Erin J. Howden PhD

Erin is the head of the Human Integrative Physiology lab, co-lead of the Physical Activity Program, and also the co-chair of the Research Training and Education Committee at the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute. She is an honorary senior research fellow in the Department of Cardiometabolic Medicine at the University of Melbourne and the School of Public Health and Preventative Medicine at Monash University. After receiving her Ph.D. from the University of Queensland in 2012, Erin completed 4 years of postdoctoral training at the Institute for Exercise and Environmental Medicine a world-renowned institute for the study of human clinical and integrative physiology. In 2020, Erin was awarded a prestigious Heart Foundation Future Leader Fellowship and was recognized by the Baker Institute as an Emerging Leader through the award of the “Sir Laurence Muir” Prize.

Erin’s background is in clinical exercise physiology with further training in cardiovascular imaging and invasive hemodynamics. Her program of research seeks to enhance the prevention and treatment of cardiometabolic disease in at-risk groups through developing innovative multidisciplinary approaches, with a particular focus on “exercise as medicine”. The main impact of more effective therapeutic strategies will be lower healthcare expenditure, improved quality of life and reduced morbidity, and lower mortality associated with cardiovascular disease. Her research combines ‘state-of-the-art’ cardiac and vascular imaging approaches, exercise testing and classic hemodynamic techniques, and big data/bioinformatics approaches to gain a deeper understanding of human integrative physiology. Erin’s diverse research program aims to improve outcomes for those at risk of heart failure, to do this her team investigates the mechanisms of exercise intolerance in at-risk individuals and the efficacy of novel treatment strategies.