david.thomas@lowitja.org.au

David is the Lowitja Institute’s Associate Research and Innovation Director and heads up the Institute’s Northern Australian Health Research Unit (NAHRU), which is based at Charles Darwin University in Darwin.

A medical doctor by training, David has worked in Aboriginal health for more than 20 years both as a doctor and as a researcher. His history of Aboriginal health research was published as a book called Reading Doctor’s Writing: Race, politics and power in Indigenous health research 1870-1969 (Aboriginal Studies Press, 2004).

Since 2005 David has been based at the Menzies School of Health Research in Darwin where his research is focused on all aspects of Aboriginal tobacco control.  He is a Principal Research Fellow at Menzies as well as being the head of its Tobacco Control Research Program, and in June 2010 he was awarded a four-year National Heart Foundation fellowship.