Pictured: (L-R) Professor Jonathan Carapetis; HACCI WA President and incoming national HACCI President Elena Limnios, who nominated Professor Carapetis; winner of the HACCI Innovation Award, John Konstantopoulos from Artrya in WA; and Artrya Chief Program Officer Phil Bowen
Executive Director of The Kids Research Institute Australia, Professor Jonathan Carapetis AM, has been recognised as an outstanding member of the Greek diaspora in Australia for his longstanding excellence and leadership within the health and medical research sector.
Professor Carapetis – an internationally recognised paediatrician and researcher specialising in infectious diseases – was awarded the Hellenic Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s Professional Services Award at a gala event in Melbourne on Friday night.
The award, one of eight presented as part of the HACCI Excellence Awards 2024, was open to all Hellenic Australians from the professional services or academic sector who have demonstrated excellence and leadership in their field, made contributions to learning or thought leadership within their profession, or have been recognised or awarded in their field by their peers or industry.
Professor Carapetis, who has led The Kids since 2012, is the world’s leading expert on deadly Group A streptococcal (GAS) diseases and is widely respected for his expertise and commitment to reducing the burden of Strep A-related diseases, which affect more than 40 million people and kill more than 500,000 people worldwide every year.
His work, which has focused heavily on improving health outcomes for vulnerable populations including Australia’s First Nations people, has challenged existing scientific thinking and shaped national and global policy, particularly in relation to rheumatic heart disease (RHD) and acute rheumatic fever.
Although he grew up predominantly in Adelaide, Professor Carapetis has remained strongly connected to his Greek heritage through his paternal grandparents, who came to Australia from Greece during the late 1920s and settled in the area of Port Pirie near the Flinders Ranges, in South Australia’s Mid North region.
After enduring a tough farm upbringing, Professor Carapetis’ late father Steve (Stavros) Carapetis became the only one of his seven siblings to go to university.
“A lot of Dad’s upbringing was built around the heritage of being a Greek in Australia during the 1930s and 40s, which was a pretty tough time for immigrants,” Professor Carapetis said. “I pay a lot of respect to my grandparents, particularly my grandmother, who navigated the family through those times and kept them together.”
Steve Carapetis’ subsequent professional career, working for the World Bank, frequently took him to low-income nations – exposing his son early on to the devastating impacts of poverty and inequality and leading him to choose a career in medicine out of a desire to do some good in the world.
As a young medical student in the mid-1980s Professor Carapetis undertook an elective in Tanzania, where his father was living and working, and came face-to-face with the havoc wrought by infectious diseases in a country where lack of money and poor access to healthcare frequently resulted in early death. The experience sharpened his focus on conditions inextricably tied to poverty and inequity – an approach that has defined his career ever since.
Professor Carapetis has since become one of the world’s leading experts in infectious diseases such as RHD and rheumatic fever – potentially deadly, entirely preventable conditions which disproportionately affect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
He has also held a series of significant leadership positions, including as Executive Director of The Kids, Executive Director of the Menzies School of Health Research in Darwin, and national President of the Association of Australian Medical Research Institutes (2019-2021), which have influenced the way medical research – particularly with First Nations people – is undertaken.
Professor Carapetis, who has travelled with his family to Greece multiple times to connect with their heritage, said it meant a great deal to have been recognised by the Hellenic Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry for his achievements in a field with its roots in Ancient Greek history.
“The fact this award is recognising someone from the field of medicine and science – founding disciplines contributed to by the Ancient Greeks – is pretty special to me,” he said.
He said another key legacy of his Greek heritage was an unwavering commitment to family.
“That sense of family is such an important part of our culture. I think it’s just the concept that family is very broad, and so it’s that human connection that brings us joy and happiness,” he said.
“When we go back to Adelaide for Christmas we’ll sometimes have gatherings with extended family and there’ll be up to 100 people there. It’s almost impossible to be Greek and to closet yourself away from everyone, because we’re all just one big family.”
In accepting the award Professor Carapetis paid special tribute to his father, Steve, who passed away earlier this year.
“He was as an amazing father who really instilled a great set of both values and ethics, but also a lifelong commitment to learning and making a bigger impact and contribution to others,” Professor Carapetis said.
“He did this in a very understated way and passed away at the age of 91, having hopefully understood the impact he had and also being proud of the impact I have had.”