Excellence in Leadership Award

Professor Anne Kavanagh received an Excellence in Leadership Award from the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health.

Over the last few years Anne has built a large group of inter-disciplinary researchers working in disability within the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health. The reputation of her group has led to her being appointed to the inaugural Chair of Disability and Health, Founding Academic Director of the Melbourne Disability Institute and as a member of the Independent Advisory Council to the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA).

Anne has demonstrated outstanding leadership in the area of disability research and advocacy and shows great ability to advocate for the disability sector. She is setting a much needed new research agenda in the era of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) and has demonstrated good mentorship bringing together a multidisciplinary group to address these important issues.

In the last couple of years, Anne and her team have published disability research in top epidemiology journals, the first team internationally to get their research on disability as an exposure published in these journals. Since her first peer-reviewed publication on disability research in 2013, she has attracted over $35 million competitive grant funding ($18 million NHMRC and ARC) and $3.6 million as Principal Investigator. In this time, she has created a new research group of 15 early and mid-career researchers working in disability and health, an area of research that was not on the MSPGH agenda five years ago.

Anne's leadership was recognised in an awards ceremony at the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health on the 21 November 2018.

Congratulations Anne!