Dr Sandro Demaio receives the Monash Distinguished Alumni Award for our Faculty
Monash University’s annual Distinguished Alumni Awards pay tribute to alumni achievements and to the success of alumni in becoming leaders in their field. Each year, a handful of alumni are presented with this prestigious award.
Congratulations to Dr Sandro Demaio who received the Distinguished Alumni Award 2020 for the Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences at a small ceremony held at our Clayton campus on Thursday 4 March 2021.
Dr Sandro Demaio is a medical doctor and globally-renowned public health expert and advocate. He is currently the Chief Executive Officer of VicHealth, which is the state’s peak health promotion body. At VicHealth, Dr Demaio oversees more than 70 staff and a multi-million-dollar budget for direct health promotion, sports and community grants and health research.
He was previously Medical Officer for non-communicable conditions and nutrition with the Department of Nutrition for Health and Development at the World Health Organization, and the Chief Executive Officer of the EAT Foundation, a science-based, global platform for food systems transformation.
Dr Demaio has published 30 scientific papers and more than 90 articles and is the author of the Doctor’s Diet, a cookbook based on science and inspired by a love of good food. He also co-hosted the ABC television show ‘Ask the Doctor’– an innovative and exploratory factual medical series broadcasting across Australia and around the world.
Dr Demaio has a passion for conveying accurate and important health messages to communities in an easily accessible and tangible manner. “What really gets me excited is finding ways to increase the health of a population and getting that information in the right hands …. food creates change, that’s the bottom line.”
In his pro bono work, Dr Demaio co-founded NCDFREE, a global social movement against chronic disease which reached more than 2.5 million people in its first 18 months. In 2015, he founded festival21, assembling and leading a team of experts in staging an unprecedented free celebration of community, food, culture and future in his hometown of Melbourne. In 2018, he also established an independent, not-for-profit foundation focused on improving the health and nutrition of Australians.
Dr Demaio originally trained and worked as a medical doctor at The Alfred Hospital in Melbourne after graduating with his Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery from Monash University. He also holds a Masters degree in Public Health from Monash University, a Doctor of Philosophy in Global Health focusing on non-communicable diseases from the University of Copenhagen and has held post-doctoral fellowships at both Harvard Medical School and Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.
Dr Sandro Demaio is also an active and engaged member of our alumni community and we are grateful for his support over the years. He has featured in Monash podcasts, the Connections for Change interview series and in our faculty graduations video and face mask video campaign.
