Researcher profile

Billie Bonevski

Current role: Prof Bonevski is Dean of Research, College of Medicine and Public Health (CMPH) and Director of the Flinders Health and Medical Research Institute (FHMRI), responsible for the research performance of Flinders’ most research-intensive college, contributing 50% of the entire university HERDC income. Background: Commencing her career as a Behavioural Scientist, Billie is a distinguished academic leader, internationally recognised researcher, with 30 years of experience in health and medical research. Up to 2001, she was a postdoctoral researcher with the University of Newcastle (UoN), Cancer Council NSW, Hunter New England Health, including a year overseas as a WHO-sponsored Fellow at Oxford University and the Cochrane Collaboration Tobacco Addiction Review Group also at Oxford. She was predominantly research-only between 2011-2018, as a Cancer Institute NSW and NHMRC funded research fellow. Research Leadership: Prof Bonevski continues to hold multiple academic leadership positions. In recognition of her exceptional research leadership at UoN, Prof Bonevski was appointed inaugural Women in Science Chair (2019-2021), a university-wide leadership role reporting to the DVCRI with a focus on exemplifying research excellence and driving equity and diversity initiatives. In 2021, she accepted a position as Head of School (Public Health) in the CMPH at Flinders University where she drove transformational improvements in education, research and culture. She is co-Director of the NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence on the Tobacco Endgame (2021-2026), past interim Director of the Commonwealth funded National Centre for Education and Training in Addictions (NCETA, 2021), acting Discipline Lead of Population Health (2021-2022) and Behavioural Health (2023) at Flinders and interim Director of the Flinders University Clinical Trials Unit (2024). Supervision and mentoring: As the Dean & Director of FHMRI, Billie supports 600 researchers, 250 HDR students and 100 laboratory and technical staff through FHMRI Researcher Education and Development (RED), a capacity building initiative of FHMRI. As head of school (Flinders Public Health), she provided leadership to >120 academic and professional staff. Independently, she has supervised 35 HDR students: 20 PhD completions and 9 current PhD students. She mentors academics at Flinders, UQ, Newcastle, and Monash universities. At UoN, she led the Athena SWAN committee to roll out a range of initiatives to promote equity and inclusion. Professional leadership: Billie has provided substantial leadership service to the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco (SRNT), establishing an Oceania Chapter in 2017 and leading as President to 2020 and as an elected member of the USA-based Board of Directors 2020-2023. Her role has been transformative leading to significantly greater involvement of First Nations members in SRNT governance and leadership, and removal of all tobacco industry connection with the society. She Chairs the Flinders CMPH Research Committee and is a member of the University Research Committee. She is on the Board of Health Translation SA, Executive of SA Research Directors Alliance and Editorial Board of leading international journal Addiction. Research income: Bonevski has been Chief Investigator (CI) on 33 NHMRC/MRFF grants, CIA on 10, receiving over $69M of funding consisting of $48M in Cat 1 grants, $13M in Cat 2-3 grants, $3.5M in international funding, and $4M in research centre and commissioned research funding. She has attracted national and international funding such as Global Alliance for Chronic Diseases (GACD) and Pfizer (GRAND). Research outputs and citations: Billie has published 283 peer reviewed papers, 73% of which are in SJR quartile 1 journals (top 25%) and is first or senior author on 57%. Her papers have been cited >7,515 times by 160 institutions in 136 countries (Scopus). Research impact: Billie’s research has led to advancements in methods, influenced health policy, and informed program delivery with substantial impact. Her early two papers published in Cancer (2000) describing the development and implementation of the Supportive Care Needs Survey have been cited >1,500 times and made a major contribution to understanding individuals’ cancer experience and delivering person-centred care. In this work she developed a needs assessment tool that has been culturally adapted for use among Indigenous Australians and translated into 11 languages. Her more recent research underpinned the design of the Cancer Council NSW Tackling Tobacco program integrating delivery of smoking cessation care into community service usual practice. Tackling Tobacco has been delivered in 252 community services across NSW, reaching 21,648 disadvantaged clients who smoke and training 4,580 service staff. In 2019, this research was showcased by the NHMRC on ‘World No Tobacco Day’, as “Successful implementation of quit smoking programs” in community health services