Professor Janna Morrison is Head of the Early Origins of Adult Health Research Group at the University of South Australia. Prof Morrison has been funded as a research fellow by the Heart Foundation (2004-13) and the NHMRC (2014-17). She currently holds an ARC Future Fellowship (2018-2021). She is the inaugral Director of Health and Biomedical Innovation at UniSA.
After completing her PhD at the University of British Columbia, Janna held postdoctoral positions at University of Toronto and the University of Adelaide before joining UniSA in 2006. Among her numerous awards and achievements, Janna received a South Australian Tall Poppy Science Award (2006) in recognition of her work examining the link between low birth weight and heart disease in adulthood. Prof Janna Morrison has authored >170 peer reviewed publications, has been cited over 6,850 times and has an h-Index of 35 (Scopus).
Her current research focusses on how the fetal cardiovascular system responds to changes in nutrient supply before conception and during pregnancy. She uses Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) to measure blood flow and oxygen saturation in the fetus and then links this data to the molecular signalling pathways that control cardiac growth. She also studies how the fetus regulates its blood pressure to maintain adequate perfusion to organs to promote optimal growth and development. More recently, she has looked at the other end of the spectrum, the effects of maternal obesity on heart development.
Prof Morrison shares her passion for understanding life before birth with students through teaching second and third year students in Physiology (BIOL 2035) as well as supervising research students. She has supervised 10 HDR students to completion with another 6 currently in the team. She enjoys introducing undergraduate and Honours students to the research environment. Her team provides a positive and supportive environment for answering a range of questions about how babies develop before birth and how this may influence their lifelong health.