Research awards

The aim of the annual Asthma and Airways Career Development Fellowship, in partnership with the Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand (TSANZ), is to enable mid-career investigators to establish themselves as independent, self-directed researchers and foster the development of research in respiratory medicine in Australia and New Zealand. The fellowship is to the value of $60,000 for one year.

The fellowship is announced at the TSANZ Annual Scientific Meeting in April each year.

We are very pleased to contribute to respiratory research in this way and to assist with the career development of an emerging respiratory expert. This is a small way in which the National Asthma Council Australia can acknowledge the ongoing assistance of the many respiratory experts who provide advice and expertise to us for our resources and educational programs for primary care health professionals and people with asthma.

Further details, including eligibility and assessment criteria, are available from the TSANZ website.

2026 recipient

Dr Dennis Thomas has been announced as the recipient of the 2026 Asthma and Airways Career Development Fellowship.

Dr Thomas plans to use the Fellowship to undertake world-first research to establish the prevalence of sustained asthma remission – defined as remission lasting more than five years – across different asthma endotypes, severity levels and treatment options.

His research will also be the first global evaluation of health conditions that may affect whether someone reaches remission.

Dr Thomas said that although remission represents a major breakthrough in the management of severe asthma, it remains a relatively new concept with limited understanding.

“My research will aim to deepen our understanding of asthma remission and this project is first step in establishing sustained asthma remission as a realistic and predictable goal for all people with asthma.

“It is my hope that this will improve the quality of life for thousands of people with asthma as well as reducing the cost and burden of illness and can be used to help to guide future treatment strategies,” he said.

National Asthma Council Australia CEO, Rhonda Cleveland, said Dr Thomas is already at the forefront of advancing remission in asthma and it was exciting to further his research towards long lasting asthma remission for all.

Read more

Past recipients

2024 - Associate Professor Rachel Peters, Population Allergy Research Group, Murdoch Children's Research Institute, Principal investigator of the longitudinal HealthNuts study. Development of an innovative asthma risk prediction tool for children that extends beyond traditional asthma predictors by integrating comprehensive data on food allergies. Read more

2023 - Dr Bronwyn Brew, Senior Research Fellow at the National Perinatal Epidemiology and Statistics Unit at the Centre for Big Data Research in Health and School of Clinical Medicine, Discipline of Women’s Health, University of NSW. Prevention of asthma in children through inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) control of maternal asthma in pregnancy.Read more

(Please note there was no 2021 fellowship awarded.)

2020 - Dr Simon Craig, Emergency Physician, Monash Medical Centre and Adjunct Clinical Professor, School of Clinical Sciences at Monash Health, Monash University. The fellowship will support research into seeking a global agreement on core outcome measures relevant to acute severe paediatric asthma. Read more

2019 - Dr Kimberley Wang, Research Fellow, The University of Western Australia, for 'The effect of intrauterine growth restriction on allergy-induced airway hyper-responsiveness'. Read more about Kimberley here.

2018 - Dr Hayley Scott, University of Newcastle. Her research topic is: Exercise, diet and obesity for asthma management: it’s time to weigh up our options.

2017 - Dr Adam Collison, University of Newcastle. The research topic is: The impact of improved asthma management in pregnancy on immunological education and programming in the first year of life.

2016 - Dr Miranda Ween, University of Adelaide and Royal Adelaide Hospital. Her research topic is e-cigarettes cause airway macrophage dysfunction: role in airway inflammation and steroid resistance in severe asthma.

2015 - Adjunct Associate Professor Brad Zhang, Associate Professor (asthma genetics research) in the School of Paediatrics and Child Health at the University of Western Australia. The research topic is “to compare genome-wide transcriptional and methylation profiles in CD4+ cells in ‘newly arrived’ and ‘long term’ Chinese immigrants living in Western environments”.

2014 - Dr Katie Baines, post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Newcastle. Her research topic is identifying biomarkers that predict severe asthma exacerbations during pregnancy.