Professor Russell Lindsay GRUEN, MBBS, PhD, FRACS, FAHMS, FAMS, FISS

Biography

Professor Russell Lindsay Gruen has been appointed as the Associate Provost (Health and Medical Sciences), Chair Professor and the University’s first Clinical Professor in the Office of the Provost, effective 7 March 2025.

Before joining HKUST, Professor Gruen was the Dean of the College of Health & Medicine at the Australian National University (ANU), Canberra, and a Senior Staff Specialist at Canberra Health Services. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences and a member of its Governing Council, as well as a Fellow of the Academy of Medicine of Singapore, and the International Surgical Society.

Professor Gruen earned his Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery from the University of Melbourne in 1992, a Diploma of Anatomy from the Australia & New Zealand Anatomy Association in 1994, a Graduate Diploma in Epidemiology & Biostatistics from the University of Melbourne in 1995, and a PhD from Flinders University of South Australia in 2004. He holds an FRACS in general surgery from the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (2005) and specialized in Trauma and Surgical Critical Care at the University of Washington in 2006. He also completed a Fellowship in Medical Ethics at Harvard Medical School, a Harkness Fellowship in Health Policy at Harvard Chan School of Public Health, and the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School.

From 2006 to 2015, he worked as a specialist trauma surgeon at The Alfred and Royal Melbourne Hospitals, was Director of Australia’s National Trauma Research Institute, and served as the world’s first Professor of Surgery and Public Health at Monash University.

In 2015, he joined NTU Singapore as Vice-Dean, Research of the newly established Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine and Director of the NTU Institute for Health Technologies. In 2018, he moved to ANU as Dean of the College of Health & Medicine, overseeing four schools, 800 staff, and 3,000 students. He successfully led local, national and international partnerships with governments, health services, and medical research institutes and developed new programs such as the School of Medicine and Psychology and a National Centre for RNA Innovation.

Professor Gruen is a highly respected clinician-scientist with extensive global influence in trauma and injury care. He led the world’s largest clinical trial of prehospital treatment of severely injured bleeding patients, the establishment of the Australian Trauma Registry, and an Australia-India Trauma System Collaboration. He regularly publishes in top-tier medical journals and has attracted over HKD 300m in research funds. He co-invented Covidence, a systematic review software used by over 400,000 academics globally, and co-founded its parent company. In addition to the national Academy he serves on the boards of Research Australia, the Fred Hollows Foundation, and the Australian Council of Academic Leaders in Digital Health.

Professor Gruen’s extensive interdisciplinary experience in health science, technology and leadership will play a key role in realizing the University’s vision of establishing a new medical school of the highest international standards, fostering global talent, and contributing to Hong Kong’s development as a global health and medical innovation hub.