Professor Julie Simpson is a NHMRC Senior Research Fellow, Head of Biostatistics and Deputy Head of the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne, and chief investigator of the Australian NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence for Malaria Elimination. 

Julie has 25 years of experience working in biostatistics teaching and research positions, and has led and collaborated on many research projects (laboratory, clinical trials and large-scale population studies), illustrating her broad knowledge of study design and statistical methodology.

Her primary area of research is the bridging of novel statistical and mathematical modelling approaches to inform treatment policy for malaria and she has been an advisor to the World Health Organization, Medicines for Malaria Venture and the WorldWide Antimalarial Resistance Network regarding dosing regimens for current and new antimalarial drugs. Her research has generated evidence that has led to revised dosing recommendations for antimalarial regimens and improved sampling designs for antimalarial pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic studies.

Her other main research interest is the application of complex statistical methods to answer important public health questions in longitudinal observational cohorts, in particular, the implementation of multiple imputation for handling missing data.