Professor Jeannette Milgrom has been involved in clinical practice and research focused on the mother–infant relationship and perinatal mental health since 1978. She has held a Harkness Fellowship in the United States and an O’Rourke Fellowship in Paris, supporting advanced work with families and infants. She developed a model centre for families and infants, the Infant Clinic, and created several landmark interventions, including the HUGS program targeting the parent–infant relationship, alongside evidence-based treatments for postnatal depression.
In 2001, Professor Milgrom established the Parent-Infant Research Institute (PIRI) to bring together rigorous research and clinical innovation to advance understanding, prevention and treatment of perinatal mental health difficulties. PIRI conducts both basic and applied research across antenatal and postnatal depression and anxiety, prematurity, screening, clinical decision support systems, and the development of psychological treatments for mothers, fathers and infants. A strong emphasis of her work is the translation of research into practice, with wide-scale national implementation across Australia.
Professor Milgrom has published extensively and has an exceptional research funding track record, securing over 90 competitive grants to date. This includes one National Institutes of Health grant (US), one National Institute for Health Research and Policy Research Programme grant (UK), and eight National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) grants (Australia), including a Centre for Research Excellence (CRE). She has also held numerous grants as Chief Investigator A funded by beyondblue, Australian Rotary Health, the Ian Potter Foundation, and other philanthropic organisations.
As Chief Investigator, Professor Milgrom leads the current NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence (CRE STePPS) project, entitled Science Translation for e-Psychological Perinatal Supports (STePPS). The CRE aims to drive the identification and translation into practice of effective, sustainable perinatal e-treatments, broadening the scope beyond maternal treatment of depression.
Her NHMRC-funded work has included the development of internet-delivered treatments for postnatal depression, as well as earlier research investigating neurobehavioural development in preterm infants. In a landmark study, she demonstrated improvement in infant brain connectivity, visible on MRI, following a parent-led stress-reduction intervention, providing early evidence of neurobiological change associated with psychosocial intervention.
She has expertise in large-scale randomised controlled trials, including population screening studies involving more than 10,000 participants, and comparative treatment evaluations for postnatal depression. Professor Milgrom was a principal researcher in the beyondblue National Postnatal Depression Program from 2002 to 2006 and has worked closely with beyondblue since 2001. She later chaired the beyondblue Workforce Training Committee as part of the Perinatal Depression Initiative between 2011 and 2013.
Professor Milgrom has led the Perinatal Depression e-Consortium since 2017 and has secured Australian Government funding to deliver the MumMoodBooster internet-based postnatal depression program nationally. She has also developed DadBooster, supported by Department of Health, Disability and Ageing funding. The delivery and expansion of online evidence-based treatments for perinatal mental health is now a major focus of her work. She has also recently edited a state-of-the-art academic book on screening in perinatal mental health.
She holds an appointment as Professor in the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences at the University of Melbourne and was previously Professor and Director of Clinical and Health Psychology at Austin Health (1999–2001), where she managed psychologists across the Division of Mental Health and broader medical services. She has served as Chair of the College of Health Psychologists within the Australian Psychological Society (APS) and is a Fellow of the APS.
Internationally, Professor Milgrom has a strong standing in perinatal mental health. She is a current Executive Committee Member of the International Marcé Society for Perinatal Mental Health and served as its President from 2014 to 2016, including as Conference Chair for the 2016 International Marcé Conference in Melbourne. She has also been a Chief Investigator on two large-scale United Kingdom grants funded by the National Institute for Health Research and Policy Research Programme.
Professor Milgrom was appointed a Member (AM) in the General Division of the Order of Australia in the 2018 Queen’s Birthday Honours List for significant service to psychology as a researcher, advisor and administrator, to education, and to professional organisations.
In recognition of her outstanding innovation and lifelong contribution to perinatal mental health, Professor Milgrom was selected in 2025 to receive the prestigious Jon Rampono Medal. The award acknowledges exceptional leadership and impact in advancing perinatal mental health practice, research and policy.