2017 Invited Speakers

Benedetta Allegranzi obtained her medical degree in 1994 and her postgraduate degrees in infectious diseases and tropical medicine in 1998, at the University of Verona, Italy. She worked as a medical doctor in infectious diseases, tropical medicine and infection control at the Verona University Hospital, Italy, and in Burundi, from 1994 to 2006. In this period, she did clinical practice, research and teaching on HIV, TB, malaria, infections in critically ill patients, infection control and tropical medicine. She moved to the World Health Organization in Geneva in 2005 and she is currently the coordinator of the WHO Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) Global Unit in the Service Delivery and Safety department. She is also adjoint professor at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Geneva, working at the Global Health Institute and at the Infection Control at the University Hospitals of Geneva.

Prevention of healthcare-associated infection (HAI) worldwide is the target of the WHO IPC Global Unit which was established in October 2016 and lays its foundations on the “Clean Care is Safer Care” programme. Professor Allegranzi’s research activities, conducted in the field of IPC in the context of global health, have focused on implementing core components of effective IPC programmes, hand hygiene improvement, epidemiology of HAI worldwide, the prevention of surgical site infections (SSI), and IPC implementation in settings with limited resources. In particular, Professor Allegranzi was the technical lead for IPC during the WHO response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa; through her work, she has highlighted the burden of HAIs in low-resource settings and has studied interventions to reduce it. Under Professor Allegranzi’s leadership, several new global IPC guidelines and their implementation strategies that have major relevance for all countries and health care facilities worldwide have been developed. Two global campaigns on injection safety and hand hygiene have been launched; the latter currently includes more than 19 000 in 177 countries and a network of 48 national campaigns. Combating antimicrobial resistance through IPC programmes and best practices is also within the IPC global unit mandate and priorities led by Professor Allegranzi. She is the author or coauthor of more than 150 scientific publications, including articles published in high-profile medical journal such as the Lancet, Lancet Infectious Diseases, Lancet Global Health, New England Journal of Medicine and the WHO Bulletin, and more than 20 book chapters, including the editing of the Hand Hygiene: A Handbook for Medical Professionals (Wiley-Blackwell 2017).

Contact: allegranzib@who.int

Deverick (“Dev”) J. Anderson, MD, MPH, FIDSA, FSHEA

Dr. Anderson is an Associate Professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Department of Medicine at Duke University. He is currently Director of the Duke Center for Antimicrobial Stewardship and Infection Prevention.  Over the past decade, Dr. Anderson’s work has led to improvements in the quality and safety of care in multiple areas of healthcare, including large tertiary care hospitals and small community hospitals.

Dr. Anderson has authored over 140 peer-reviewed articles related to quality of care, patient safety, healthcare epidemiology, antimicrobial stewardship, and multidrug-resistant pathogens.  Dr. Anderson has received research funding from the NIH, the AHRQ, and the CDC and is currently the Principal Investigator of the Duke-UNC Prevention Epicenter Program.  He is a member of the Board of Trustees for SHEA.  In addition, he is an alumnus of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Physician Faculty Scholars Program and a member of the Steering Committee for the NIH’s Antibacterial Resistance Leadership Group.

Susan Huang, MD MPH is Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Medical Director of Epidemiology and Infection Prevention at the University of California Irvine.

She received her MD from Johns Hopkins and her MPH from the Harvard School of Public Health. She completed residency at the University of California San Francisco and her ID fellowship at Harvard at Brigham & Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital.

Dr. Huang has over 130 publications and is lead investigator of five randomized clinical trials on preventing HAIs and drug-resistant pathogens in hospitals and nursing homes. Her research includes efforts toward surgical site infections, outbreak detection, and regional simulation models to prevent contagious spread.

Dr. Huang has served on the US CDC’s Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee (HICPAC), the Antibiotic Resistance Committee for the Infectious Diseases Society of America, and the Clinical Effectiveness Research Innovation Collaborative of the US National Academies of Medicine.

