Prof Khorshed Alam

Biography

Professor Khorshed Alam is Professor of Economics in the School of Business at the University of Southern Queensland (UniSQ). He is also a founding member of the Centre for Health Research at UniSQ and serves as a member of its Executive Group as well as leading its Health Economics Research. He holds a PhD in Economics from Murdoch University and a Master’s in Economics from the Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University, Rotterdam, Netherlands. Prof Alam currently works on a broad range of health economics research mainly on the use of health economics approaches to generate evidence to assist public health decision making and to identify socio-economic determinants of health, especially in disadvantaged populations. He specialises in economic evaluation, public health and digital health as well as has extensive experience in data analysis, survey design and implementation.

Professor Alam has authored over 200 articles in high-impact journals in his fields of research (70% in top-quartile/Q1 SJR journals), as well as numerous industry and research reports, and refereed conference proceedings. His research has been funded by local, state and federal governments in Australia including grants awarded by the Australian Research Council, and National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), and by not-for-profit organisations (≈$6 million). Recent external grant includes an NHMRC-MRFF project (2023-2027) with The University of Queensland to provide innovative and tailored digital health care services to assist in the prevention, diagnosis, treatment and management of chronic diseases among at-risk First Nations Australians in rural, regional and remote Queensland (≈$1 million).

His current Google Scholar H-index is 50 with more than 11,000 citations, while his Scopus H-index is 44 with over 7,500 citations. Professor Alam is the recipient of the inaugural Ronel Erwee Memorial Award for Excellence in Postgraduate Research Supervision in 2017. He is also the winner of ten Publication Excellence Awards at UniSQ. He is the recipient of the 2019 Faculty of Business, Education, Law and Arts Excellence Award for Research, 2020 Postgraduate Research Supervision Award and 2024 School of Business Research and Leadership Award.

Professor Alam has held many leadership roles, including those of Head of Economics Discipline, School Research Coordinator, Founding Member and Associate Director of the Australian Centre for Sustainable Business and Development. He has been on the Council of the Australia and New Zealand Regional Science Association since 2018 and had been a co-editor of the Australasian Journal of Regional Studies.

Professor Alam has supervised 23 HDR students to successful completion at UniSQ. His biggest accomplishment is seeing his students successfully complete their higher degree research studies. He has also mentored and supported the development of a number of new academic staff members, and post-doctoral and mid-career researchers. He is currently supervising a diverse group of twelve PhD students.

Applications from potential PhD students with demonstrated analytical skills and publication experiences are particularly welcome in his areas of interest including social determinants of health, health economic evaluation, carbon footprint analysis and emission reduction strategies, circular economy, sustainability, and social cost-benefit analysis.

Expertise

Carbon accounting

Circular economy

Digital health

Health economic evaluation

Social cost-benefit analysis

Social determinants of health

Sustainability

Teaching

ECO2104 Sustainable Economies

ECO2103 Economics of Climate Change

Fields of Research

• 380101. Agricultural economics
• 380105. Environment and resource economics
• 380108. Health economics
• 410199. Climate change impacts and adaptation not elsewhere classified