PhD in Health Economics

Melbourne Health Economics, Centre for Health Policy

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Why study a PhD with Melbourne Health Economics?

We are a world class group of researchers producing cutting-edge research of high quality and impact, providing a diverse range of research interests. We hold close links with leading clinical research across the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, and other researchers forming part of the University of Melbourne Health Economics Group (UHMEG). The latter draws on those from the Nossal Institute, Melbourne Institute, and Department of Economics. We also work closely with the ISPOR Victorian Student Chapter to provide support to PhD students.

A particular strength of Melbourne Health Economics is its collaborative relationship with clinicians and health care providers. This provides an applied lens to our research and access to rich patient datasets and clinical expertise. We have collaborative research projects across the Royal Melbourne Hospital, Royal Women’s Hospital, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, Royal Children’s Hospital, Peter MacCallum Cancer Hospital, St Vincent’s Hospital, Austin Health, Western Health, Northern Health, Walter and Eliza Institute and Doherty Institute.

We provide an active and growing PhD program with structured mentoring and an active seminar series. A talented and dynamic current PhD cohort provides a great community of support and will enhance your PhD experience. We place a critical emphasis on the development of early career researchers and provide regular training and mentoring sessions. International visitors are regularly hosted and the unit has key collaborations with the University of Oxford, University of Michigan, University of Sheffield, University of Birmingham, University of York and University of Antwerp.

Visit our Study website to find further information about the Doctor of Philosophy - Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences.

PhD opportunities are generally available through supporting application for a University of Melbourne postgraduate scholarship, although additional funds and stipends are sometimes available. Further information is available here.

We look forward to hearing from you and discussing the opportunity to join our vibrant and talented PhD group.

For further information or to express interest please contact Melbourne Health Economics at health-economics@unimelb.edu.au.

Professor Kim Dalziel
Head of Melbourne Health Economics,
Centre for Health Policy, MSPGH

