Dr Erandi Gardiye Hewawasam Thuduwage

Dr Erandi Hewawasam is a Research Fellow at the National Perinatal Epidemiology and Statistics Unit within the Centre for Big Data Research in Health (CBDRH) at the University of New South Wales (UNSW). She is the project manager for the Fertility Medicine Data Asset for Australia (FM-DATA), funded through a MRFF infrastructure grant to establish a large-scale linked data resource integrating the Australia and New Zealand Assisted Reproduction Database (ANZARD) with the National Health Data Hub (which includes hospital data, Medicare, pharmaceutical benefits scheme data, and perinatal data collections) covering more than 40 million individuals. She also coordinates the Early Life Course Platform, which integrates NSW and federal administrative datasets (~20 datasets). 

Previously, Dr Hewawasam spent over five years at the Australia and New Zealand Dialysis and Transplant Registry (ANZDATA) at the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI) as a post-doctoral research fellow and program manager for Pregnancy and Kidney Research Australia (PKRA). She was also the former Deputy Chair of the ANZDATA Parenthood Working Group, where she helped expand data collection on reproductive outcomes and contributed to two national ANZDATA Special Reports. In these roles, she led patient-centred research at the intersection of pregnancy and chronic kidney disease (CKD), using data linkage, registry analysis, cohort studies, and surveys to improve parenthood outcomes for Australians with CKD. Since 2019, she has led PKRA’s Consumer Advisory Group, co-designing studies and resources (e.g. lay summaries/videos) with people living with kidney disease who have navigated parenthood. In 2024, PKRA received SAHMRI’s Community Engagement Award in recognition of this outstanding exemplar of consumer partnership.

With 30 peer-reviewed publications in top quartile journals—including Nature Reviews Nephrology and the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology—Dr Hewawasam has made significant contributions to maternal and renal health research. She has secured over $275,000 in competitive research funding as chief or co-investigator. Her work has directly informed national clinical guidelines, including a pregnancy management protocol for kidney transplant recipients endorsed by the Transplantation Society of ANZ (TSANZ). Her research has been embedded into clinical care at the third largest renal unit in Australia—the Central and Northern Adelaide Renal and Transplantation Service (CNARTS)—demonstrating its direct translational impact. Her research also contributes to clinical training, being integrated into the Obstetric Nephrology core curriculum of the Australia and New Zealand Society of Nephrology (ANZSN) and informing the American Society of Nephrology’s international Train-the-Trainer program, reaching clinicians in more than 12 countries.

Dr Hewawasam completed her PhD in Science at the University of Adelaide in 2018, in collaboration with SAHMRI. Her research on the short- and long-term effects of fish oil in preterm-born children was awarded the Dean's Commendation for Doctoral Thesis Excellence.

Beyond her research, Dr Hewawasam is an active contributor to the academic community, serving as the Secretary of the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease Australia, New Zealand and Pacific (DOHaD ANZ Pacific), and as an editorial board member for BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth and Women's Health. She is also a peer reviewer for leading journals such as the Journal of Minimally Invasive Gynaecology, Kidney International, Kidney International Reports, Clinical Epidemiology, Reproductive Biomedicine Online, BMJ-Open, further shaping evidence-based improvements to maternal and child health.

In addition to her research, Dr Hewawasam has extensive experience in teaching and supervision. She is currently supervising a PhD candidate and two Master of Data Science students and has mentored over 10 medical trainees/registrars and renal trainees, 3 PhD candidates and undergraduate students. She has also taught courses such as human anatomy and the scientific basis of clinical practice at the University of South Australia's School of Pharmacy and Medical Sciences. Currently, she contributes to course redesign and lecturing for the Master of Women's Health program at UNSW and delivers cross-faculty teaching in research methods and data analytics with the Faculty of Engineering, UNSW, demonstrating her capacity to foster interdisciplinary collaboration.

She is  a Champion in the UNSW Women in STEMM program 2025, advocating for equitable STEMM opportunities and driving initiatives that empower women to thrive in STEMM fields. She champions early-career researchers, serving as co-convenor of the monthly CBDRH seminar series, council member of UNSW Medicine Early Career Academic Network, and invited mentor in the SAHMRI’s mentoring program. 

In 2025, Dr Hewawasam received the highly prestigious James McWha Rising Star Award, a Distinguished Alumni Award of the University of Adelaide (2025), which honours the highest accomplishments and achievements of young alumni making a significant contribution as emerging leader within their profession and/or community. The award recognises her leadership in maternal and renal health research, her significant roles in establishing and managing national linked health datasets, and her strong advocacy for inclusive, evidence-based care and education.