Professor Jonathan Kalman AO

Citation for the Award of the Brownless Medal

Professor Jonathan Kalman AO, FAAHMS is a clinician-scientist who received his PhD from the University of Melbourne in 1994. He leads both clinical and research groups at the Heart Rhythm Department at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and University of Melbourne.

Professor Kalman has an outstanding track record in all dimensions of his professional endeavours in research and translation, international dissemination of information and awards, generous contribution to national and international professional associations, mentoring, supervision, and journal editing.

A world leader in the field of cardiac arrhythmia research, particularly atrial arrhythmias, Professor Kalman’s research of the past 20 years has been incorporated into guidelines and translated into clinical practice.

Professor Kalman has over 500 peer-reviewed publications with over 40,000 citations, has authored over 40 book chapters and served on multiple guidelines writing committees. He is an associate editor of The Journal of The American College of Cardiology and The International Journal of Cardiology and serves on the editorial boards of various international scientific journals.

He has given over 300 invited lectures at national and international meetings and delivered many prestigious national and international keynote and named lectures including The Ralph Lazzarra lecture of the North American Heart Rhythm Society 2020, The Kempson Maddox lecture of the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand 2019, the Intercontinental lecture of the European Heart Rhythm Society 2018, and the Paul Wood lecture of The British Cardiovascular Society 2015.

Among numerous society contributions he has served as both President and Scientific Chair of the Asia Pacific Heart Rhythm Society, the Scientific Chair of the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand, the co-chair of the World Congress of Cardiology and on the Board of Trustees of the North American Heart Rhythm Society.

In recognition of the impact of his work, Professor Kalman has received awards and recognition including the Officer of the Order of Australia for services to medicine (2018), The Paul Wood Medal of the British Cardiovascular Society(2015), an NHMRC excellence award for top-ranked Australian Practitioner fellowship (2014), The Simon Dack Award of The Journal of the American College of Cardiology for outstanding scholarship (2014), RACP Eric Susman prize (2005), and the RT Hall prize of the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand (2003).

Professor Kalman has trained generations of academic electrophysiologists in Australia and internationally. He has supervised and co-supervised over 30 PhD candidates including six ongoing and has supervised over 25 post-doctoral fellows. These candidates have won prestigious national and international prizes and fellowships on the basis of this work.

Professor Kalman satisfies all the criteria for the Brownless Medal through world leading development and application of new knowledge, teaching and mentoring in cardiology. He has elevated the Royal Melbourne Hospital Cardiology Department to international pre-eminence through his leadership of the clinical and research groups at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and the University of Melbourne.

As the accompanying documentation attests, he has an outstanding track record in all dimensions of his professional endeavours in research and translation, international dissemination of information and awards, generous contribution to national and international professional associations, mentoring and supervision and journal editorial tasks.