Current higher degree students

	Alexander Van Heusden, PhD Student Alexander is a PhD student with the Child Health Economics Unit. Under the supervision of Professor Kim Dalziel and Professor Nancy Devlin, Alex's PhD research aims to improve the measures for assessing health-related quality of life in young children (<5 years of age) using the QUOKKA paediatric multi-instrument comparison study data. He has a particular interest in the prevention of death and disease. Alex completed a Bachelor's and Honor's degree in Biomedical Science and a Master of Public Health (MPH) through the University of Otago in New Zealand. Before commencing the PhD, Alex worked as the clinical project manager at the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute on the End Unexplained Cardiac Death Project looking at epidemiology and cost of sudden cardiac arrests/deaths in the young population of Victoria. He has also worked across multiple health research projects at the University of Melbourne including; non-communicable disease surveillance systems, COVID-19 simulation modelling, and health economics quality of life surveys Start date: December 2022
	Amir Haddadfar, PhD Student Amir is a PhD student with the Child Health Economics Unit, under the supervision of Prof. Kim Dalziel and Dr. Li Huang. His research aims to investigate the health economic impacts of developmental and epileptic encephalopathies on affected children and their families, focusing on healthcare utilisation, costs, quality of life outcomes, and family preferences for certain outcomes. Amir holds a BSc in Nursing and a Master’s in Health Economics. During his master’s programme, he focused on investigating the job preferences of nurses for serving in underprivileged areas. Amir has worked as a nurse in a variety of settings, giving him prior industry expertise. Start date: February 2025
	Ashwini de Silva, PhD Student Ashwini is a PhD student with the Child Health Economics Unit . Under the supervision of Dr Tianxin Pan, Dr Tessa Peasgood, Professor Nancy Devlin, Professor Kim Dalziel and Professor Richard Norman, Ashwini’s PhD titled “Avoiding poor health states in children” focuses on anchoring child-preference-based measures onto the QALY scale and weighting child and adult QALY gains. Her research will employ both quantitative and qualitative methods to advance the development of approaches for eliciting social values for child health states and will contribute to the validation and development of child health-related quality of life measures, ensuring they are robust and appropriate. Ashwini completed her Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) in Business Economics (Honours) through the University of Colombo in Sri Lanka and her background spans across health economics, microeconomics, and statistics. Ashwini's primary research interests focus on child health economics and development and valuation of child health-related quality of life instruments. Start date: June 2022
	Daniel Sheen, PhD Student Daniel Sheen is a Health Economics PhD student within the Economics of Genomics and Precision Medicine. Under the supervision of A/Prof. Ilias Goranitis, Ms. Mary-Anne Young, and Dr. Amanda Willis. Daniel’s PhD is exploring the economics of returning cancer risks from genomic tests in a research context. Daniel holds a Master of Social Policy, with a minor thesis on public preference for non-health benefits of diagnostic genomic tests in paediatrics, and a Bachelor of Economics and Finance. He has over four years of experience tutoring at UniMelb in the Department of Economics, School of Social and Political Sciences, and Melbourne School of Population and Global Health. He is passionate about bringing an interdisciplinary approach to health economics. Start date: June 2023
	Dhushanthi Keerthana Ramakrishnan, PhD Student Dhushanthi is a PhD student in the Economics of Global Health and Infectious Diseases Unit, under the supervision of A/Prof Angela Devine and Dr Rabiah Al Adawiyah. Her current research focuses on the economics of developing a gene drive for Plasmodium falciparum elimination. Her work is focused on estimating the deployment costs and modelling the cost-effectiveness of deploying the gene drive. Dhushanthi completed a Bachelor's in Biology and a Master's in Health Economics, and has experience in clinical trial management and healthcare equity research. Her broader research interests lie in the economic evaluation of infectious disease interventions. Start date: April 2026
	Elena Faugno, PhD Student Elena is a PhD student with the Child Health Economics Unit and her thesis work is focused on incorporating patient voice into value-based health care frameworks through the use of qualitative methods. Her research is being conducted under the guidance of her principal supervisor, Professor Kim Dalziel and co-supervisor Dr. Davene R. Wright from the Harvard Department of Population Medicine in the USA. Elena has dual masters degrees in public health and social work from Boston University, USA. Her areas of interest include: paediatric quality of life, chronic disease across the life course, and equity of healthcare access. Start Date: March, 2025
	Fulgence Niyibitegeka, PhD Student Fulgence is a PhD student within the Economics of Global Health and Infectious Diseases Unit, under the supervision of A/Prof Natalie Carvalho and Prof Fiona Russell. Prior to joining the University of Melbourne, Fulgence worked at the United Nations Development Programme in Burundi, with a focus on programme implementation and evaluation in infectious diseases. He has a Master’s degree in Social, Economic and Administrative Pharmacy, with a specialization in Vaccine Economics. Fulgence’s PhD project focuses on the development and application of health economic methods to understand the costs and benefits associated with pneumococcal disease control strategies, with a focus on pneumococcal conjugate vaccines and reduced dose schedules, in the Asia Pacific Region. His PhD is affiliated with the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Centre of Research Excellence for Pneumococcal Disease Control in the Asia Pacific. Start date: November 2022
