Susan M. Sawyer

Professor Susan Sawyer AM MBBS MD FRACP FSAHM FAHMS holds the Geoff and Helen Handbury Chair of Adolescent Health at The University of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia. A paediatrician by training, she is the Director of the Centre for Adolescent Health at the Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne, a World Health Organization Collaborating Centre, and a researcher (Population Health) at Murdoch Children's Research Institute. Susan has been instrumental in growing the field of adolescent health nationally in Australia, in our region and internationally. She chaired the WHO Technical Steering Committee on Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health from 2012-2017 and was the inaugural chairman of the Australian Network for WHO Collaborating Centres from 2021- 2023. She has undertaken advisory and consultancy roles with each of the UN agencies relevant to adolescent health, including WHO, UNICEF, UNESCO and UNFPA. This includes being the academic lead for developing the first global standards for Health-promoting Schools for WHO and UNESCO (2018-21), and the academic lead for new global standards for quality health care services for adolescents (2025). Susan is a past-president of the International Association for Adolescent Health (2022-25), after a 5 year term as president (2017-21). She is a past board member of the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine in the United States and is also a past president of the International Chapter of the US Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine. She co-chaired the 2016 Lancet Commission on Adolescent Health and Well-Being which followed earlier leadership of the Lancet’s 2007 and 2012 series on Adolescent Health. She also co-led the 2nd Lancet Commission on Adolescent Health and Wellbeing (2025). Susan has authored over 430 peer review publications (H-Index 103) and 54 book chapters, and has coedited an Australian textbook on Youth Health and Adolescent Medicine.