Dr Courtney Barnes

After graduating with a Bachelor of Nutrition and Dietetics (Honours), Courtney secured a casual role at Hunter New England Health, which introduced her to a side of research she never knew existed.

“I was lucky to get that exposure to research without having to sit in a lab, which is essentially all I pictured research to be. I didn't realise it could be so applied and that you could be working with end users and coming up with these really cool integrated programs."

Less than three years after completing her PhD, Courtney had secured more than $5 million in competitive funding and produced over 47 publications, establishing herself as one of Australia's leading early career researchers.

This rapid trajectory has been matched by the sheer reach of her work and a growing profile in implementation science. Courtney holds a prestigious National Heart Foundation Australia Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Newcastle, alongside leadership roles within the National Centre of Implementation Science and Cochrane Public Health.

She is also leading a WHO-commissioned systematic review to inform international smoking cessation guidelines, has co-authored a WHO technical report on learning health systems, and has contributed evidence to a United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation review underpinning global nutrition guidance. Her research into vaping prevention is also informing policy and practice nationally and internationally.

Closer to home, she provides advice and research support to NSW Health and local health districts across diet, physical activity, obesity and substance use programs. Focusing on scalable interventions to reduce cardiovascular disease by addressing modifiable behavioural risk factors, Courtney's work centres on one deceptively simple question: if we know what works to improve health, how can we make it happen in the real world?

It is a question her research is already answering at scale. Each week, more than one million meals are served to children through an early childhood nutrition initiative she helped implement across 6,000 childcare centres nationally, while a healthy lunchbox program she evaluated has been adopted by more than 1,000 schools.

For Courtney, the most rewarding part is seeing evidence move beyond academic journals and into communities.

"You can see the real, direct impact of the work that you do. You can see schools taking up programs, and you know that will make really meaningful changes in terms of the health of the kids or the health of the teachers."

A defining feature of Courtney's work is her commitment to co-design and partnership. Rather than assuming solutions can be developed in isolation, she works closely with the communities who will ultimately use them.

Before expanding one nutrition program nationally, Courtney and her team established a culturally and linguistically diverse advisory group to ensure resources would be appropriate and accessible for families from different backgrounds. It is an approach shaped by her understanding that changing health behaviours is rarely one-size-fits-all.

"A lot of the time people know what they need to do. But it's often really context-dependent depending on where they live, the education they have, and the resources they've got available. There's never really a one-size-fits-all solution."

By understanding not only what improves health, but also how evidence can be implemented effectively within different communities, Courtney is helping close one of public health's most persistent gaps.

"If you already have those established behaviours, if you find enjoyment in movement and you know the importance of eating well, then it's a lot easier to continue those kinds of behaviours, which is why our focus has been on childhood and adolescence and will continue to be."

Still in the early stages of her career, Courtney has already built a remarkable record of research and impact. With a growing national and international reputation, she is helping to shape the future of preventive health, turning evidence on a page into meaningful, real-world outcomes.