Dr. Stone is one of the few nurse researchers among other interdisciplinary researchers (economists, hospital epidemiologists, and health services researchers) who deeply understand the complications and rigor of conducting real world comparative and economic evaluations in the context of improving the quality of care and specifically preventing healthcare-associated infections. Dr. Stone has a long history of conducting research in this area and has been the prinicipal investigator on many federal and foundation supported grants. This expertise and her sustained scholarly efforts in this area have been recognized and improved healthcare in a variety of ways.

She has served on a number of important policy making committees (e.g., she co-chaired two National Quality Forum Technical Advisory Panels and she served as an expert for the Massachusetts Expert Panel on Healthcare-Associated Infections and California Health Department). Additionally, her work on the cost of healthcare-associated infections have been cited in major publications including important reports written by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (guidelines and a burden of illness study) and the Health and Human Services Healthcare-Associated Infections Action Plan.

These activities have contributed to recent changes in health policy (e.g., federal and state legislation mandating that hospitals report both process and outcome data related to healthcare-associated infections) as well as the type of data the hospitals are collecting. Dr. Stone is passionate about conducting policy relevant research and educating the next generation of nurse and interdisciplinary scientists.

Matthew has a unique mix of professional and personal experience, with an in-depth understanding of strategy, risk and cultural change. With a grounding of almost 20 years in the energy and resources industry, he has found innovative ways to apply his knowledge after what started as a sore throat resulted in the loss of all four of his limbs in 2012. Matthew has experienced first-hand the phenomenal benefits of a modern health system.

Through collaboration across numerous sectors, both domestically and internationally, he has found new ways to achieve independence, including the first application of bilateral mind controlled bionic arms in the world. Matthew is involved in a variety of endeavours in the health sector, including as a board member of Hear and Say in Queensland and a member of steering committees for Queensland Health, the Australian Digital Health Agency and Bionics Queensland.

Emily is the Manager of the Centre of Research Excellence in Reducing Healthcare Associated Infection (CRE-RHAI) at Queensland University of Technology. Emily holds a Bachelor of Nursing and an MBA and has coordinated clinical trials and research portfolios at universities and hospitals in Brisbane, Melbourne and Toronto.

Alongside managing the CRE-RHAI, Emily is the manager of the research program of the Australian Centre for Health Services Innovation, which builds research partnerships between academics and clinicians to improve the delivery and organisation of health services in Australia.

Sarah Bailey has a Masters in Medical Microbiology and a Post Graduate Diploma in Medical Mycology, and has also completed studies in infection control in the hospital environment, legionella control and asbestos. Sarah has also been a part of several Infection Prevention and Control teams within the hospitals she has worked in and Legionella Control Officer for a private hospital . With her move to QED Environmental Services, she now applies that microbiological knowledge to their work in water quality and risk assessment, indoor air quality in hospitals, with cooling towers and with various other investigations such as mould and building health. Sarah also presents some of the specialist microbiology lectures for the University of Western Australia’s’ Masters in Infectious Disease programme, and has lectured overseas and at Australian Conferences.

Dr Noleen Bennett is a senior Infection Control Consultant employed both at the Victorian Healthcare Associated Infection Surveillance System Coordinating Centre and the National Centre for Antimicrobial Stewardship. She is currently the Project Officer overseeing the Aged Care National Antimicrobial Prescribing Survey. She is now descending towards the age bracket that it is likely she will be admitted to an aged care home.

Frank Bowden is an infectious diseases physician at the Canberra Hospital and Professor at the Australian National University Medical School.

He teaches courses on evidence based medicine and medical ethics and, in addition to his academic research, has published two books for the general public on infectious disease topics.

Associate Professor Jennifer Broom is an Infectious Diseases Physician at the Sunshine Coast University Hospital who has a research programme investigating the social influences on antibiotic prescribing in Australian Hospitals. She collaborates extensively with both Universities and other hospitals, including a close relationship with the School of Social Science at UNSW. She has received over $1 million in competitive research funding, and is currently working on inclusion of novel behavioural strategies into interventions to optimise antibiotic prescribing decisions.

Until September 2015 Donna was the Infection Control Manager at Austin Health in Melbourne for 8 years prior to which she was with the Infection Control team at Peninsula Health for 5 years. Before commencing her nursing career she was a Medical Laboratory Scientist and worked in a number of microbiology laboratories in Australia and England.