	Heather Anderson, PhD Student Heather is a PhD candidate with the Child Health Economics Unit, supervised by Dr Li Huang and Prof Kim Dalziel. Her research is focused on conducting health economics analyses alongside the Strengthening Care for Children trials, where the trials feature a GP paediatrician co-consultation model of care for urban and rural children. Heather is a lecturer in Midwifery at the School of Nursing, Midwifery and Paramedicine, Australian Catholic University. She holds a Bachelor of Nursing /Bachelor of Midwifery from Deakin University, and a Master of Public Health from the University of Melbourne. Heather has previously worked as a Research Assistant/ Research Midwife at the Child Health Research Unit, Barwon Health, on the Barwon Infant Study (BIS), and the Environmental Determinants of Islet Autoimmunity (ENDIA) study. She has also worked as a clinically as a nurse and midwife since 2012. Her areas of interest are maternal and child health, multidisciplinary collaboration, and access and equity. Start date: January 2024
	Karen Lee, PhD Student Karen is a PhD candidate with the Child Health Economics Unit. Her research investigates the application of health economic methods in and for adaptive platform trials. Karen is supervised by Dr Li Huang, Professor Kim Dalziel, and Dr Xinyang Hua. Adaptive platform trials offer an unprecedented opportunity to enhance trial efficiency and accelerate decision-making. Their flexibility to evaluate multiple interventions within a central platform can introduce complexities for data analysis and funding decisions, highlighting the need for stronger evidence on cost-effectiveness and guidance on adapting traditional economic evaluation methods. Karen’s research will generate new evidence regarding the economic value of adaptive platform trials, focusing on their application in the perinatal context. Her work will demonstrate how health economics can contribute at various stages of trial design, implementation, and translation. Karen holds a Master of Public Health from the University of Melbourne and a Bachelor of Biomedical Science (Honours) from Monash University. Start date: July 2024
	Liam Fernando-Canavan, PhD Student Liam is a medical doctor who is currently working on his PhD project in the Health Economics and Simulation Modelling for Chronic Disease Unit entitled ‘The Health Economics of Modern Technologies for Bone Reconstruction’ under the primary supervision of A/Prof An Tran-Duy and co-supervision of Prof Kim Dalziel and A/Prof Claudia Di Bella. His PhD project focuses on a critical appraisal of existing evidence and generation of new evidence on the cost-effectiveness of innovative technologies in orthopaedic surgery, with a special focus on the use of 3D-printed implants for advanced limb reconstruction surgery for bone cancers. As part of the economic evaluation, he will examine costs and health-related quality of life of patients who receive different types of implants for bone reconstruction. Liam obtained degrees of Bachelor of Science, Master of Public and Doctor of Medicine, all from the University of Melbourne. Start date: February 2024
	Mackenzie Bourke, PhD Student Mackenzie Bourke is PhD candidate and research assistant undertaking his studies with the Economics of Genomics and Precision Medicine Unit. His research focuses on understanding the methodology of economic evaluation as it applied to genomic risk screening. The aim of his research is to expand the current methodology in economic evaluation to consider factors that are important in the genomics and precision medicine space, which have previously been neglected. These factors include, equity, patient preferences, value of information and systems capacity. Mackenzie is particularly interested in developing microsimulation and discrete event simulation models to analyse the way individual patient characteristics interact and impact cost-effectiveness outcomes. Mackenzie is also a member of the Melbourne Health Technology and Value Assessment Collaboration (M-VAC), where he contributes to pharmaceutical evaluations to assist the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee (PBAC) in making recommendations to the PBS. Start date: October 2023
	Nabil Husni, PhD Student Nabil is a PhD student with the Economics of Global Health and Infectious Diseases Unit, supervised by A/Prof. Angela Devine and Dr. Marie-Anne Boujaoude. His research aims to integrate productivity losses among children into economic evaluation and assess their implications for equity. Nabil holds a BA in Applied Mathematics from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and an MPH in Health Systems and Policy from Rutgers School of Public Health. He has worked in data analytics and digital transformation across the social, healthcare, and education sectors in Malaysia and the United States. His interests include the economic costs of exclusion and marginalisation, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region. Start date: June 2026
	Yue Yang, PhD Student Yue is a PhD student in the Economics of Genomics and Precision Medicine Unit working to explore the cost-effectiveness of genomics in Indigenous health. Yue’s PhD will be guided by Associate Professor Ilias Goranitis and Professor Alex Brown and will be supported by the Australian Alliance for Indigenous Genomics (ALIGN). Yue holds a Master’s degree in Biostatistics from the University of Melbourne. She has previously worked in industry as a data analyst and has academic research experience working on a project exploring the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines in Victoria. Start date: February 2025
	Zhuomin Liu, PhD Student Zhuomin is a PhD student within the Child Health Economics Unit. Her thesis, supervised by Dr. Xinyang Hua and Prof. Kim Dalziel, focuses on strengthen the role of health economics in perinatal health to inform priority setting and funding decisions. Specifically, her research aims to generate evidence on cost-effective strategies to improve health outcomes for preterm infants, assess the quality of life of these children and their caregivers, and examine the inequality in healthcare service utilization during the perinatal period. Zhuomin has an academic background in economics, and her research interests include maternal and child health, health equity, and economic evaluation. She is currently working with both clinical and population-based administrative datasets, aiming to inform health policy and guide resource allocation in maternal and child health care. Start date: January 2025