Prof Leach has 78 career publications; her 1994 PhD publication (cited by 324) described for the first time that Indigenous infants acquire nasopharyngeal bacterial pathogens within weeks of life and that acquisition predicted onset of otitis media (OM). Prof Leach leads a NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence in Ear and Hearing Health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, CRE_ICHEAR. She is also NHMRC lead investigator for two vaccine trials (PREVIX), a study of school readiness (VOICES), and is co-investigator of a CSOM treatment trial (IHEARBETA) and two trials for treatment of OM in urban Aboriginal children (WATCH and INFLATE).