Donna recently commenced a new infection control position with the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services and the Microbiological Diagnostic Unit Public Health Laboratory where she will be providing infection control advice to non-acute healthcare facilities and other community-based practices, such as beauty therapists and tattoo artists. She has a long history of involvement with the Victorian Infection Control Professionals Association (VICPA) prior to filing a casual vacancy on the ACIPC Executive Council. Donna is Chair of the Member Services Committee.

Prof Allen Cheng is an infectious diseases physician. He is Professor of Infectious Diseases Epidemiology and is Director of the Infection Prevention and Healthcare Epidemiology unit at Alfred Health. He has a PhD (Flinders University), a Master of Public Health (Monash University) and a Master of Biostatistics. He has previously worked as an infectious diseases and general physician in Darwin and Geelong, and has worked in remote communities in the Top End of Australia, and in Papua New Guinea, Thailand, the United States and Finland.

His research covers a diverse area within infectious diseases, including sepsis and severe melioidosis, tropical medicine, influenza and vaccine effectiveness, hospital infection prevention and control, antibiotic pharmacokinetics, antimicrobial drug policy and clinical infectious diseases. He has published over 200 peer-reviewed scientific publications (as well as >40 letters/editorials and 17 book chapters).

Prof Cheng is a foundation member of the Guidelines Committee for the Australian Society for Infectious Diseases (ASID); he was the primary author for national guidelines for H1N1/09 influenza and Clostridium difficile infection; a foundation member of the Clinical Research Network of ASID; a steering committee member for the National Prescribing Service Antibiotic Resistance initiative; and a member of expert writing groups for Therapeutic Guidelines: Antibiotic and Respiratory.

He is also a member of the Advisory Committee on Prescription Medicines (advising the Therapeutic Goods Administration on drug regulation issues), the National Influenza Surveillance Committee and the Australian Technical Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) Until 2015, he was ASID representative to the Communicable Diseases Network of Australia (a subcommittee of the Australian Health Protection Committee).

His work has been recognized as recipient of a NHMRC Excellence Award (2014), a Victorian Public Healthcare Award (Healthcare Innovation) for work with the Antimicrobial Stewardship Team, Alfred Health (2013), recipient of the Frank Fenner Award for Advanced Research in Infectious Diseases (ASID, 2012). He has also been a technical advisor to the World Health Organisation, resulting in drafting of international guidelines for management of sepsis and for severe H1N1/09 infection

Carolyn Chenoweth works for Fresenius Medical Care as the Australian Quality and IPC Manager and Asia Pacific IPC subject matter expert. She is a Credentialled Infection Control Professional, has a Graduate Diploma in Nursing Science, Infection Control and is a Hand Hygiene Auditor super trainer.

Carolyn is involved in establishing and supporting infection prevention and control programs in dialysis clinics across Australia and Asia Pacific.

Dr Claase is the Editorial Director at Therapeutic Guidelines Ltd. Leigh-Anne left the editorial team at the British National Formulary in London five years ago to take up her position in Melbourne. Before embarking on her career in medical publishing, she trained as a pharmacist and earned a PhD in neuropharmacology. As Editorial Director, Leigh-Anne is responsible for quality of content and digital delivery strategy. She has a wide range of professional interests, spanning knowledge transfer, change management, guideline methodology, digital product development, and content management infrastructure.

Infectious Diseases Physician and Microbiologist. Canberra Hospital Executive Director, ACT Pathology. Canberra Hospital Professor, Australian National University.

Professor Collignon works as an Infectious Diseases physician. He is also a microbiologist and is director of the Infectious Diseases Unit and Microbiology at The Canberra Hospital. He is also involved in teaching and is a Professor at the Medical School of the Australian National University.

He is active in many research and public health advocacy issues dealing with different infections and their risks. Particular interests are antibiotic resistance (especially in Staph), hospital acquired infections (especially blood stream and intravascular catheter infections) and resistance that develops through the use of antibiotics in animals. He is extensively involved in Infection Control projects looking at procedures and current practices in medicine and how these may be improved to decrease the risks for patients acquiring infections.

