Judith Whitworth

Judith Ann Whitworth (born 1 April 1944) is an Australian medical researcher in the areas of kidney function and blood pressure. Now an emeritus professor, she is the former director of the John Curtin School of Medical Research and Howard Florey Professor of Medical Research at the Australian National University (ANU).

Education Judith Ann Whitworth was born 1 April 1944. She graduated from the University of Melbourne with a degree in medicine in 1967 then worked first at Royal Melbourne Hospital and then the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Adelaide. She was awarded Doctor of Medicine by the University of Melbourne in 1974. Her 1977 thesis on "Steroids and Hypertension in the Sheep gained her a PhD from the Howard Florey Institute of Experimental Physiology and Medicine and Department of Physiology at the University of Melbourne.

In 1992, Whitworth received a DSc from the University of Melbourne for her thesis, "Steroid Hypertension in Man, Rat and Sheep."

Career

Prior to her move to academia, Whitworth worked in hospitals both in Australia and overseas, including as Research Fellow at the Tenon Hospital in Paris, France in 1973-74 and as Visiting Registrar at Guy's Hospital, London in 1974–75. She was first physician and later nephrologist at the Royal Melbourne Hospital 1978–1991. From 1994 to 1996 Whitworth was chair of the Medical Research Committee of the National Health and Medical Research Council.

In 1997, Whitworth was the first woman to be appointed chief medical officer in the Commonwealth Department of Health and Family Services for a three-year term. She then became Director of the John Curtin School of Medical Research from August 1999 to July 2009. Alongside her academic responsibilities she was president of the High Blood Pressure Research Council of Australia from 1999 to 2001 and chair of the World Health Organisation Global Advisory Committee on Health Research from 2005 to 2011.

She has been a member of the council of the Charles Darwin University from its inception in 2003 to date. She is on the Board of Therapeutic Innovation Australia

Awards and honours Winthrop Travelling Fellowship from Royal Australasian College of Physicians, 1973 Smith Kline and French Award received from the International Society of Hypertension, 1984 Howard Florey Medal, 1990 Appointed Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) in the 2001 Queen's Birthday Honours for "service to the advancement of academic medicine and as a major contributor to research policy and medical research administration in Australia and internationally". Received the Centenary Medal in 2001 "services to Australian society through medical research". Appointed Honouring Woman ambassador by the Hon Amanda Vanstone in 2002. Telstra ACT Business Woman of the Year, 2002 Australian of the Year for the Australian Capital Territory in 2004 Awarded Doctor of Medicine (honoris causa) by the University of Sydney on 16 April 2004 Awarded Doctor of Laws (honoris causa) by the University of Melbourne Elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering 2008

Selected works

Personal life Whitworth was the second wife of the late Professor John Ludbrook, (1929–2017), a medical researcher and surgeon. They had one daughter.