Prof. Kelvin Kong is a Worimi man (Port Stephens, NSW) and Australia's first recognised Indigenous surgeon. He credits his mother, Grace Kinsella, a pioneering Indigenous registered nurse, for inspiring him and his sisters to become doctors. Their father, Kong Cheok Seng, a Malaysian Chinese man, is also a doctor.  

Professor Kong, works on Awabakal and Worimi Country, and is associated with the University of Newcastle's School of Medicine and Public Health. He is an OHNS surgeon and a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS), and works at Newcastle's John Hunter Hospital and John Hunter Children’s Hospital. He is a leading advocate, researcher and clinician in the area of eradicating otitis media, a middle ear disease that affects 70% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in remote communities, the highest levels of chronic otitis media in the world.