Gita Mishra

Professor Gita Mishra’s main research area is on life course epidemiology and women’s health. She joined the University of Queensland (UQ) in 2010 as the first Professor of Life Course Epidemiology at the School of Public Health. She is now also Head of the Epidemiology and Biostatistics Division, Director of the Australian Longitudinal Study of Women’s Health (ALSWH) at UQ and since 2019, Director of the NHMRC Centre for Research Excellence in Women and Non-communicable Diseases (CRE WaND). She currently holds an NHMRC Principal Research Fellowship (2017-2022) and was previously awarded an ARC Future Fellowship (2013-2017).

Professor Mishra is internationally recognized for her expertise in epidemiology and women’s health, especially for her work on the links between reproductive characteristics and non-communicable diseases in later life, such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Over her career, she has published more than 400 scientific papers, book chapters, and reports, including as co-editor of a key academic textbook on Family Based Studies. In addition to research related to ALSWH, her current work includes leading the InterLACE project, a major international collaborative research programme on reproductive health and chronic disease that combines data from more than 800,000 women in 26 studies in 11 countries.

In the last five years, Professor Mishra has delivered 26 plenary/keynote sessions on her work at international conferences. In early 2016, she presented findings at the UN Commission for the Status of Women (CSW) in New York at a co-hosted event with the Australian Government. At the 2016 and 2017 UN CSW, she was an expert panellist for the WHO event on women and NCDs. In 2018 back in Australia, she was an invited expert at the Jean Hailes Women’s Health Week event at Parliament House. The general media has also often reported on findings from her work and she has made numerous appearances on TV, radio, and in print. In total, Professor Mishra has co-authored five articles on women’s health for The Conversation, most recently on the need for women to maintain health screening through the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2017, she was elected as a board member for the European Menopause and Andropause Society; received honorary membership of Sigma International, a global nursing organisation; and was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences (FAHMS). In 2018, Professor Mishra received the Leader of the Year Award at the UQ Faculty of Medicine.