Dr. Elizabeth McLeod

Member of the transitional High-Level Council

MD MPH FRACS (Gen) FRACS (Paed)

Liz is a practising paediatric surgeon in Melbourne, specializing in congenital colorectal conditions. She also holds an adult general surgical fellowship with the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS). She has a Doctorate in tumour cell biology and a Masters of Public Health with a research interest in program evaluation and health system strengthening, from the University of Melbourne.

Through the RACS she has been involved over the last 15 years in a range of programs including service delivery, program design, management, and evaluation, with partners in the South Pacific, Papua New Guinea, Eastern Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia and Myanmar. She has served as Chair of the RACS Global Health Monitoring and Evaluation and Global Health Executive Committees, and been part of the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery Regional Working Group.

She is the Global Health Editor for the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Surgery, and is a consultant for the WHO WPRO for Safe and Affordable Surgery program.

She has recently combined her interest in health systems with her activism for the climate emergency to complete an Executive Masters in Development Policy and Practice at the Graduate Institute in Geneva. Her thesis was on surgical system strengthening and resilience to the effects of climate change in Vanuatu, and she is currently working with the Pacific Community on a project looking at projected impacts of various climate stressors on health infrastructure and access to surgical services, with the aim to develop a priority listing of infrastructure relocations for the Pacific.