Associate Professor Suzanne Mavoa

I am a Principal Research Fellow at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI), where I lead the Geospatial Environment and Health Team, the Generation Victoria (GenV) Environmental Stream, and the MCRI Climate Change and Health Community of Practice.

Ranked 3rd globally in geospatial health, my overarching goal is to understand how the external exposome shapes health trajectories across the entire lifecourse, and to identify actionable interventions that improve population health and protect vulnerable communities.

To achieve this, my research program operates across three integrated pillars:

1. Built and Natural Environments I investigate how the built and natural environment (e.g. greenspace, air pollution, walkability) shapes lifelong health through complex biological, behavioural, and psychosocial pathways. By integrating large-scale epidemiology with high-resolution geospatial modelling, wearable and static sensors, and advanced causal inference, my work identifies how modifying these everyday environments can prevent chronic disease and reduce health inequities. 

2. Climate Impacts & Health Resilience Climate change and extreme weather events are the biggest emerging threats to human health. My research focuses on how these escalating environmental hazards harm children and young people’s physical and mental health. To move beyond simply describing the problem, I am currently applying causal inference to large-scale population cohorts and undertaking targeted environmental monitoring pilots in primary schools. These foundational projects feed directly into future plans to scale this research to identify practical solutions that protect our most vulnerable.  

3. Geospatial Innovation & the MyGeosome Platform To solve the complex methodological challenges of measuring these dynamic exposures, my third pillar focuses on innovative geospatial methods and platforms that enable world-class lifecourse epidemiology. This includes MyGeosome, a high-spatiotemporal resolution environmental exposome platform that is designed to support advanced causal inference and precision public health planning.