Jessica A Heerde, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor, an NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellow, Dame Kate Campbell Fellow and Principal Research Fellow, at the University of Melbourne. She leads the International Youth Development Study (IYDS; Australian arm) and is Area Director of the Homelessness Research Stream. Based at the Centre for Adolescent Health, she is Group Leader of the Socially Excluded Adolescents research stream.

A/Prof Heerde is deeply committed to understanding the factors that improve the health and wellbeing of all adolescents and young adults through high-quality research, collaboration, advocacy and knowledge translation, including policy change. Her well-established multidisciplinary research program aims to:

- Understand the health impacts of homelessness.
- Promote prevention of homelessness by defining pathways into and out of homelessness using population-based longitudinal cohort data.
- Enhance service responses by assessing health outcomes (including mortality) following contact with the homelessness service system in Australia using linked administrative data.

She has built a strong program of research having attracted funding for high-quality translatable research and has grown a substantial research program on homelessness and health, supported by an expanding research team, academic and policy outputs. Her capacity to work across disciplinary boundaries has been integral in shifting social and policy views regarding the many complex associations surrounding homeless children and adolescents, especially in the prevention, public health and social service domains. She holds numerous leadership and service roles where she contributes to the field of homelessness research, practice and policy and provides expert advice to industry and community partners.

She is Honorary Senior Fellow in the Department of Social Work (Melbourne School of Health Sciences) and holds Honorary positions at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute, Curtin University, and Deakin University.