Co-Investigators
Chief Investigator - Professor Lorraine Dennerstein
Project Director - Dr Janet Guthrie
Co-Investigator - Professor Henry Burger
Co-Investigator - Professor Adele Green
Co-Investigator - Professor John Hopper
Co-Investigator - Professor Alastair MacLennan
Co-Investigator - Professor Carol Morse
Associate Investigator - Professor Madeleine Ball
Associate Investigator - Dr Peter Ebeling
Associate Investigator - Professor John Wark
Professor Lorraine Dennerstein - Chief Investigator
AO MBBS PhD DPM FRANZCP
Director - Office for Gender and Health
email: l.dennerstein@medicine.unimelb.edu.au
Professor Lorraine Dennerstein is Foundation Director of the Office for Gender and Health, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences at the University of Melbourne. She previously established and directed the Key Centre for Women’s Health at the University of Melbourne from 1988-1996. In 1995 Professor Dennerstein was appointed a Personal Chair at The University of Melbourne. Prior to her appointment at the Key Centre, she was First Assistant in the Department of Psychiatry, University of Melbourne. Professor Dennerstein was also the Foundation Director of the Department of Psychological Medicine at the Mercy Hospital for Women from 1988-1993.
From 1986 to 1989 Professor Dennerstein was President of the International Society of Psychosomatic Obstetrics and Gynaecology. She was not only the youngest President of the Society but also the first female President. Professor Dennerstein has been active in other medical organisations and was President of two Australian professional societies. She is a member of the editoral committees of 3 international journals and is the author/editor of 22 books and over 260 journal articles/chapters in books.
Her major research and clinical interests have been in the special problems of women's health. Her initial doctoral research was stimulated by questions women asked her about psychological and sexual side effects of the oral contraceptive pill. This has led to a lifetime research career which has focussed on psychosocial endocrinology. Her research interests have been diverse and have spanned many major women’s health issues including the psychosocial aspects of infertility and the new reproductive technologies, role of gender on medical, legal and management careers, the health experiences of non-English speaking immigrants, and violence against women. Major research projects have focused on phases in women’s lives where there are hormonal, social and psychological changes occurring simultaneously. These have included studies of changes in women’s moods and sexual interests with the menstrual cycle and evaluation of a number of the treatments proposed for premenstrual syndrome. She has carried out a number of studies on women’s experiences of pregnancy and postpartum and evaluated innovative treatment approaches for those women who develop postpartum depression. For 25 years she has researched the health effects of menopause. Early studies focussed on women who had undergone hysterectomy and bilateral oophorectomy and the effects of hormone therapies. At women’s requests, a book about hysterectomy was especially prepared for them.
Professor Dennerstein is currently completing a number of projects for major international agencies. These include: formulating standards for good practice in women’s health and establishing a Commonwealth Awards for Excellence program (Commonwealth Secretariat); a report on Women and Occupational Health ( Global Commission on Women’s Health, WHO) and a report on Women, Bioethics and Human Rights (International Bioethics Committee of UNESCO). Professor Dennerstein is also a consultant to the World Health Organization on Human Reproduction.
Professor Dennerstein's contribution to medical education and to research in women's health was recognised by the award of the Order of Australia in 1994.
Dr Janet R Guthrie - Project Director
MSc, Dip Ed, PhD
email: j.guthrie@medicine.unimelb.edu.au
Janet Guthrie has been the Project Director of the Melbourne Women’s Midlife Health Project since January 1996. Her PhD thesis was on Bone Health during the Menopausal Transition. Janet initiated and has been responsible for the exercise, nutrition and bone density studies in the Melbourne Women’s Midlife Health Project. She is the author of a number of papers on the menopause. She was awarded the Australian Menopause Society Travelling Scholarshop in 1993, a prize for Poster Presentation at the International Congress on the Menopause, Stockholm, Sweden in 1993, and the Organon Travelling Fellowship in 1997 for the most meritorious contribution to the field of menopause by the Australian Investigator in 1998. The paper which won this award - "A Prospective Study of Bone Loss in Menopausal Australian-born Women" was published in 'Osteoporosis International'.
From 1977-1994 Janet Guthrie was a lecturer in physiology within the Faculty of Health Sciences at La Trobe University teaching under-graduate and post-graduate students in Nursing, Physiotherapy, Occupational and Speech Therapy courses. From 1991-1994 she was involved in teaching in Hong Kong in a Bachelor of Nursing course run jointly with the Chinese University of Hong Kong and La Trobe University.
In 1986 Janet was involved in research on mechanisms of genetic diseases at the Murdoch Institute. From 1964 to 1967 she was a research assistant in the areas of immunology and cardiac physiology at the Walter and Eliza hall Institute and the Baker Medical Research Institute in Melbourne.
