Susan Davis AO
Susan Davis AO

MB BS(Monash), FRACP, PhD(Monash)

Professor Susan Davis (’74) is a leading international researcher in the field of women’s health and menopausal medicine. She is a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Principal Research Fellow and, since 2005, has been the Professor of Women’s Health in the School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine at Monash University.

Susan was a founder of the Jean Hailes Foundation and was Director of Research of the Foundation from 1997 until 2005. She also held the Monash-Jean Hailes Chair of Women’s Health from 2003 to 2005, and between 2003 and 2007 was the lead Investigator for the NHMRC Centre of Clinical Research Excellence for the Study of Women’s Health. She is a past president of the Australasian Menopause Society and a board member of the International Menopause Society since 2011.

Throughout her career, Susan has been an invited lecturer at over 120 international conferences, presented more than 60 distinguished international keynote lectures and been published in over 330 peer reviewed manuscripts in the research area of endocrinology, with a particular focus on the consequences of sex steroid depletion and sex steroid therapy in women.

Her research spans basic, clinical and population health research to progress the understanding of the roles of oestrogens and androgens in the modulations of breast cancer, cardiovascular function, body composition and fat metabolism, cognitive function and mood, sexual function and bone and cartilage health.

Susan has achieved national and international recognition through a number of international research awards. In 2009 she received the Australasian Menopause Society Award for contribution to menopausal medicine, the Distinguished Alumni Award of Monash University and the Alfred Medical Research and Education Precinct Research Award. Then in 2011 she was the recipient of the Henry Burger Award of the International Menopause Society for the most significant published contribution to the field of menopause in the preceding three years, and in 2015 she received the International Research Excellence Laureate Award of the US Endocrine Society, the Society’s most distinguished international award.

In 2021 she was made a Officer of the Order of Australia for distinguished service to medicine, to women’s health as a clinical endocrinologist and researcher, and to medical education.

Outside of work Susan enjoys spending time with her husband, her four children and three step children.

Updated January 2021