Meet Professor Luke Wolfenden

University of Newcastle

NHMRC Fellow

Please describe your role in one or two sentences: I’m leading a project that’s investigating strategies to scale up chronic disease prevention programs in community settings.

The most challenging part is … this work is all being done in the form of Cochrane Reviews. It’s a developing field and the literature is heterogeneous with new studies coming out every day. It’s challenging to synthesise it in a way that’s quick enough to be of benefit before it becomes redundant.

I’m interested in the work of the Prevention Centre because … it’s one of the few centres internationally that brings together such a multidisciplinary team of people working in the field of implementation science. A lot of the work of the Prevention Centre is in systems science, an area I find intriguing.

Before my current position, my most memorable role was … working on Hunter New England’s Good for Kids, Good for Life obesity prevention program in NSW, which was the first time we really applied implementation science methods to a public health problem at scale.

My favourite holiday is … travelling overseas, though now I have kids you’re much more likely to find me in a holiday park.

The things I most enjoy is … hanging out with my family, playing touch football in the park or going for a run.