Welcome to Billie Bonevski, Professor of Public Health

Professor Billie Bonevski is the incoming Discipline Group Lead of Public Health and Discipline Lead of Public Health, beginning March 2021.

Professor Bonevski will have overall leadership of all of the disciplines and groups within Public Health (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health, Biostatistics, Injury Studies, Health Economics, Social Determinants of Health (Southgate), Addiction Medicine (NCETA) and Point-of-Care Testing) and will be working with the leaders and staff within these groups to build an even stronger Public Health at Flinders and support and strengthen Public Health education and research impacts.

Professor Bonevski is a Behavioural Scientist and public health researcher of international reputation who joins the College from the University of Newcastle.

Billie is passionate about using research evidence to tackle chronic diseases and health inequities.

She leads collaborative translational research conducted in real world settings with community-based partners including health departments, non-government organisations, and health services.
To support her research, Billie has been Chief Investigator on almost $30M of funding, and has had 10 years of continuous NHMRC funding, including a CRE, Partnership Project, Boosting Dementia, and three Project Grants currently.

A priority area for her, given the health damage it causes, is tobacco use. She is leading two large clinical trials, with collaborators from NZ and the UK, of smoking cessation strategies for people in drug and alcohol treatment involving 12 service sites in NSW, Queensland and Victoria, and is also co-lead of a NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence for Achieving Tobacco Endgame.

Professor Bonevski is one of Australia’s top 3 published authors on tobacco smoking cessation and the leading author internationally on smoking cessation and homelessness.
In 2019, Billie was appointed the University of Newcastle’s Inaugural Women in Science Chair and has been an inspirational mentor to colleagues, and to current and prospective university students.

“I feel honoured and excited to be joining the College of Medicine and Public Health. We share core values of excellence, people, culture and social vision,” says Billie. “I look forward to working with this world-class public health team to make a difference for our community.”

Professor Bonevski’s commitment to and outstanding reputation in Public Health will be an asset to the University and she will play a critical leadership role in the continuing development of our discipline of Public Health.

We can all very much look forward to her commencing in March 2021.

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