Professor Susan Sawyer AM MBBS MD FRACP holds the Geoff and Helen Handbury Chair of Adolescent Health at The University of Melbourne, Australia and is the Director of the Centre for Adolescent Health at the Royal Children’s Hospital, a World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre for Adolescent Health. She runs a research program on adolescent health through the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute and is widely published (H-index 87).
A paediatrician by training, Professor Sawyer is the immediate past president of the International Association for Adolescent Health, co-chair of the International Pediatric Association special advisory group on Adolescent Medicine, and was the inaugural chair of the Australian Network for WHO Collaborating Centres (2020-23). She is an editorial board member for The Lancet Child and Adolescent Health, the Journal of Adolescent Health and Medicine, and the Medical Journal of Australia. Professor Sawyer’s clinical, advocacy and academic leadership have been instrumental in driving appreciation of the significance of adolescent and young adult health beyond high-income countries to the position where adolescent health is now receiving global policy attention.