Professor Stephen Colagiuri
Stephen Colagiuri is the Professor of Metabolic Health at the University of Sydney. His research interests focus on development and implementation of evidence-based guidelines, cardiometabolic risk assessment, diabetes screening and prevention, the glycemic index, and economic aspects of diabetes and obesity. He has over 100 publications in scientific journals and books.
Stephen is a past President of the Australian Diabetes Society. He is a member of the Diabetes Expert Advisory Committee of the Commonwealth Department of Health and Aged Care, chair of the International Diabetes Federation Global Guideline Working Group, and an advisor on diabetes to the World Health Organization.
Professor Mark Harris
Professor Mark Harris (MB BS MD Syd, DRACOG, FRACGP) is Professor of General Practice, School of Public Health and Community Medicine, UNSW; and the Executive Director, UNSW Research Centre for Primary Health Care and Equity. His research interests are:
* Health system development, especially integration of health services (within PHC and between primary and secondary care);
* Prevention and management of chronic diseases, especially diabetes and cardiovascular disease;
* Health inequalities research, especially the health impact of unemployment and interventions to improve the health status of disadvantaged groups, including the unemployed refugees (asylum seekers) and Indigenous people; and
* Development of research capacity in primary health care, especially the development of primary care research networks and research practices.
Ms Leigh Spokes
Leigh Spokes has been nursing for 34 years in both the private and public health systems. She is an RN & RM and has a Masters degrees in Diabetes Education, Grad.Dip.Health Science Diabetes Education and Grad.Cert Diabetes Education. She is a Credentialled Diabetes Educator, and in February 2005 started her own private practice in Wagga Wagga NSW as well as in GP rooms throughout the Riverina district. She also works weekly for the Riverina Aboriginal Medical Cooperation.
Dr Norman Swan (Chair)
Dr Norman Swan regularly presents Rural Health Education Foundation satellite broadcasts.
He is best-known for his wide broadcasting experience, including the award-winning Health Report, which he produces and presents for ABC Radio National - as well as his other ABC Radio and Television program hosting.
Dr Swan trained in Medicine in Scotland and in Paediatrics in London and Sydney. A broadcaster and journalist with the ABC's Science Unit since 1982, he has been Australian Producer of the Year and was awarded a Gold Citation in the United Nations Media Peace Prizes.
In 2004 Dr Swan was honoured by the Australian Academy of Science, which presented him with an Academy Medal, only the third time such an award has been made. The Academy gave it for his outstanding contributions to science in the public domain. Around the same time, the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow made him a Fellow.
He has won an Australian Writers' Guild Award, three Walkley National Awards for Journalism and the Michael Daley Award for Science Journalism on two occasions.
In addition to his broadcasting, he edits his own newsletter, The Health Reader, published in association with Choice magazine, and has been the Australian correspondent for the Journal of the American Medical Association and the BMJ. He has also consulted to the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Geneva.
