Dr Elke Mitchell

Elke Mitchell is a Senior Research Fellow at the Kirby Institute, UNSW Sydney and an Honorary Senior Fellow at the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne. She is an experienced social researcher with expertise in qualitative, ethnographic and participatory research methods, and the evaluation of public health programs. Elke's work focuses on the social and behavioural aspects of sexual, reproductive and maternal health, HIV, and neglected tropical diseases, with a particular focus on Fiji and Papua New Guinea. 

Elke is currently a CI and lead social researcher on a world first clinical trial designed to evaluate the impact of community treatment of STIs to improve perinatal and reproductive health outcomes in Fiji. She has led qualitative studies examining community and stakeholder perspectives of scabies and acceptability of mass drug administration for scabies control in Fiji. Elke was previously study coordinator for an NHMRC funded study exploring adolescent pregnancy in Papua New Guinea.

Elke has a PhD in International Health from the Nossal Institute for Global Health, University of Melbourne. In 2012, she was awarded the prestigious Australian Government Endeavour Research Fellowship, where she was based at the University of the South Pacific in Suva, Fiji for 15 months while undertaking her doctoral fieldwork. In 2018, Elke was awarded the Kirby Institute Emerging Investigator Award.