• Epidemiology
• Complex Emergencies/Conflict Settings
• Emerging Infectious Diseases including Ebola Virus Disease
• Sexual and Gender-based Violence
• Child and Maternal Health

Associate Professor Kamalini Lokuge, OAM, HOSM, leads the Humanitarian Health Research Initiative at the Australian National University. Dr Lokuge and her team conduct operational research in partnership with communities and service providers to inform effective health service delivery and prevention. Her appointment at the ANU allows for an opportunity to link lessons learnt in the field to traditional research activities to inform an evidence base and achieve better outcomes for those living in the most challenging circumstances. The Humanitarian Health Research Initiative also places emphasis on building sustainable capacity for responding to existing and future humanitarian challenges. 

Dr Lokuge is a public health physician and medical epidemiologist and has worked for Médecins Sans Frontières, the World Health Organisation and the International Committee of the Red Cross over the past 25 years in a range of humanitarian emergencies. She has advised State and Federal governments on their response to COVID-19, and was a member of Australia’s National COVID-19 Health and Research Advisory Committee from 2020-2021. She has received the following awards for her work: Medal of the Order of Australia (2010), Humanitarian Overseas Service Medal (2019), Royal Australasian College of Physicians International Medal (2020), ANU Vice-Chancellor's Award for Impact and Engagement (2020), ANU Alumnus of the Year(2021).

Dr Lokuge's current research includes: optimising public health interventions for COVID-19 control; documenting lessons learned from the response to the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreaks; operational research into services for gender-based violence, child protection and substance misuse in a range of settings; evaluating interventions for improving access to effective emergency obstetric care and access to contraception in Sierra Leone and other settings globally; developing methods and capacity for monitoring and evaluation of health programs in complex emergencies.

Please see “Related websites” section below for additional details.

1. Maternal and neonatal mortality and access to emergency obstetric care in resource-limited settings.
2. Health services in complex emergencies.
3. Services for domestic and sexual violence survivors

PhD scholars

1. Tatum Street: Strengthening programs for survivors of sex trafficking in North-East India
2. Dewasmika Ariyasinghe: Developing and evaluating an adapted brief intervention for alcohol misuse in Sri Lanka
3. Kai Hodgkin: Supporting midwives to support normal birth in Indonesia
4. Polly Wallace: Randomised controlled trial of preschool-based interventions for intimate partner violence and substance misuse in Sri Lanka
5. Sally Carter: mental health services for children in humanitarian crises, in collaboration with MSF.
6. Georgina Phillips: hospital-based emergency services in low-resource settings (external, University of Melbourne)