Heidi Smith-Vaughan

Associate Professor Heidi Smith-Vaughan serves as Head of Child Health Laboratory Research and Director of HealthLAB at the Menzies School of Health Research in Darwin, focusing on child health improvement in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and the Asia-Pacific region.

Her research spans:

• Infectious disease management for ear/lung conditions in Indigenous children
• Antibiotic resistance mechanisms in pathogenic bacteria
• Genomic approaches to infection treatment
• Traditional medicine agribusiness development
• Interactive health promotion via mobile laboratories

She actively mentors emerging researchers through:

• Menzies Youth Engagement Strategy
• Gap Year traineeships
• Indigenous traineeship programs

Her NHMRC-funded work includes clinical trials for vaccines/antibiotics and international pneumococcal vaccine coordination in Vietnam. HealthLAB, her traveling interactive unit, enables remote community members to measure biomedical risk factors and learn lifestyle modifications for chronic disease prevention.