David Durrheim
Professor David Durrheim, DrPH, MPH&TM, MBChB, FACTM, FAFPHM, FAAHMS is the:
- Director of Health Protection, Hunter New England Health, New South Wales, Australia
- Conjoint Professor of Public Health Medicine at the University of Newcastle, Australia
- Adjunct Professor of Public Health and Tropical Medicine at James Cook University, Queensland, Australia.
He currently chairs the Western Pacific Regional Measles Rubella Verification Commission and is a member of the World Health Organization’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) working groups on Ebola vaccines, measles and rubella.
He has an established track record in conducting public research that has an operational focus and is translational in nature.
His ability to use operational research findings to assist local public health programs to improve their surveillance and service delivery, particularly in challenging under-resourced environments, has resulted in a number of awards and international recognition.
He has been instrumental in developing novel surveillance systems to detect and facilitate responses to emerging infectious disease risks.
Professor Durrheim is an outspoken advocate for equitable global access to effective public health measures, particularly immunisation.
Professor Durrheim’s research interests include novel infectious disease surveillance methods, control of zoonotic diseases and strategies for reducing inequity in public health service delivery.
He has over 300 peer-reviewed publications, and has published several scientific monographs and chapters in leading public health texts.
Mark Ferson
Professor Mark Ferson MBBS MPH MArtTh MD FRACP FAFPHM is a public health physician and paediatrician with additional qualifications in epidemiology and art history.
In 1990, he became the first NSW public health unit director, a position from which he stepped down in 2021.
He is:
- Senior Medical Adviser, Public Health Unit, South Eastern Sydney Local Health District
- the Australasian Society for Infectious Diseases representative on the Communicable Diseases Intelligence Editorial Advisory Board
- a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of Public Health Research & Practice.
Mark holds appointments as Adjunct Professor at the University of New South Wales School of Population Health and at the Notre Dame University School of Medicine Sydney.
His research interests are in the epidemiology and control of infectious diseases, with a particular focus on childcare settings, childhood vaccination, gastroenteritis viruses and the exanthemata, and on public health law and history.
He has been author or co-author on over 180 scientific papers in the field of public health.
Clare Huppatz
Dr Clare Huppatz is a Public Health Physician with qualifications in General Practice, Public Health, Health Promotion and Epidemiology.
She has spent more than half of her career working in rural areas, including Far North Queensland, the Riverland area of South Australia and the Kimberley and Goldfield regions of Western Australia.
Clare has worked as a Consultant to the World Health Organization (WHO), undertaking missions in the Pacific Island Countries of Fiji, Vanuatu and Kiribati, to support an emergency post-cyclone response (Cyclone Pam, 2015), disease outbreak responses and vaccination program implementation and evaluation.
In 2018, she spent two months working for the WHO Global Programme for the Elimination of Trachoma, in Geneva, Switzerland.
Most recently, Clare has worked for the Department of Health in WA, where she was Coordinator of the Public Health Emergency Operations Centre (PHEOC) during the first two years of the COVID-19 response in WA and is now Deputy Chief Health Officer (Public Health).
John Kaldor
Professor John Kaldor is a National Health and Medical Research Council Senior Principal Research Fellow.
He holds a doctorate in biostatistics from the University of California, Berkeley, and began his research career at the International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon, France.
For over 25 years he has built and led internationally recognised research programs on the epidemiology and prevention of HIV infection and other sexually transmitted and bloodborne infections.
His research has covered a wide range of projects, including the development and implementation of public health surveillance systems, investigations of HIV-related cancer, cohort and cross-sectional investigations of risk factors for infectious disease transmission, and interventional trials of disease prevention strategies.
His work has had a particular focus on populations experiencing health disadvantage, both in Australia and in the Asia–Pacific region.
With over 500 peer reviewed scientific publications that have been cited collectively over 17,000 times, Professor Kaldor has been a highly influential contributor to public health knowledge.
His work has guided policy in disease control, particularly in relation to the prevention of HIV infection.
Professor Kaldor has also served on numerous policy and advisory committees in Australia and Internationally.
He has had close working relationships with public health programs in a number of countries of the Asia–Pacific region, particularly Cambodia, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.
Professor Kaldor is a past President of the Australasian Epidemiological Association, and currently serves as a ministerially appointed member of the Repatriation Medical Authority.
Martyn Kirk
National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, Research School of Population Health, The Australian National University.
Professor Martyn Kirk is a National Health and Medical Research Council career development fellow conducting applied research into health threats from foods, waters and the environment.
Previously, Professor Kirk was the program director of the Master of Philosophy in Applied Epidemiology (MAE) program – the Australian Field Epidemiology Training Program – at the Australian National University.
Professor Kirk has worked for the over 20 years in state and territory and federal health departments in the areas of infectious disease surveillance and investigation.
In 2000, Professor Kirk was appointed as the Coordinating Epidemiologist of OzFoodNet to establish national surveillance of foodborne diseases.
Professor Kirk regularly consults for governments and the World Health Organization on zoonotic diseases, environmental health issues and epidemiological workforce development.
Professor Kirk is a Food Standards Australia New Zealand fellow and is on the advisory board of the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance.
Meru Sheel
Associate Professor Meru Sheel is a global health researcher and epidemiologist, and leads research on infectious diseases, immunisation and health emergencies.
She holds a PhD in vaccinology and an MPhil in Applied Epidemiology.
Meru has extensive field experience of having worked in several dynamic and complex environments in the Asia–Pacific region, having responded to international emergencies in Fiji, Dominica, Rohingya Crisis in Cox’s Bazar Bangladesh, Tonga and Papua New Guinea, as well as leading field-based studies in Fiji, Lao PDR and Cambodia.
Dr Sheel co-chairs the Immunization Agenda (IA2030) strategic priority pillar on Research and Innovation and serves on the Data Use Working Group and is a member of the WHO’s Immunization and Vaccines Related Implementation Research Advisory Committee (IVIR-AC).
In 2019, Meru was recognised as the Science and Medicine winner for 40 Under 40 Most Influential Asian–Australians; she also received the 2020 ANU Vice Chancellors Awards for Impact and Engagement and was a 2023 finalist for the Women’s Agenda Leadership awards for Health.
Meru is a passionate science communicator and an advocate for gender and diversity in leadership roles.