Associate Professor James Ward is a Pitjantjatjara/ Narungga man, and a national leader in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander research. He is currently the Head of Infectious Diseases Research Program, Aboriginal Health, at the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute. James has a long history working in Aboriginal communities, beginning as a men’s health educator for 29 remote communities in central Australia in the late 1990s. James has been awarded funding applications in the area of STI’s/ BBV’s/ AODtotalling $23M since 2013; including $7.14M as CIA on NHMRC funded grants and has authored 100 publications. In 2017, James was recognised by the NHMRC with the Rising Star Research Excellence Award for the top-ranked application by an Indigenous researcher in the Early Career Fellowship scheme and by the local Aboriginal community by being awarded the NAIDOC SA Scholar of the Year. In 2018 James was awarded the Viertel Senior Medical Research Fellowship- Australia’s most prestigious fellowship to continue to develop his research. Throughout his health and research career, James has demonstrated a true commitment to improving the health and wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adolescents, and a dedication to awareness, education, dissemination advocacy and community engagement.

Dr Jill Sherwood is a Public Health Physician in the Health Intelligence Group at ESR, focusing on the surveillance and response to communicable diseases. Jill has a particular interest in work that supports sexual health and has been co-author of the annual STI Surveillance Reports produced by ESR since 2013.