Michelle Ananda-Rajah

Ananda-Rajah was born in London to Tamil parents who had fled from Sri Lanka in the early 1970s prior to the Sri Lankan Civil War.[5] She lived in Zambia for 11 years until she moved to Australia as a child.[5] Ananda-Rajah became an Australian citizen in 1996. She renounced her British citizenship in 2021.[1]

Ananda-Rajah achieved her bachelor’s degree in medicine and surgery (MBBS) in 1997 and her PhD in 2014 from the University of Sydney.[5]

Ananda-Rajah worked as a clinician-researcher and physician in infectious diseases and general medicine at Alfred Health. She is a graduate of USyd with honours and underwent speciality training in Victoria. In 2019, she was awarded a prestigious TRIP (Translating Research Into Practice) fellowship by the Medical Research Future Fund and appointed to JAMA Network Open as a statistical and methods reviewer.

Michelle is the co-founder of Healthcare Workers Australia, a grass roots advocacy group which has campaigned since August 2020 for improved respiratory protection.[6]

Ananda-Rajah was preselected as the Labor candidate for Higgins in July 2021, ahead of the 2022 Australian federal election.[7] She trailed Liberal incumbent Katie Allen for most of the night. However, on the seventh count, a Green candidate's preferences flowed overwhelmingly to Ananda-Rajah. This gave Ananda-Rajah a 2.4% swing in primary vote and a 4.6% swing in two party preferred vote, to win the seat with a two party preferred vote of 52%, or a little under 4,000 votes. By winning, Ananda-Rajah became the first Labor member for Higgins in the seat's 73-year history.[8]