Professor Henry Burger - Co-Investigator
AO MB BS MD FRACP FAA
Past Director of Prince Henry's Institute of Medical Research and Director of the Monash Medical Centre's Department of Endocrinology until December 31, 1998, Professor Burger continues his active association with both organisations. He is an Honorary Professor of Medicine, Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. His particular area of interest is in reproductive endocrinology and the management of the peri- and post-menopause, anovulatory infertility, hirsutism and male infertility as well as the role of the inhibins in ovarian malignancy. He was closely involved in the work which led to the purification, cloning and knowledge of the physiology of the inhibins. He has had a close involvement in the WHO Special Programme in Human Reproduction and chaired the VMO 'Scientific Group on Research on the Menopause in the 1990s' in 1994. He is the immediate past President of the International Menopause Society and is author or co-author of more than 400 publications. He has won a number of prizes and awards, including the Erie Susman Prize of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians in 1975. In 1990 he was made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Australian College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and in 1993 he was elected to Honorary Membership of the Association of American Physicians. In that year also he was honoured in the Queen's Birthday list by appointment as an Officer in the General Division of the Order of Australia (A0), for service to medical research, particularly in the field of endocrinology. In 1994 he was made a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science (FAA). In 1996 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, London and was selected by the Society of Endocrinology, UK, to receive the 1997 Dale Medal. This was in recognition of outstanding studies 'which have changed our understanding of endocrinology in a fundamental way'. The medal is the highest accolade bestowed by that Society.
Professor Adele Green - Co-Investigator
MSc PhD MB BS
Professor Adele Green is currently Senior Principal Research Fellow at the Queensland Institute of Medical Research, and Conjoint Professor at the University of Queensland. She is also the Head of the Epidemiology and Population Health Unit at the Queensland Institute of Medical Research. Adele's major scientific interests are hormone-related cancers, women's reproductive and menopausal health and skin cancers and melanoma.
Professor John Hopper - Co-Investigator
MSc PhD BA
Professor John Hopper is a NHMRC Senior Principal Research Fellow and Professorial Fellow with a PhD in Mathematical Statistics. He has published extensively on the statistical methodology for analysing genetic and environmental causes of variation in health-related characteristics including bone density, breast cancer, lipids and other cardiovascular risk factors among many others. He is Director of the Centre for Genetic Epidemiology in the Department of General Practise and Public Health at the University of Melbourne.
Professor Alastair MacLennan - Co-Investigator
MBChB MD FRCOG FRACOG
Associate Professor Alastair MacLennan is a Scottish graduate who received his specialist training in Obstetrics and Gynaecology in Glasgow, Chicago and Oxford. He is now a reproductive endocrinologist in Adelaide, South Australia, with special interests in feto-maternal medicine and women's health around the menopause. He is a founding member of the Australian Menopause Society, and has been co editor-in-chief of the journal Maturitas, and is now co editor-in-chief of the journal Climacteric.
Professor Carol Morse - Co-Investigator
BA MedPsych PhD
Professor Carol Morse, Dean of the Faculty of Human Development, is a health psychologist and Cognitive Behavioural Therapist with a background in clinical nursing and midwifery. She was formerly Professor of Women's Health and Head of the Department of Public Health, Family and Mental Health at RMIT University. She is well known nationally and internationally for her research into women's reproductive disorders and is currently engaged in studies on pregnancy-related depression in women and men, issues of early adaptation to becoming a parent and examining the impact of menopause transition on women's cognitive abilities.
Professor Madeleine Ball - Associate Investigator
BSc(Hons) BMed BSurg RCP FRCP
Professor Madeleine Ball currently holds the Unit Chair in Nutritional Project and Nutritional Research at the School of Health Sciences of Deakin University, Victoria. Her research interests are: nutrition and risk of cardiovascular disease; obesity and cancer; vegetarianism and clinical nutrition.
Dr Peter Ebeling - Associate Investigator
MB BS MD FRACP
Doctor Peter Ebeling is a curently a Consultant Endocrinologist in the Department of Diabetes and Endocrinology and Physician to the Bone and Mineral Service and Medical Unit 2 at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. His current research interests are the endocrinology of the menopausal transition, post-transplantation bone disease, genetic factors in the aetiology of osteoporosis in men, and its treatment and the clinical role of biochemical markers of bone turnover. He has been a member of the Australian and New Zealand Bone and Mineral Society (ANZBMS) Council for the previous 5 years, acting as Honorary Treasurer and President-Elect. He was appointed President of the ANZBMS in August 1999.
Associate Professor John Wark - Associate Investigator
MB BS PhD FRACP
Associate Professor John Wark is the Head of the Royal Melbourne Hospital and Mineral Service (including Essendon Osteoporosis Centre and Broadmeadows Osteoporosis Centre) from 1990 to the present. He is a Consultant Endocrinologist at Melbourne Private Hospital and has also been a consultant on many prestigious boards including the WHO Working Group on Menopause Research in the 1990's, and the WHO Core Working group on guidelines for clinical trials in osteoporosis.