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Visiting Professor, Duke-NUS Medical School
Visiting Professor, Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, NUS

David is an Australian paediatrician and global child health specialist with extensive experience across Africa, South Asia, and East Asia. His career in international health began as a District Health Officer in Malawi, followed by specialised training in Paediatrics in Melbourne. David’s work in the Mekong Region focused on immunization, and he managed child health and nutrition programs and emergency responses for UNICEF in Indonesia, China, Myanmar, India, and Afghanistan.

At UNICEF’s New York Headquarters, David was global lead for health systems strengthening and primary health care. Before joining Duke-NUS he led UNICEF’s Health and Nutrition program in Iraq, based in Baghdad, leading the response to COVID-19 and its impact on health services. For 12 years David was an Associate in the University of Melbourne’s School of Population Health, where he completed his PhD whilst working in Vietnam. Twice a Lancet Commissioner, he has published over 65 peer-reviewed papers on a wide variety of child health, nutrition and health systems issues in diverse contexts.

David is currently a Visiting Professor of Global Health at the SingHealth Duke-NUS Global Health Institute. His objectives in this role are to use the SingHealth and AMC partners’ respective capacities to demonstrate Singapore’s qualities and potential as a regional leader and technical/research partner in global health, strengthening health systems and reducing inequities in access to quality health care and health outcomes.

Research Interests:

• Early childhood development and the biological and physiological consequences of childhood adversity
• Primary health care platforms for healthcare and community engagement
• Financing of primary health care
• Teaching on systems for global health
• Health implications of climate change and environmental degradation