Centre announcements

We welcome our new staff members:

Ney Ayati

Nayyereh is an accomplished pharmacist and pharmacoeconomist, leveraging her educational background to drive impactful research and contribute to the field of healthcare. With a proven track record in conducting health technology assessments and health policy research, she is dedicated to improving patients' access to efficient treatment strategies. As a research fellow at the Centre for Health Economics at the Monash Business School, Nayyereh continues to explore innovative approaches to enhance healthcare outcomes and advance evidence-based decision-making in the field.

Farzana Hossain

Farzana is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Health Economics (CHE). She completed her PhD in the Department of Economics at the University of Melbourne. Her research interests are in the fields of environmental economics, development economics and the economics of wellbeing. At the CHE, she is working on the transdisciplinary research project "Revitalising Informal Settlements and their Environments" (RISE). RISE is trialling a new water-sensitive approach to water and sanitation management in 24 informal settlements across Makassar, Indonesia, and Suva, Fiji. Farzana is working as part of the wellbeing team of RISE to analyse the impact of improvement of infrastructure and environment on human health and wellbeing of residents in the settlements.

Udeni De Silva Perera
Udeni De Silva Perera

Udeni De Silva Perera

Udeni joined the CHE as a Research Fellow in November 2021. She holds a PhD in Applied Econometrics from Monash University and a Masters in Financial Economics from the University of Colombo (Sri Lanka). Before joining CHE, Udeni was a Research Fellow at RMIT University and Lecturer in Statistics at the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka. Her main research interests are in development economics, particularly around child and maternal health. Her research at CHE will be focused on health technology assessment, particularly around the use of Artificial Intelligence in health services in Australia, as part of a NHMRC funded project.

Nicolau Martin Bassols
Nicolau Marten Bassolls

Nicolau Martin Bassols

Nicolau is a CHE research fellow. He completed his PhD in Health Economics at Monash University in 2022. Previously he held a position as junior researcher at the University Pompeu Fabra, Spain, and collaborated at the governmental Health Evaluation and Quality Agency of Catalonia. His current research focuses on the economics of mental health and the economics of ageing. He explores the importance of genetics, family investments, life cycle investments, and shocks on mental health and well-being at older age. His recent research projects examined the determinants and effects of old age-related cognitive deterioration and depression.

Sundar Ponnusamy
Meenakshi Sundar Ponnusamy

Sundar Ponnusamy

Sundar Ponnusamy joined the CHE as a Research Fellow in November 2021. He is an applied microeconomist with an interest in understanding the impacts of relevant societal issues on health, wellbeing, and development, especially in developing countries. His work so far has focused on the effects of natural disasters, weather shocks, violence, and inequality on child health, and their associated human capital development.

He also works in political economy literature, especially in the Indian context. Specifically, he has explored issues such as redistributive politics, female under-representation, and also on strategic voting by agents in Indian state elections.

Danusha Jayawardana
Danusha Jayawardana

Danusha Jayawardana

Danusha joined CHE as a Research Fellow in June 2022. Her current work focuses on mental health, economics of child and adolescent development and healthcare service use. Her other research interests extend to broad areas of Applied Microeconometrics and Development Economics, with a particular focus on mental health effects of issues such as child labour, child marriage in developing countries, and the effectiveness of social protection programs in addressing such issues. Prior to joining Monash, Danusha was a Research Fellow at the University of Queensland.

Anna Crothers

Anna Crothers is a CHE Research Fellow. She holds a Master of Health Economics (Advanced) degree from the University of Queensland and has over ten years of experience working in government, research, and industry as both a clinical evaluator, biostatistician, and health economist. Anna is passionate about translating clinical research into improved patient outcomes and service delivery. She also has an interest in the long-term safety of medical devices and pharmaceuticals. Anna is a member of the health economic evaluation team, which provides appraisals of pharmaceutical and vaccine industry submissions to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee (PBAC), and health technology assessments for the Medical Services Advisory Committee (MSAC), and for the Agency for Care Effectiveness, Ministry of Health, Singapore.

Anh Trinh
Trong-Anh Trinh

Anh Trinh

Anh Trinh is a CHE Research Fellow. His broad research interests are in health economics, development economics, and labour economics. Before joining Monash University in 2022, he was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, and before that, a young research fellow at the World Bank. He completed his PhD in Economics at RMIT in December 2019.

2023

2022

  • Dennis Petrie and his team - Sonja de New, Nicole Black, Anthony Harris and Johannes Kunz - received the 2022 Dean’s Award for Excellence in Research Engagement and Impact.
  • Maame Esi Woode received the Faculty’s Advancing Women's Success Grant for 2022.
  • Rohan Sweeney received Monash Business School Dean's Award for Excellence in Research for his work on improve health outcomes in disadvantaged populations
  • Our PhD candidate Michelle Escobar Carias won the Faculty of Business and Economics heat of the Three-Minute-Thesis competition for her research on the economic and health effects of environmental shocks. Michelle now progresses to the Monash University round, then potentially national and international competitions.
  • Anthony Harris received the Australian Clinical Trials Alliance Industry Partnership Award 2022 - for research Comparing Video-Based, Telehealth-Delivered Exercise and Weight Loss Programs With Online Education on Outcomes of Knee Osteoarthritis, co-authored by Bennell, K. L., Lawford, B. J., Keating, C., Brown, C., Kasza, J.  Mackenzie, D., Metcalf, B., Kimp, A. J., Egerton, T., Spiers, L., Proietto, J., Sumithran, P., Harris, A., Quicke, J. G. & Hinman, R. S., Feb 2022,  Annals of Internal Medicine. 175, 2, p. 198-209

2021

  • Other PhD students who have recently won awards for their research include: Elaine De Gruyter: International Health Economics Association Student Paper Prize 2021. Karinna Saxby: American Economic Association (AEA) research award for Outstanding Research Contribution in LGBTQ + Economics 2020/21.

2020

  • NHMRC Fiona Stanley Synergy Grant Award - The Blood Synergy team from the School of Public Health, in which the CHE is the health economics collaborator with investigators and research staff and students, were recipients of the inaugural NHMRC Fiona Stanley Synergy Grant Award, for the top-ranked Synergy grant in 2020.

Congratulations to our PhD Students on their completion:

  • Karinna Saxby; Health inequalities in marginalised groups (2023)
  • Michele Escobar; Essays on the economic and health effects of environmental shocks (2023)
  • Nicolau Martin Bassols; Empirical essays on health economics of ageing (2023)
  • Thao Thi Hong Thai; Australian pharmacy workforce preferences and satisfaction (2021)

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