Welcome to Alexander van Heusden

Alexander is a PhD student with the Health Economics Unit at the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne. 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. His MPH thesis used agent-based modelling to investigate the health and social impact of multiple health policy interventions for COVID-19 in New Zealand. Alex was awarded the population health prize for the top student during the MPH.

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. Alex also has a few years of work experience in the Coronial Services working in the Wellington mortuary. 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.