The 2026 Frank Fenner Award has been presented to Professor Joshua Vogel, recognising his outstanding contributions to maternal and newborn health research and global public health.
Josh is Director of Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health and Co-Head of Burnet Institute’s Global Women’s and Newborn’s Health Group. He has published more than 270 peer-reviewed articles and helped develop several World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines on maternal and perinatal health.
In his award lecture, Josh reflected on the people, experiences and collaborations that have shaped his career, and his determination to address the significant gaps in maternal healthcare.
He traced his passion for public health to his early years as a doctor in regional Western Australia, where witnessing preventable illnesses and death prompted him to consider how he could contribute to improving healthcare systems.
“For me, research was about trying to find better ways. We can prove that there’s a better way,” he said.
That ambition led him to the World Health Organization in Geneva, where he developed his expertise in clinical research and evidence-based guidelines, before joining Burnet in 2018.
One of the inequities that continues to motivate his work is the lack of innovation in treatments for pregnancy complications.
In the past three decades, only two drugs have reached clinical use as specifically approved treatments for pregnancy complications, while other areas of medicine have seen substantial advances.
“Why do we treat pregnant women differently?” he said.
“And as technology advances, AI being the most obvious example, I’m concerned that we’ll see this gap widen.”
At Burnet, Josh and his collaborators are evaluating new technologies, including AI-assisted ultrasound and retinal imaging, to predict and diagnose pregnancy complications such as pre-eclampsia.
Josh emphasised that meaningful advances in global health are built on the contributions of many people and are never individual achievements.
He spoke about the privilege of working alongside extraordinary researchers and clinicians, nationally and internationally, committed to improving maternal health. His team works with research partners across more than 20 countries in Africa, Asia and the Pacific.
He said these partnerships required humility, respect and recognition of the expertise and commitment of people working in different settings. He also acknowledged the mentors, colleagues and family members who had supported his career.
“If we’ve achieved anything, it’s because of the way we treat people and build those relationships,” he said.
“The best work we will do is still in front of us.”
The Frank Fenner Award honours the legacy of Professor Frank Fenner, the Australian virologist who was involved in the campaign to eradicate smallpox in 1980. The award recognises Burnet researchers whose contributions have made a significant impact on medical research and public health.