He has been and continues to be an active member of many national and international committees, including those of the Australian Quality and Safety Commission. He has been appointed to many of the expert committees of the World Health Organization (WHO) on the issue of antibiotic resistance and the use of antibiotics in food animals.

In June 2010 he was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for services to Medicine in Infectious Diseases, Microbiology and Infection Control.

Cathy Connor has been Director of the Public Health team at the Office of the National Health and Medical Research Council since 2008. This team works with key agencies, organisations and government departments to develop clinical, population and/or public health guidelines and advice based on the best available evidence.

As well as this current project to update Australia’s infection control guidelines in partnership with the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Healthcare Current, Cathy is overseeing  a review into effective parenting interventions and their impact on an infant’s developing socio-emotional well-being, as well as a review into the health and dental effects of water fluoridation. Prior to working with NHMRC, Cathy spent 20 years as a physiotherapist specializing in paediatrics, and working in neonatal intensive care settings, the acute hospital, community and private sectors.

She has  Bachelor of App Science (Physiotherapy) and a Masters of Health and Community Development.

Professor Marilyn Cruickshank is a registered nurse and Director of the national HAI program at the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Healthcare since 2007. In this role, Marilyn leads the national HAI surveillance program, the national hand hygiene program, antimicrobial stewardship, national infection control guidelines, and Standard 3 of the national safety and quality health service standards. Marilyn developed a keen interest in infection prevention and control as Clinical Nurse Consultant for paediatric HIV, developing guidelines and policies for maternal transmission and for children with HIV in hospitals and the community. Her PhD topic included the epidemiology of paediatric HIV in Australia. Marilyn is also a member of the Australian Scientific and Technical Advisory Group (ASTAG), and formally the Chair of the AMR Standing Committee.

Marilyn has co-editored a number of publications on national AMS and HAI surveillance and represented Australia at international meetings, such as APEC and the Western Pacific Regional Office of the World Health Organisation. Marilyn was recently appointed as professor at School of Nursing and Midwifery, Griffith University .

Louise is a microbiologist who is currently responsible for managing the antimicrobial stewardship data applications for Queensland Health. She has come from the laboratory to the AMS data world via a circuitous route including developing an endoscope reprocessing website, teaching in post graduate Microbiology and Infection Prevention & Control programs and a stint as an infection control scientist. Louise has been dedicated to presenting good laboratory data to public health clinicians so that informed decisions are able to be made.

As a member of the Communicable Diseases Branch of Queensland Health, and before that the CHRISP team, she developed the OrgTRx & MedTRx systems that provide data on antimicrobial usage and resistance in Queensland public hospitals. The OrgTrx system is the base for the AURA project’s Australian Passive AMR Surveillance (APAS) System and Louise has been key to the national roll out of this system to enable a more accurate account of resistance trends in Australian hospitals.

Alison Farrington is Research Manager with the Australian Health Services Innovation (AusHSI) team, based at Queensland University of Technology, and manages the national Researching Effective Approaches to Cleaning in Hospitals (REACH) Project, funded by an NHMRC partnership grant.

Alison has a Foundation Certificate in Infection Prevention and Control, is a Registered Nurse, has a Master of Professional Education and Training, and 18 years experience in health and education research and project management.

Dr Jenny Firman is the Principal Medical Adviser in the Office of Health Protection in the Department of Health.

She leads a team that provides medical and scientific advice to assist in the work of the Department in communicable disease control and health emergencies. This includes planning and responding to health emergencies such as floods, bushfires, radiation exposure, critical drug shortages, food contaminations and communicable disease threats and outbreaks. The latter has included the H1N1 pandemic in 2009, H7N9, MERS Coronavirus, and Ebola. During the latter event she was a member of the Infection Prevention and Control Expert Advisory Group developing infection control guidelines for Australian health care settings.

In addition she has been closely involved the development of the National Antimicrobial Resistance Strategy and is a member of the Healthcare Associated Infection Committee of the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health care.

