Rachel Huxley

Professor Rachel Huxley is Associate Pro-Vice Chancellor (Research) for the College of Science, Health and Engineering at La Trobe University, Australia, a position that she has occupied since January 2018.  She is also Co-Director of the recently established Research Centre for Cardiovascular Biology and Disease at La Trobe. Previously, she was the Head of School of Public Health at Curtin University, Australia. Prior to this, she held the Chair in Epidemiology, Head of the Research and Research Training Committee and Director of the Queensland Clinical Trials and Biostatistics Centre (QCTBC), within the School of Public Health, University of Queensland. 

Professor Huxley completed her undergraduate studies at St John’s College, Oxford and obtained her doctorate in epidemiology and public health from the Department of Public Health and Primary Care, Oxford University and completed her post-doctoral training also in Oxford before relocating to the George Institute for Global Health, University of New South Wales in 2002, where she continues to hold an honorary professorial appointment. In 2017 she was made a Visiting Professorial Fellow in Epidemiology within the Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford. 

Between 2002 and 2009, she was awarded three internationally competitive fellowships including the inaugural Career Development Fellowship from the Heart Foundation and the NSW Office for Science and Medical Research.  In 2009, Professor Huxley relocated to the United States where she became a co-investigator on the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study and the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis in the Division of Epidemiology and Public Health, University of Minnesota. Her research is primarily focused on the determination and quantification of major and modifiable risk factors for chronic disease and sex and ethnic disparities in these relationships. She has published more than 200 research articles, has a Google Scholar H-index of 64 and > 20,000 citations. She currently holds several competitive research grants as Principal Investigator in areas related to obesity, diabetes and women’s health.