Professor Martin Silink is President of the International Diabetes Federation for the period 2006-2009. He is also Chair of the IDF Life for a Child Program and he led the successful Unite for Diabetes campaign that resulted in the passage of the United Nations World Diabetes Day Resolution in December 2006.

Professor Silink is Professor of Paediatric Endocrinology at the University of Sydney and The Children's Hospital at Westmead, Sydney, Australia. His main research interests are diabetes complications in the young and the changing patterns of diabetes in childhood and adolescence. Professor Silink is Chairman of the IDF Western Pacific Childhood Diabcare 2001 and 2003 projects, which are international collaborative audits of the health of children and adolescents with type 1 and type 2 diabetes attending 92 centres in the countries of the Western Pacific Region.

Professor Silink is a member of various professional societies including the Australian Diabetes Society, American Diabetes Association (ADA), European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD), Endocrine Society of Australia, The Endocrine Society (USA), Lawson Wilkins Pediatric Endocrine Society (USA) and the International Society of Pediatric and Adolescent Diabetes (ISPAD).

Previous appointments include Vice President of IDF (2000-2003), Chairman of the IDF Consultative Section on Childhood & Adolescent Diabetes (1994-2003), and President of ISPAD (1999-2002).

Professor Silink has served on the Editorial Board of Pediatric Diabetes, Clinical Pediatric Endocrinology and the IDF Diabetes Atlas. His CV includes over 100 peer-reviewed articles and invited chapters, and he was the editor of national guidelines on the management of childhood diabetes.