Fiona has worked in the area of infection prevention for 16 years.  For the past 5 years she has been employed in the Clinical Nurse Consultant role for Vascular Access Surveillance at the Princess Alexandra Hospital.

Fiona has an interest in quality in healthcare and improving patient outcomes, in particular minimising adverse events associated with peripheral intravenous cannulation.

Sylvia is the Infection Control Consultant at Western Diagnostic Pathology.  She is a Registered Nurse, and holds a Bachelor of Nursing  and Graduate Certificate in Infection Control.  Since 2006 she has been a CICP.

With more than 30 years in the health care industry, she has served in both clinical and management positions in nursing and infection control.

Since joining Western Diagnostic Pathology in 1994 Sylvia has been involved in establishing and developing the Infection Control Consultancy, which provides all aspects of infection control across the continuum of care.

Her areas of interest are the infection control aspects of risk management, aged, office-based and community care.

Lyn Gilbert is an infectious diseases physician with particular clinical and research interests in the ethics and politics of communicable diseases of public health importance, including healthcare-associated infections.

Fiona is a registered nurse and currently a PhD candidate with the National Centre for Antimicrobial Stewardship. Her research is focused on the role of the nurse in antimicrobial stewardship in Australian health settings. Fiona has extensive experience in health care in nursing, education, quality improvement, and project management.

For the past five years, she has worked with the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Healthcare, within the National Healthcare Associated Infection Prevention Program at the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care (the Commission), where she has been primarily responsible for projects related to antimicrobial stewardship.

Prior to that she was a consultant to the program, advising on implementation strategies for the National Infection Prevention and Control Guidelines. Currently Fiona is also an adjunct lecturer with Griffith University.

Sue is currently working as a Senior Project Officer in the National Healthcare Associated Infection Prevention Program with the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care (ACSQHC). Sue is a member of the Credentialling and Professional Standards Committee of the Australasian College for Infection Prevention and Control (ACIPC) and a life member of the College. Sue has worked for many years in Infection Prevention and Control in the public and private sectors as well as having extensive experience in office practice settings. Sue has provided resources and education for diverse settings in Infection Prevention and Control including primary care and minimally resourced international health care settings.

Dr Lisa Hall is a member of the Centre of Research Excellence in Reducing Healthcare Associated Infection. Lisa is an epidemiologist with a PhD and significant policy experience at statewide and national levels. Prior to joining QUT she worked at the Centre for Healthcare Related Infection Surveillance and Prevention (CHRISP), Queensland Health.

Lisa’s current research focuses on the interface between evidence, policy and implementation to improve the surveillance and prevention of healthcare associated infections. Her work examines not only the effectiveness, but also the cost-effectiveness, feasibility and sustainability of health services.

Sally is a registered nurse and an experienced Infection Control Practitioner with a particular interest in safety and quality in health care. Sally is currently the National Manager for the National Hand Hygiene Initiative (NHHI). Sally has experience in both the public and private health care sectors and also worked as a Senior Clinical Research Manager in the field of Infectious Diseases.

Sally completed her Masters of Public Health through Monash in 2012 is also currently completing her PhD investigating the implementation of the National Safety and Quality Health Service Standards.

Dr Andie Lee is a Staff Specialist in Infectious Diseases and Microbiology at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney.

She completed a Clinical Research Fellowship at the Infection Control Programme at the University of Geneva Hospitals in Switzerland between 2008 and 2010. During this time, she coordinated an international multi-centre interventional study which investigated the relative effectiveness of various preventive measures in reducing methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) rates in surgical wards. She also studied the success of MRSA decolonisation regimens and the emergence of resistance to agents used to eradicate MRSA carriage.

Dr Lee has an ongoing clinical and research interest in the transmission of multi-resistant organisms and prevention of healthcare-associated infections, particularly involving Gram-positive bacteria.

An Infection Control Professional since 1993, Deborough has augmented her experience with formal study and research, completing the APIC Basic Infection Control Course in Chicago in 1995.

Her PhD awarded in 2005 was based on ethnographic research into the influence of clinical culture on infection control practice. Deborough contributes to the profession through membership and service most recently to ACIPC on the Credentialing and Professional Standards Committee and as an Associate Editor of Healthcare Infection.

