Adrian Esterman, PhD

About me


I attended Beal Grammar School for Boys in Essex, UK, and left to start work at the age of 16. After several years working as a junior clerk, I enrolled in an Honours degree in Statistics at the University of Bath, graduating in 1972.  This was followed by a Masters degree in Medical Statistics at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 1973, supervised by Professor Peter Armitage. I then took up a Junior Research Fellowship at the University of Aberdeen medical school in late 1973 before joining the World Health Organization in 1974. I worked for 5 years at the WHO head office in Geneva, followed by 2 years at the WHO European Regional Office in Copenhagen.
In 1981 I moved to Australia and worked for many years in the South Australian Department of Health as Principal Epidemiologist. In the mid-1990s, I took a break from epidemiology and became Managing Director of a market research company. This gave me great experience in survey research, qualitative research, HR management, and sales. However, I eventually moved back into academic life, and in 2002, I received my PhD in epidemiology from Flinders University.
At the University of South Australia, one of my main roles is to provide advice on biostatistics and epidemiology to researchers in the health and medical areas. I am also a Chief Investigator on several research grants. I am the author of over 400 publications and have an h-index of 74. I am experienced in mentoring Research Fellows junior staff and of course PhD students.
I really enjoy writing, and have written a number of articles about epidemiology and COVID-19 on the Medium website. I have also written nearly 30 articles for The Conversation about COVID-19 with over 2.5 million reads.  I have published a book on PhD supervision. I have also become an avid tweeter - @profesterman, with over 39,000 followers. I also give presentations on the current COVID-19 situation to community, business, academic and professional groups.