Davidson Hamer, MD is a Professor of Global Health and Medicine at the Boston University Schools of Public Health and Medicine, a faculty member in the National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratory, and an attending physician in infectious diseases and Director of the Travel Clinic at Boston Medical Center.

He is also the current Acting Director of the Boston University Center for Emerging Infectious Disease Research and Policy. Dr. Hamer is an infectious disease specialist and medical epidemiologist with particular interests in emerging diseases, tropical medicine, travel medicine, infection control, and antimicrobial resistance.

Dr. Hamer has been involved in travel medicine for thirty years and from 2014 to 2021, Dr. Hamer served as the principal investigator and, since September 2021, as the Surveillance Lead, of GeoSentinel, a global surveillance network of 70 sites in 29 countries that uses returning travelers, immigrants, and refugees as sentinels of disease emergence and transmission patterns throughout the world.

Patrick Lammie, PhD, is the Director of the Neglected Tropical Diseases Support Center (NTD-SC), a program of The Task Force for Global Health. In this role, Dr. Lammie provides technical guidance and strategic oversight for the Coalition for Operational Research on NTDs (COR-NTD; https://www.cor-ntd.org/), an operational research portfolio managed by NTD-SC on behalf of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, USAID and UKAid. 

Dr. Lammie spent more than 25 years as a senior staff scientist in the Disease Elimination and Control Group in the Division of Parasitic Diseases and Malaria at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) where his research was focused on lymphatic filariasis and integrated serosurveillance.  He continues to support efforts to develop new tools and strategies to monitor and evaluate filariasis and other neglected tropical diseases.

Dr. Lammie has served on the World Health Organization’s NTD Monitoring and Evaluation Working Group, on the Regional Program Review Groups for PAHO, AFRO, SEARO and WPRO and is currently serving as chair of WHO’s NTD Diagnostic and Technical Advisory Group. He also serves as the co-chair for the Strategic Technical Advisory Group on Disease Elimination for PAHO.

Title/Position: Staff Specialist Infectious Diseases Physician and Associate Professor

Organization: The Children’s Hospital at Westmead, and University of Sydney, Australia.

Dr Britton is a paediatrician and infectious diseases physician at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead, and a senior lecturer in child and adolescent health with the University of Sydney. He is an early-mid career clinician researcher with expertise in surveillance of severe childhood infectious disease especially neurological infections. He co-leads the Paediatric Active Enhanced Disease Surveillance (PAEDS) network in which he is lead investigator for surveillance of childhood encephalitis, Acute Flaccid Paralysis and from 2020 COVID-19 in children and the newly described Paediatric Inflammatory Multisystem Syndrome Temporally associated with SARS-COV-2 (PIMS-TS).

RN, MPHTM, CTHISTM

Tonia has an extensive knowledge in travel medicine gained while working at Travelvax Australia for the past 21 years, most recently as the National Operations Manager. Her academic achievements include an MPH & TM, the International Society of Travel Medicine’s Certificate of Travel Health and she was also a contributing author to the ‘The Practical Compendium of Immunisations for International Travel’; Springer 2015. She has been a Fellow of the Faculty of Travel Medicine, Australasian College of Tropical Medicine since 2015. One part of her role has been in devising education modules, standard protocols and operating procedures relating to the practice of travel medicine. She is often called on to present on travel health topics at conferences, including at the annual Sonic Clinical Services national travel medicine conference, as well as co-presenting at the workshop “A practical approach to travel medicine” at a number of Southern Cross Travel Medicine Conferences. Tonia has spent most of 2021 as the resourcing lead for Sonic Clinical Services, recruiting and credentialing nurses needed to work in the COVID vaccination roll-out.

Vincent Cornelisse is a specialist in sexual health medicine and addiction medicine (dual-qualified), and manager of the medical unit at Kirketon Road Centre (KRC) in Kings Cross, Sydney. 

