Professor Paul Colditz (MBBS, MBiomedE, DPhil (Oxon), FRACP, FRCPCH) is Professor of Perinatal Medicine, Disciplines of Obstetrics& Gynaecology and Paediatrics & Child Health, The University of Queensland, Director, Perinatal Research Centre, School of Medicine, University of Queensland and Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital, an NHMRC Practitioner Fellow and Group Head, Clinical Neurosciences Laboratory, University of Queensland Centre for Clinical Research.

He founded and directs a multidisciplinary research group focussing on clinically important perinatal health problems with a mission to improve the health of mothers and babies. The Perinatal Research Centre is the largest and highest ranked research group in Queensland’s largest hospital and is now housed in the new University of Queensland Centre for Clinical Research. Prof Colditz is a practicing neonatologist, caring for sick babies and has a Masters degree in Biomedical Engineering and a Doctor of Philosophy degree from Oxford University.

His interest in caring for babies and their families has led to undertaking and fostering multi-disciplinary research of the events before, during and shortly after birth which affect the health of individuals for the remainder of their lives. He directs a research program aimed at advancing the health of mothers and babies with the central focus being the development of the brain and in particular the prevention of death and brain damage in unborn and newborn babies. Research projects encompass fetal monitoring, stillbirth, birth defects, cerebral palsy, birth asphyxia, neonatal seizures, brain injury and development, neonatal intensive care and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. He has special expertise in brain imaging and in the development, evaluation and clinical testing of new biomedical technologies.