Three Fellowships Awarded to Dr. Melvin Marzan

^{Pictured Dr. Melvin Marzan}

We are happy to announce that Dr. Melvin Marzan, a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in Prof. Lisa Hui's Perinatal Research Group, has achieved the remarkable accomplishment of being awarded three prestigious fellowships for the years 2023 to 2024. This outstanding achievement highlights his dedication and emerging contributions to the field of perinatal research.

Dr. Marzan was granted another year of the Safer Care Victoria (SCV) Fellowship to continue his impactful research into the unintended and direct impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on maternal and newborn health outcomes. By utilizing individual population-based state-wide perinatal datasets, Dr. Marzan and his postdoctoral supervisor, Prof. Lisa Hui, are delving into the pandemic's effects on maternal and newborn health outcomes, including preterm births, stillbirths, length of stay, and more. Their initial report received endorsement from the Victorian Health Minister and was released publicly in September 2023.

In addition to the SCV Fellowship, Dr. Marzan received a fellowship at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute. As part of Generation Victoria (GenV), the largest early and midlife research cohort in the world covering the COVID-19 era, Dr. Marzan will play a crucial role in addressing the complex challenges facing children and adults today. This unique project, which includes every Victorian child born between October 2021 and October 2023 and their parents, aims to create a comprehensive and inclusive cohort rich in phenotype data, survey information, and biosamples. This cohort, when combined with Australia's extensive national data, will serve as a powerful tool for discovery and interventional research in the fields of physical, mental, social, and cognitive health. In his role, Dr. Marzan will be applying geospatial methods within GenV’s Geospatial and Data Linkage Working Groups to develop an environmental exposome platform and address key questions in risk prediction, policy, and urban planning, under the supervision of Dr. Suzanne Mavoa, Prof. Melissa Wake, and Prof. Lisa Hui.

Lastly, the Department of Obstetrics, Gynaecology, and Newborn Health at the University of Melbourne has awarded Dr. Marzan with the Early Career Research Fellowship. This fellowship will bolster his research in perinatal and geospatial epidemiology. The primary aim of this fellowship is to develop innovative statistical, spatiotemporal, and epidemiological methods for understanding the relationships between the exposome and maternal, perinatal, and child health outcomes, using comprehensive 'big datasets.'

Please join us in congratulating Dr. Marzan on these remarkable achievements and wishing him continued success in his future endeavours.