victoria (GenV)
- Leader, Prevention Innovation Group, Centre for
Community Child Health, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute
- Senior Principal Research Fellow, Murdoch Children’s
Research Institute
- Professorial Fellow, Department of Paediatrics, The
University of Melbourne.
- Honorary Professor, Department of Paediatrics and
Liggins Institute, University of Auckland, New Zealand.
Email: melissa.wake@mcri.edu.au