Suman Majumdar

2015 Early Career Recipient. College of Public Health, Medical and Veterinary Sciences

Dr Suman Majumdar is an infectious diseases specialist, and senior fellow at the Burnet Institute in Melbourne. His vision is to redress health inequalities resulting from infectious diseases, and enhance health care delivery in countries with low and middle-income populations.

Dr Majumdar has conducted health programs in Myanmar, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste, China, India, Mexico, Swaziland and regions of the former Soviet Union, including work with Médecins Sans Frontières.

He is skilled in the clinical management of tuberculosis, drug-resistant TB, HIV medicine, training healthcare workers, and health system strengthening.

Dr Majumdar, who received his Bachelor of Medicine from the University of Newcastle, is also a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (Infectious Diseases), and a Member of the Royal College of Physicians in London.

Currently, Dr Majumdar practices at the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne, as well as the First Step Program, a viral hepatitis clinic for people with dependence on drugs or alcohol.

He is also an adjunct lecturer at the Department of Epidemiology and Preventative Medicine at Monash University and coordinates the ‘infectious diseases and global health’ course.

Dr Majumdar is also a facilitator in the International Union Against TB and Lung Disease South Asia operations research course.

His awards include being selected as a Young Physician Leader by the Interacademy Medical Panel in 2014, receiving an International Travel Award from the Australasian Society for Infectious Diseases in 2013, and a University Mobility in Asia and the Pacific Scholarship in 2004.

He has been appointed deputy head of the newly launched TB initiative at the Burnet Institute, and is an affiliate of the NHMRC Centre for Research Excellence in TB control.

Dr Majumdar is technical director of the project: Reducing the Impact of Drug-resistant Tuberculosis in Western Province, in Papua New Guinea, known as RID-TB. He has a number of peer-reviewed publications and serves as a journal reviewer. His research projects have included Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies, a five-year research program aimed at providing life-saving health care for women and children in Papua New Guinea.

Dr Majumdar is a founding committee member of the Australasian TB Forum, a collaborative network of policy makers, health workers, researchers, people affected by TB, and advocates working to end the TB epidemic in the Asia-Pacific region.

Dr Suman Majumdar graduated from James Cook University in 2008 with a Master of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.