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Our people

Fostering cross-disciplinary collaboration
Our leadership supports a vibrant and cross-disciplinary academic community of researchers from across the University.

Our institute is comprised of central organisation structure with a core executive, a multidisciplinary advisory board and node leaders. 

Co-Director

The Institute's Co-Director guides our strategic thinking, key partnerships and outputs. 

Professor Ben Marais is an Infectious Diseases Consultant at the Children's Hospital Westmead. His primary research interest is tuberculosis (epidemiology, strain diversity/evolution, diagnosis, prevention, treatment, drug resistance) with a special focus on how children are affected by the global epidemic. He has a keen interest in international child health; including HIV, TB/HIV, paediatric and emerging infections in general, as well as operations and cross-disciplinary research. 


Associate Director (Strategy, Operations & Partnerships)

Dr Jocelyne Basseal leads the strategic development of the Institute and fosters local, national and global partnerships. She is a graduate from the University of Sydney with a PhD in Medical Microbiology and has supervised post-graduate students, delivered lectures, organised scientific conferences and published in peer-reviewed journals and textbooks. After leaving academia, Jocelyne spent 8 years as the Managing Editor, Research and Policy Manager for the Australasian Society for Ultrasound in Medicine. With strong governance knowledge, skills in policy development and communication, Jocelyne was instrumental in advocating for best practices in Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) for medical imaging. During this time, Jocelyne was a consultant for commercial companies as an IPC advisor and delivered educational workshops, supported medical associations with their peer-reviewed journals and developed the research grants scheme for a philanthropic organisation. Since April 2020, Jocelyne worked as an IPC consultant for the World Health Organisation’s COVID-19 response supporting low-middle income countries in the Western Pacific Region. She is currently the President for the Australasian Medical Writers Association, an active member of the Standards Australia HE-023 committee and facilitating IPC guideline development for Radiology Across Borders.


Centre Manager

Mrs Christine Aitken has been with the Centre for over 11 years, establishing and running the operations of the institute.

 


Institute leaders

Our Research Steering Group reviews the scope of academic activities undertaken by the Institute and provides strategic and tactical advice. Our members represent the various faculties, cross-cutting themes and research pillars of the Institute.

 

Node leader(s) Node
Dr Phil Britton Brain Infection and Inflammation: Researching better treatments and prevention strategies to deal with infections and immunological disorders affecting the brain and nervous system.
Dr Justin Beardsley FungiSphere: Research in fungal biology, ecology and epidemiology, food security, pathogenesis and antimicrobial resistance.

Professor Robert Booy

A/Prof Harunor Rashid

Mass-Gathering MedicineResearching transmission of bacterial and viral pathogens and vaccine effectiveness, with implications for policy interventions to protect personal and public health.

Dr Michael Walsh

A/Prof Katrina Bosward

Prof Ruth Zadoks

One Health: Research on zoonotic and other infectious diseases, their impacts on human and animal health and their social, ecological and environmental determinant.

Professor Ramon Shaban

Professor Lyn Gilbert

Infection Prevention and Disease Control: Researching ways to improve health outcomes and health service delivery with respect to infectious diseases, infection prevention and disease control, and associated disciplines locally, nationally and internationally through leading, facilitating and evaluating quality research that develops new knowledge and advances in research and clinical practice.

 

 

The Flagship Advisory Board provides institutional oversight and broad strategic guidance to the Institute.

Pathogen Emergence and Spread

AMR and Novel Therapies

Vaccines and Immunisation

Prof Tania Sorrell
Sydney ID Ambassador

Tania was instrumental in establishing the Sydney Institute for Infectious Diseases and she has successfully created multidisciplinary research networks including medical and veterinary sciences, biological sciences and humanities and social sciences, in an effort to improve capacity in Australia and abroad, in diagnostics, surveillance, infection control and infectious disease prevention.

She is an internationally renowned infectious diseases physician and medical mycologist whose research focuses on invasive fungal infections. She has a long-standing interest in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of infectious diseases, especially in immunocompromised individuals.  

New appointments

A/Prof Meru Sheel
Leading the new NCIRS global initiative

Meru is a global health researcher and an infectious diseases epidemiologist with expertise in public health emergencies and immunisation.

A/Prof Tanya Golubchik
Building the Computational Microbiology Group

Tanya's research uses modern genomics technologies to explore the diversity and evolution of microbial pathogens, especially viruses and bacteria of public health significance.

Prof Jeff Errington
Strengthening basic microbiology research linked to antimicrobial resistance

Jeff's research aims to improve our understanding of the basic biology of L-forms and employ them as tools to better understand the mechanisms of cell wall synthesis and how antibiotics work, as models for early steps in the evolution of cellular life, and as a significant new platform for the production of proteins and fine chemicals.