Congratulations to HDA & Channel 7 Children's Research Foundation PhD Excellence Awardee - Eskedar Mekonnen
Congratulations to Eskedar Mekonnen one of our Healthy Development Adelaide (HDA) and Channel 7 Children’s Research Foundation PhD Excellence Award winners for 2025.
We thank the Channel 7 Children’s Research Foundation for its ongoing financial support of the PhD Excellence Award and its partnership of 18 years helping HDA to foster research excellence and career development in South Australia. This is our 14th cohort and our two winners will each receive $5,000 per annum for 3 years to augment their scholarships.
Eskedar Mekonnen is a PhD candidate within the Robinson Research Institute at the University of Adelaide.
Eskedar’s research project focusses on complicated pregnancies and their long-term effects on offspring health, through the lens of biological aging.
This project will investigate whether complications during pregnancy influence the development of metabolic syndrome in offspring. It will also explore the role of epigenetic modification, such as DNA methylation, and telomere length. Grounded in life course epidemiology, this project will focus on exploring the impact of cardiometabolic risk factors and adverse events during pregnancy on the health trajectories of offspring as they grow into adulthood.
This project is supervised by Dr Jessica Grieger, and co-supervised by Dr Tina Bianco-Miotto and Dr Kai Liu, University of Adelaide.
“I am sincerely grateful and honoured to receive the HDA and the Channel 7 Children’s Research Foundation PhD Excellence Award for 2025. Understanding the roots of health, particularly during pregnancy, is key to nurturing future generations. Our project will contribute to the progress toward healthy growth and optimal development for children and adolescents by exploring the risk of health and disease and identifying key intervention points. The support from this award provides a valuable opportunity to build a professional network and foster collaboration, thus broadening the impact of this project,” Eskedar.