Gita Mishra

Gita Mishra AO is Professor of Life Course Epidemiology at the University of Queensland (UQ) and is internationally recognised for her research on women’s reproductive health and chronic conditions across life. She is the founding Director of the Australian Women and Girls’ Health Research (AWaGHR) Centre at UQ with a 40-strong multidisciplinary team, including 12 PhD students, that has arisen out of her leadership of the NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence in Women and Non-Communicable Diseases (2019-2025). Professor Mishra is currently an NHMRC Leadership Fellow (Level 3; 2022-2031), having previously been awarded with an ARC Future Fellowship (2013-2017) and an NHMRC Principal Research Fellowship (2017-2021).

Within the AWaGHR Centre, she is Director of the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health (ALSWH), a national flagship study since 1996 with data on over 57,000 women in four age cohorts. She leads a series of NHMRC and MRFF funded studies, including on endometriosis, menstrual disorders, and perimenopause and menopause, that place strong emphasis on the life course and the inclusion of women from First Nations’ communities and from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. The Centre also hosts InterLACE, the International collaboration for a Life course Approach to reproductive health and Chronic disease Events which Professor Mishra has developed and led since 2012. InterLACE now combines data from more than 1.2M women in 35 studies in 19 countries and has become a leading resource for robust evidence on women’s health. As a result, she regularly presents findings from InterLACE and from the AWaGHR Centre at international policy meetings, including as an expert contributor at the UN Commission for the Status of Women in New York and at the WHO in Geneva.

Over her career, Professor Mishra has authored over 500 scientific papers, invited reviews, book chapters, and evidence reports. She is lead editor of “A Life Course Approach to Women’s Health”, a key text that presents the latest research in the field and is part of the ground-breaking Life Course Series from Oxford University Press. She works extensively with governments, especially with Australian Department of Health and Aged Care. She led the 2018 evidence review for the inform the National Women’s Health Strategy 2020-2030, which prioritised a life course approach. In 2023, she was scientific advisor to Queensland Health for the Queensland Women and Girls’ Health Strategy 2023-2032.

In her current role in supporting health policy implementation and research priorities, she is a founding member of the National Women's Health Advisory Council established by the Australian Government and is on the Strategic Advisory Committee for the Queensland Women and Girls’ Health Promotion Program. From 2023-2025 she was co-president of the 16th World Endometriosis Congress in Sydney and is currently Chair of the Queensland branch of the Heart Foundation.

In 2017, Professor Mishra became a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences and in 2025 she was appointed as President-elect for the World Endometriosis Society (2025-2027). She has received prestigious awards for her contribution to research and education, including the 2022 RANZCOG Award for Excellence in Women’s Health. In 2025, she was honoured with the title of Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) and awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Stockholm University.