Baker IDI South Australia

Professor Simon Stewart

Professor Simon Stewart is the Head of Preventative Cardiology at the Baker IDI Heart & Diabetes Institute. In the past three years Professor Stewart has established a number of large scale public health projects that involve a significant component of community participation and collaboration to raise awareness of the risk factors and impact of CVD. Under Professor Stewart's leadership, in the past two years Preventative Cardiology, has received funding for  more than $8 million in competitive research grants, strategic research funds and philanthropic donations to undertake new research programs, establish a community surveillance program and create a new indigenous research centre in Central Australia.

Contact- Adelaide

Contact- Melbourne

Professor Peter Clifton

Peter joined Baker IDI in July 2009, he has been a high profile clinical and nutrition researcher for over 20 years with CSIRO. He co-authored the "CSIRO Total Well-being Diet" which has been on the best seller list in Australia. Peter's primary research interest is in the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease and its risk antecedents, obesity and diabetes, by dietary means. Peter also maintains a clinical practice in the specialty of lipid management at Flinders Medical Centre since 1987 where he completed his PhD in "Factors affecting HDL particle size distribution". Peter also holds a clinical position at The Royal Adelaide Hospital specialising in the management of diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Both these positions are unpaid and reflect his commitment to continuing patient care and the application of research to clinical practice. Peter has also produced numerous articles for newspapers, medical magazines, discussion papers for food companies and books for the public. He is on the editorial board of 4 journals, reviewer for 20 others and reviewer for granting bodies in Australia, NZ, South Africa, Israel and Austria.

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Brita Pekarsky

Brita Pekarsky is a health economist with extensive experience in the private sector and working with government. Since February 1997, Brita has been a member of the Economic Subcommittee to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee. Brita has also wide experience as a manager of multi-disciplinary teams, complex projects and large and small consultancies, having worked for a large consulting group (KPMG) and as an independent consultant.

Brita's objective as an analyst and decision-maker in health care is to improve decision-making by policy makers, clinicians and patients. Her original training is as an economist and economic theory remains the primary framework from which she works, however, the approach to almost all of her work from the perspective of the decisions that the work is intended to inform. Over the last 19 years as an academic and consultant health economist, Brita has developed a skill base wide enough to support a holistic approach to informed decision-making in health care.

Brita has participated in a number of multi-disciplinary academic research teams at University of Tasmania, Australian National University, University of Newcastle, Flinders University SA, University of Queensland and University of Adelaide: economic and modelled analysis components of projects on Nicotine Replacement Therapy, Hip Replacements; Hormone replacement therapy; and reduction of Hip Fracture rate for COPD patients.

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