Jaya Dantas
Professor Jaya Dantas
is a distinguished academic and leader in the field of international health. She was the inaugural Chair of the Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging Committee (February 2023 – May 2025) and Deputy Chair of the Academic Board (March 2021 – March 2025) at Curtin University in Western Australia. Additionally, she has served as Dean International since 2018 and Dean for Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging since 2022 in the Faculty of Health Sciences. From 2011 to 2017, she directed the Graduate Studies program in the same faculty.
Her core academic appointment is as Professor of International Health in the Curtin School of Population Health. With a global academic and professional career spanning over 39 years, Professor Dantas has worked extensively in India, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, and Australia, and has undertaken consultancies in countries including Pakistan, Kosovo, Timor-Leste, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Tanzania, South Africa, and Ethiopia. She has significant expertise in post-conflict reconstruction and capacity-building in academic institutions, particularly in East Africa and Southeast Asia. Professor Dantas has also played an active role in international policy and advocacy. She has been a Delegate to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women in New York between 2015 - 2019 and again between 2023 - 2025. Currently, she is President of Australian Graduate Women, a member of the Committee of Women in Global Health (Australia chapter), and was International SIG Convenor of the Public Health Association of Australia (2012-2025). She is also an award-winning media commentator since 2020. Her research is rooted in strong community engagement and interdisciplinary collaboration. Since 2000, she has led a robust research program in refugee and migrant health, with a focus on women and youth. Her work examines the social determinants of health and health equity, emphasizing psychosocial well-being through participatory and community-based approaches that inform both policy and practice. She also teaches in the Master of Public Health program in the School of Population Health at Curtin University. Currently, Professor Dantas is leading several significant projects. These include a large, funded study on family and domestic violence in migrant communities in Western Australia, an evaluation of the implementation of the Family and Domestic Violence Framework at the North Metropolitan Health Service, a newly launched Photovoice project with Ukrainian displaced people, and a major project focusing on Youth at Risk.
As part of her Audre Lorde Visiting Professorship
at the Institute for Gender in Medicine (GiM) at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Professor Jaya Dantas curated and participated in a wide-ranging series of academic events, collaborations, and strategic meetings. These engagements reflected her global expertise in gender, health equity, and inclusive leadership, and were directed at diverse academic audiences across Berlin's university landscape. Prof. Dantas began her stay by meeting with research teams at Charité to discuss diversity-focused projects such as the DiGENet working group DiMIS (Diversity Minimal Item Set) and to share her experience. Her early contributions included reflections on health promotion in vulnerable populations and the social determinants of health, setting the tone for a visit characterized by interdisciplinary exchange. During the World Health Summit, she actively participated in numerous high-level discussions and presented a keynote at a luncheon event on career opportunities in global health with a focus on gender, equity, leadership, and advocacy. Throughout November, she co-led a series of collaborative workshops and lectures with Prof. Simone Diniz on gender in community health, participatory research, and diversity leadership. Highlights of the visiting professorship included a keynote presentation at the "14th DiGENet Dialogue on Gender, Global Health & the Global South", as well as workshops on academic writing and community engagement for PhD students and early-career researchers. Her teaching activities included lectures on ableism and community midwifery, which reached both students and academic staff at Charité Medical University.
Prof. Dantas was also a key contributor to GiM Lab Meetings, offering practical guidance on academic writing and sharing insights into international health systems and research practices. In addition to teaching and public-facing events, Prof. Dantas engaged in strategic planning meetings with Charité leadership and other visiting professors to explore future collaborations and long-term institutional partnerships. This included participation in the Berlin University Alliance Executive Board session, where she contributed to discussions on the impact and future directions of the Audre Lorde Visiting Professorship program.
Jaya Dantas
Image Credit: Christian Richter