About
Jo-An Occhipinti is an epidemiologist and systems scientist at the University of Sydney's School of Public Health. She is an NHMRC Principal Research Fellow and founding Co-Director of the Mental Wealth Initiative, a transdisciplinary research program spanning public health, economics, business, law, and systems science. Working with research, policy, industry, and multilateral agency partners, the Initiative examines the structural drivers of population health and national prosperity, connecting concerns as varied as youth mental health, healthy longevity, job security in the age of AI, and the resilience of societies under strain, to their shared roots in economic and social policy.
Across a research career of more than two decades, she has been a leading force in bringing systems modelling and simulation into health and social policy. She has built research capabilities from the ground up and produced evidence that has guided policy and planning across youth mental health, alcohol-related harms, childhood obesity, chronic disease, and health-system sustainability, in Australia and internationally. Her systems modelling program was recognised as a top innovation in mental health by the World Economic Forum in 2022.
She is known internationally for her pioneering work on the macroeconomic method for estimating social production, the vast and largely unrecognised productive capacity that societies depend on but do not count. She advocates for the inclusion of social production in the global system of national accounts, so that this capacity can be monitored, governed, and strengthened. The aim is to reshape how governments set priorities, design policy, and direct investment toward the foundations that sustain healthy and resilient societies.
Jo-An has published more than 160 works, including in Nature, Science, The Lancet, Lancet Psychiatry, Nature Mental Health, Science Advances, and the Bulletin of the World Health Organization, and she has been invited to deliver keynote addresses at the UN General Assembly Science Summit from 2022 to 2025. She serves as a Commissioner on the Nature Medicine Brain Health for Economic Resilience Commission and the Lancet Global Brain Health Commission, and has held advisory roles with the OECD Neuroscience-Inspired Policy Initiative, the UK SIPHER consortium, and the World Economic Forum's Global Future Council for Mental Health. She is a member of the Healthy Longevity Centre Global Faculty of Excellence at the University of Zurich.
Science for society
Science for society and science diplomacy
Associate Professor Occhipinti's research is directed at public benefit. Her early fieldwork on community participation for malaria elimination in the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu shaped a lasting commitment to involving the people affected by a decision in the research that informs it. She publishes methods and tools openly, including the approach to valuing social production, so that governments and other researchers can apply them.
Much of her work sits at the interface of science and policy across borders. She has addressed the UN General Assembly Science Summit each year from 2022 to 2025, contributed to the Yaoundé Declaration on the global brain economy with the Government of Cameroon, and presented to the Science Diplomats Club in Canberra. Her Mental Wealth framework contributed to the World Health Assembly resolution on the Economies for Health for All, passed in May 2024. She works with national statistical offices, multilateral bodies, and governments to advance measurement and policy, and teaches an annual Swiss School of Public Health summer school in Lugano that brings together participants from more than thirty-five countries.
Roles now
- NHMRC Principal Research Fellow, Generation Mental Wealth, University of Sydney (2026–2030)
- Founding Co-Director, Mental Wealth Initiative, University of Sydney (2020–present)
- Managing Director, Computer Simulation and Advanced Research Technologies (CSART) (2018–present)
- Commissioner, Nature Medicine Brain Health for Economic Resilience Commission (2026–2028)
- Commissioner, Lancet Global Brain Health Commission (2026–2028)
- Affiliate, University of Zurich Healthy Longevity Centre Global Faculty of Excellence (2026–present)
Career timeline
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2026–2030
NHMRC Principal Research Fellow, Generation Mental Wealth, University of Sydney
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2020–present
Co-Director, Mental Wealth Initiative, University of Sydney
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2020–2025
Head, Systems Modelling, Simulation & Data Science, Brain and Mind Centre, University of Sydney
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2018–present
Managing Director, CSART Ltd
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2017–2020
Director, Decision Analytics, Sax Institute
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2013–2017
Research Fellow, Implementation Research Group & The Australian Prevention Partnership Centre, Sax Institute
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2012–2013
Research Fellow, Infectious Disease Epidemiology Unit, University of Queensland
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2008–2012
Research Manager, Pacific Malaria Initiative Support Centre, University of Queensland
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2001–2008
Senior Allied Health Specialist, Royal Brisbane & Women's Hospital
Qualifications and standing
- PhD International Public Health, University of Queensland (2012)
- M.Phil (Research) 2005
- B.OccThy 1998
35
$46M+
Advisory roles
- Advisor, OECD Neuroscience-Inspired Policy Initiative (2022–2024)
- Advisor, Brain Capital Alliance (2022–present)
- Advisory Board, Global Research Network on Social Determinants of Mental Health (2023–present)
- Advisor, World Economic Forum Global Future Council for Mental Health (2020–2022)
- SIPHER Scientific Advisory Board, UK (2020–2025)
- System Dynamics Society Policy Council, Oceania Chapter (2020–2023)
Awards
- SUPRA PhD Supervisor of the Year (2024)
- University of Queensland research performance and publication awards (2009, 2010, 2011)
- Sir Ian MacFarlane Medal for clinical research excellence, Royal Brisbane & Women's Hospital (2004)