HDA announces new Schools Communicator for 2023

HDA announces new Schools Communicator for 2023

Health Development Adelaide (HDA) has announced Associate Professor Zohra Lassi as its Schools Communicator Award for 2023.

Funded by the Channel 7 Children’s Research Foundation (CRF), this award was established as a collaboration between HDA and CRF to help South Australia’s emerging researchers showcase their research to high school students with the aim of getting them excited about the amazing opportunities open to them in health science or science career pathways.

Zohra is an Associate Professor and Senior Research Fellow within the Robinson Research Institute and School of Public Health at the University of Adelaide.

Zohra will be delivering her interactive session on Sustainable Development Goals and Global Health to a number of South Australian schools this year.

Associate Professor Zohra Lassi, NHMRC Ext-Funded Emerging Leader-2 Fellow D at Adelaide Medical School and the 2023 HDA Schools Communicator.

Zohra’s research focus is on identifying and implementing interventions for improving sexual, reproductive, maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health and nutrition in disadvantaged settings by advancing knowledge in public health practice and translation into global health policies and guidelines.

“I am honoured to receive the HDA Schools Communicator Award and excited to visit schools to increase students’ understanding of social and wider determinants of health and how one can contribute to improving the health of people living in disadvantaged, developing and international communities”, Zohra Lassi says.

The goal of this award is to help our emerging researchers, like Zohra, to showcase their research to South Australian high school students with the aim of getting them excited about the amazing opportunities open to them in health science or science career pathways.

Science is to obtain new facts, but most importantly, science is to discover new ways of thinking about them. It is, therefore, important to engage students and make them understand the problems of today and tomorrow because students of today are the leaders of tomorrow.

Channel 7 Children’s Research Foundation Executive Director, Greg Ward, says the opportunity to fund HDA’s Schools Communicator Award provides yet another platform for CRF to expand its commitment to fostering children’s research careers in South Australia.

“CRF has been a proud supporter of HDA since 2007 through its PhD Excellence Awards and now in its third year, the Schools Communicator Award,” Ward says.

“This excites us as it provides yet another opportunity to inspire young people to consider a career in research, and importantly, in children’s health and development.”

“We congratulate Zohra on receiving the 2023 HDA Schools Communicator Award and encourage her dedication to inspire younger generations to consider a future that will ultimately lead to improving the lives of children.”