UQCCR Seminar Series - Operational Research and Decision Support for Infectious Diseases (ODeSI)

Speakers: Prof Colleen Lau, A/Prof Benn Sartorius, Dr Adam Craig, Dr Luis Furuya Kanamori

Bios:

Professor Colleen Lau is an NHMRC Fellow and Professorial Research Fellow. Her areas of expertise include emerging infectious diseases, neglected tropical diseases, and clinical travel medicine. Her range of research interests include infectious disease epidemiology, spatial epidemiology and disease mapping, infectious disease surveillance and elimination, vaccinations, travel health, environmental health, and digital decision support tools, with research projects focused on answering practical questions in clinical management of infectious diseases and operational questions on improving strategies to solve public health problems. She is the current president of the Australasian College of Tropical Medicine, and Co-Chair of the Scientific Program Committee for the Congress of the International Society of Travel Medicine.

Associate Professor Benn Sartorius is a principal fellow in UQ’s HERA ODeSI program. His primary research revolves around the spatial-temporal modelling of infectious disease burden and its determinants, focusing on AMR, HIV, malaria, and other priority diseases at both local and global scales. His research interests are increasingly shifting towards infectious disease challenges in Australia and the Pacific, particularly in relation to climate and environmental change. He holds honorary and affiliate roles at the University of Oxford and the University of Washington, respectively, and is a member of the Scientific Council for the Global Burden of Disease Project and the WHO Reference Group on Health Statistics.

Dr. Adam Craig is an infectious disease epidemiologist and global health system researcher. He has more than 20 years of experience in public health, having worked within Australian, Asian and Pacific health systems, and with global health authorities. His research explores the use of new technology to support health systems’ function, health policy reform, and integration of novel approaches to infectious disease surveillance. Adam serves as a senior epidemiology and health security advisor to the Australia-Indonesia Health Security Partnership and contributes to the Asia Pacific Observatory on Health Systems and Policies.

Dr Luis Furuya Kanamori is a medically qualified clinical epidemiologist and UQ Amplify Fellow. He is Theme Leader for travel medicine in the UQ-ODeSI program, and Director of Research of the Clinical Research & Evidence Synthesis at Travel Medicine Alliance, the leading travel medicine group in Australia with a network of >30 clinics. He chairs the Research Committee of the International Society of Travel Medicine.