Head of Policy
Dr Talia Avrahamzon
Head of Policy
Talia joined Research Australia in August 2024 as Head of Policy. Talia brings extensive strategic public policy, research, program development, implementation, and evaluation experience to this role. Talia has held senior leadership roles in both the public service and not for profit organisations, bridging key initiatives between policy, research, community, and the private sector, particularly in large reform agendas. In her role as the Executive Director First Nations Disability Policy in the Commonwealth, she led joint initiatives under both Closing the Gap and Australia’s Disability Strategy, establishing a new policy, research and data agenda, and significant investments in sector-wide capacity building, training and workforce development.
Talia’s policy expertise is underpinned by applied social science research skills, particularly in participatory methodologies, data and research, and knowledge translation with marginalised communities – children and young people, First Nations people and people with disability. She holds a PhD from the Australian National University, as a Sir Roland Wilson scholar.
She is passionate about improving health and wellbeing outcomes through the participation of all voices of the health and medical research and innovation ecosystem, and creating spaces of collaboration and knowledge exchange to influence and create evidence informed policy.