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Mehedi is a public health researcher with strong expertise in quantitative data analytics. He has over eight years of professional experience in developing and developed countries. He has built a distinguished career in public health research, focusing on critical areas such as reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health (RMNCH), nutrition, non-communicable diseases, mental health, sleep health, social determinants of health and health inequalities.

Mehedi completed his PhD from the University of Queensland in 2022. In his doctoral thesis titled “Future direction of maternal and child health in low- and middle-income countries”, he utilized data of over 4.3 million participants extracted from 284 national surveys conducted in 75 low- and middle-income countries to understand the future projections of maternal and child health-related indicators and gaps in progress, with geographical variations across countries. His doctoral research resulted six publications in reputed international journals and provided valuable insights for global and country leaders in their pursuit of achieving health-related Sustainable Development Goals.

Mehedi has a charming engagement with research community. He has reviewed manuscripts for eight international journals and published 45 peer-reviewed articles, many of which appear in high-impact journals. His work has gained media attention, with coverage of more than 15 research stories.

In addition to his research and professional activities, Mehedi is an active member of several professional international collaborative groups, including Global Burden of Diseases, the American Society for Nutrition, the International Health Economics Association, the Society for Research in Child Development, and Health Systems Global, where he collaborates with fellow experts and stays at the forefront of developments in his field.

Mehedi is a Global Change Scholar (2018 cohort) of the University of Queensland and a recipient of several prestigious scholarships and awards. He recently honoured with a national award in the Pregnancy Monitoring Innovation Challenge 2022 funded by the Aspire to Innovate (a2i), Bangladesh, recognizing his innovative contributions to maternal and neonatal health.

Mehedi’s current research focuses on unveiling environmental exposures in pregnancy and risk in adverse birth outcomes in Queensland, Australia.

Dr Erin Pitt is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the area of Childhood Allergy and Epidemiology within the Child Health Research Centre (CHRC). Erin possesses a Bachelor of Health Science (Nutrition); a Master of Public Health (Epidemiology and Research Methods); and a PhD, which was conferred in March, 2020. Her doctoral research investigated the influence of local food environment and socio-ecological determinants on early childhood dietary intake using a mixed methods research approach, which had a strong focus on nutritional epidemiology in the context of public health nutrition.

Prior to pursuing an academic career, Erin worked as a Public Health Nutritionist with Queensland Health where she managed, designed, implemented, and evaluated community-based public health nutrition interventions in a range of settings and locations including rural/remote and metropolitan regions. Erin collaborated and engaged with a range of diverse government and non-government organisations and industry bodies to address priority areas including rural and remote food supply issues, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health and nutrition, children’s food literacy and local government nutrition-related policy and planning.

Erin is currently working on a diverse range of projects including determinants of developing cow’s milk allergy in infancy; the role of migration in allergy prevalence; and the potential co-occurrence of allergy with neurodevelopmental conditions. She has a particular interest in the role of maternal and child dietary diversity as well as socio-economic determinants and their association with the development of allergy in children.