Associate Professor Caroline Marshall is an infectious diseases physician with the Victorian Infectious Diseases Service at The Royal Melbourne Hospital. Additionally, she works there as Head of the Infection Prevention and Surveillance Service and as one of the Antimicrobial Stewardship Service physicians. She is also Principal Research Fellow in the Department of Medicine at the University of Melbourne and is one of the Chief Investigators at the NH&MRC funded National Centre for Antimicrobial Stewardship based at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity.

RN, MSc Medical Device Decontamination; Grad Dip Education and Training; Cert Mgt Decontamination Reusable Medical Devices (UK); Cert Sterilization and Infection Control; Cert Perioperative Nursing; Cert Operating Suite Management; Cert IV A & W T; MACORN; MACN.

Terry has over 23 years’ experience as an independent Consultant in her own business, STEAM Consulting Pty Ltd. In this capacity, she has conducted training and consultancy reviews of hospital based sterilising services, day procedure centres, dental, podiatry and general office-based practices and performed state-wide audits for various Australian Departments of Health.

She represents the Australasian College for Infection Prevention and Control on the Australian Standards Committee responsible for AS/NZS 4187 Reprocessing Reusable Medical Devices in Health Service Organisations and the sister Standard AS/NZS 4815 applicable to office-based practice. Terry also participates in ISO TC 198 Sterilization of Healthcare Products Working Group 6 – Chemical Indicators and Working Group 12 Information for reprocessing resterilizable medical devices.

Dr Chong Wei Ong obtained his medical degree from the University of Sydney and subsequently completed his specialist training at The Canberra Hospital and Royal Hobart Hospital. He has previously worked as a Clinical Microbiologist and Infectious Diseases Physician at Royal Hobart Hospital, focussing on Antimicrobial Stewardship and Infection Prevention and Control. In 2013, he was a member of the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care (ACSQHC) Multi Resistant Gram-negative Taskforce and was on the writing group for the “Recommendations for the control of Multi-drug resistant Gram-negatives: carbapenem resistant Enterobacteriaceae” published that year. He currently works as a Clinical Microbiologist at ACT Pathology at The Canberra Hospital and is also an Infectious Diseases Physician at both Calvary Public Hospital Bruce and also Canberra Hospital and Health Services. His interests include phenotypic tests for detection of resistance mechanisms in Gram Negative bacteria and serological diagnosis of infectious diseases.

Dr Trisha Peel is an NHMRC Early Career Fellow and an Academic Infectious Diseases and Antimicrobial Stewardship Physician. She was awarded her Doctorate of Philosophy in September 2013 and completed her post-doctoral fellowship in 2014 at the Mayo Clinic, USA.

Her research has focused on improving patient outcomes, including the prevention of infections following surgery and optimisation of antimicrobial use in the healthcare setting. She leads the Surgical Infections Research Group, Department of Infectious Diseases, Monash University and Alfred Health and is the Clinical Lead of the Antimicrobial Stewardship Service at Epworth Healthcare.

Dr Peel have received over $10.2M NHMRC funding. She leads the Tertiary Care Stream of the NHMRC National Centre for Antimicrobial Stewardship (APP1079625) and the ASAP trial (APP1120331) a multicentre randomised controlled trial examining surgical antimicrobial prophylaxis.  She recently completed the ACAISA trial (APP1057736), a cluster randomised controlled trial comparing alcohol-chlorhexidine and alcohol-iodine in arthroplasty.

Kylie Robb is the Infection Control Consultant for the Australian Dental Association NSW Branch. Kylie utilises her 15 years of experience to provide practical onsite infection prevention and control reviews so dentists can be confident their processes are best practice. Kylie has reviewed over 90 dental practices this year.

Kylie has a keen interest in simplifying regulatory and compliance systems and processes for dental practices. Kylie developed a dental practice accreditation pathway that led over 400 practices through accreditation for the first time. Kylie was formally recognised as a 2015 HESTA Primary Health Care ‘Young Leader’ Award finalist for this work. Kylie has a Master of Health Services Management in Clinical Leadership.

