Janine Mohamed

Indigenous health leader

2024 VIC Australian of the Year

Janine Mohamed is an exceptional leader, even if she sometimes jokes about being an ‘accidental CEO’. In her nearly five years leading the Lowitja Institute in Melbourne, and before that as CEO of the Congress of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Nurses and Midwives, she has created important platforms for Indigenous peoples and championed culturally safe health care. 

A Narungga Kaurna woman, Janine initially studied nursing at the University of South Australia, where she's now an Adjunct Professor and a celebrated Alumni of the Year.  For the next 25 years, she worked in nursing, health policy and research in the Indigenous Community Controlled Health sector. In 2020, she was awarded an honorary doctorate in nursing by Edith Cowan University.  

Janine is committed to dismantling racism, expanding opportunities for the Indigenous health workforce, and to closing the gap in Indigenous health outcomes through the systemic integration of cultural safety.