Phil has worked in infection prevention and control for over 25 years in a number of different positions including: several roles in infection prevention in major Victorian hospitals, inaugural Operational Director of the VICNISS Coordinating Centre and National Manager of Hand Hygiene Australia. Phil holds a Masters in Clinical Epidemiology, and in 2016 completed a PhD at Queensland University of Technology Centre for Research Excellence on Reducing Healthcare Associated Infections on Evidence Based Recommendations for National Healthcare Associated Infection Surveillance.

Phil is a Board Member of the Australasian College for Infection Prevention and Control and Chair of its Research Committee. He is also a member of the Australian Commission for Safety and Quality in Health Care HAI Advisory Committee and the National Health and Medical Research Council Infection Control Guidelines Advisory Committee.

Phil has presented at both national and international conferences and published over 50 peer reviewed articles.

Professor Ramon Shaban is an internationally respected clinician, educator and researcher. A nurse scientist, infection control practitioner and emergency nurse, Professor Shaban’s expertise emergency care and infection prevention and control is the basis of a highly successful and integrated program of teaching, practice, and research. He is Clinical Chair of Infection Prevention and Control at Gold Coast University Hospital and Health Service and Griffith University and Director of the Griffith Graduate Infection Prevention and Control Programs at Griffith University.
He is an active member of variety of professional groups and committees including the Australian Strategic and Technical Advisory Group on Antimicrobial Resistance, Editor-in-Chief of the Australasian Emergency Nursing Journal, and Editor of the journal Infection, Disease and Health.

Professor Karin Thursky is an Infectious Diseases physician and clinician researcher with extensive experience in the development of antimicrobial stewardship programs and knowledge translation research.

She is the Director of the National Centre for Antimicrobial Stewardship, Clinical Director of the Guidance team within the Victorian Infectious Diseases Services at Royal Melbourne Hospital (RMH), the Deputy Head of Infectious Diseases at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Melbourne, and a member of the antimicrobial stewardship team at the RMH.

Karin is a Professor in the School of Computing and Information Systems and Deputy Director of the Health and Biomedical Informatics Centre at the University of Melbourne.

Her research focuses on text analytics and machine learning for biomedical applications, to enable knowledge extraction from unstructured data as well as to provide clinical decision support. A current active project is related to enabling precision medicine with machine learning.

Karin was previously the Scientific Director for Health and Life Sciences at NICTA. Prior to arriving in Australia from the United States she held research roles at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and Los Alamos National Laboratory, and spent 5 years developing language technology software in two start-up companies.

Dr Deborah Williamson is a Clinical Microbiologist and researcher, and is Deputy Director of the Microbiological Diagnostic Unit Public Health Laboratory (MDU PHL).

Her research interests include the molecular epidemiology and pathogenesis of infections caused by antimicrobial resistant pathogens, and the translation of genomic technologies to questions of public health importance.

Associate Professor Leon Worth is an infectious diseases physician and clinical researcher. His research portfolio encompasses device-related infections, emerging threats, and robust handling of surveillance data. He provides medical lead to infection prevention departments in two major Victorian teaching hospitals. As medical advisor to the VICNISS group, he actively supports healthcare-associated infection surveillance strategies at a state level, and is engaged broadly with national agenda concerning antimicrobial resistance and surveillance of healthcare-associated infections.

Manager – Performance and Outcome Service, the Australian Council on Healthcare Standards.

Dr Zheng is currently leading the Clinical Indicator Program at the Australian Council on Healthcare Standards (ACHS). She has been working in the area of safety and quality improvement in health care since her experience at the Patient Safety Programme (Service Delivery and Safety), World Health Organization HQ Geneva, leading and coordinating international quality/safety projects worldwide. She has also been one of the initiators and core members of the Patient Safety Collaborative of China – the first nation‑wide patient safety initiative launched in 2014, and guided the development and updates of National Patient Safety Goals and Standards.

After qualifying as a medical doctor at the Wuhan University School of Medicine, Dr Zheng completed a PhD in Neurobiology at the University of Houston, Texas. She also completed patient safety training at the Johns Hopkins University and has an MBA from the University of Geneva.