KRC is a walk-in primary health care service in Kings Cross, Sydney, which has been operating since 1987. The clinic provides sexual healthcare, including HIV treatment and prevention, treatment of hepatitis B and C, a needle-and-syringe programme, and an opioid substitution access programme. In addition, we provide general medical care for people from one of our priority populations, including at-risk young people, people who sex work, people who inject drugs, and people experiencing homelessness. Many of our clients are Aboriginal, and we aim to provide culturally-sensitive care. KRC is located on the land of the Gadigal People of the Eroa Nation, and we pay our respects to their elders past, present and emerging. www.theKRC.org

Vincent’s research focuses on sexual health epidemiology, with the aim of improving the understanding of current epidemics of sexually transmitted infections in order to develop more effective interventions.

Vincent is the chairperson of the National HIV Advisory Group for the Australasian Society for HIV, Viral Hepatitis and Sexual Health Medicine (ASHM) Board, and sits on the executive committee of the Chapter of Sexual Health Medicine of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP). He is a member of the RACP’s Drug Policy Working Group and ASHM’s Monkeypox Taskforce.

Vincent is a co-author of the Australian HIV Management Guidelines, the Australian STI Management Guidelines, and the Australian HIV Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) Guidelines.

Dr Richard Franklin PhD FARL FPHAA is Associate Professor Public Health at James Cook University. He teaches into the Masters of Public Health and Master of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. His research interests include the injuries of people in the tropics, leprosy, health systems, envenomation, disasters and workplace health and safety. He has published more than 250 journal articles, book chapters, editorials, and monographs.

He is currently the Honour Treasurer of the Australasia College of Tropical Medicine (ACTM) and board member on Farmsafe Australia and Auschem training. He is a graduate and fellow of the Australian Rural Leadership program.

He is a member of the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) contributor group and recently authored a global study on drowning using the GBD data. He supervises a range of masters and PhD students exploring a diverse range of topics from drowning prevention to leprosy to tourist injuries.

Jo Grey graduated from the University of Queensland Medical School and has been working in almost exclusively in travel and occupational medicine for nearly 15 years.  Her initial interest in things creepy-crawly, tropical and contagious developed whilst serving as the Regimental Medical Officer at 2^nd Health Services Battalion, Gallipoli Barracks, Queensland caring for defence personnel deploying to Timor-Leste, Sudan and Afghanistan.

She completed a Master of Public Health and pursued her passion for travel and tropical medicine, travelling to India in 2013 to complete the International Short Course in Tropical Medicine at the Christian Medical Centre in Vellore, Tamil Nadu and the Diploma in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene at the prestigious London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 2016.  Pre-COVID she often traveled overseas as tour doctor with Captain’s Choice tours, supervising medical students on elective and for humanitarian work.  She has worked in a number of travel medicine clinics, including as Medical Director with TMVC and a busy two years with Dr Deb Mills in Brisbane, prior to an ill-timed relocation to Melbourne in December, 2019.

When COVID arrived in Victoria, she was seconded to the frontline of the COVID-19 response, as Acting Clinical Lead for medical staff in the quarantine hotels and locked-down public housing towers, and at testing and vaccination sites and headed the St Vincent’s Hospital Covid Isolation and Recovery Facility.  For the past year, she has been on sabbatical in the sleepy fishing village of Bridport, Tasmania.

Dr Anwar Hoosen is the medical director of the Travel Clinic North Shore, Auckland since 2004. He has worked with travel clinics for nearly 30 years in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.

Anwar co-founded the ‘Travel Doctor Africa’ group of travel clinics (with Dr Albie De Frey) and is a founding member of the South African Society of Travel Medicine.

He diagnosed the 1st case of plasmodium knowlesi (monkey malaria) in 2010 in a traveller returning to New Zealand.

The Travel Clinic North Shore remained open throughout the pandemic assisting travellers!

Prof Colleen Lau is a clinician and infectious disease epidemiologist at the University of Queensland School of Public Health. Her areas of expertise include emerging infectious diseases, neglected tropical diseases, clinical travel medicine, spatial epidemiology, and digital decision support tools. Professor Lau’s research focuses on answering practical questions in clinical management of infectious diseases and operational questions on improving strategies to solve public health problems.

Professor Peter A Leggat, AM, ADC, MD, PhD, DrPH, is Professor and Co-Director, World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Vector-borne and Neglected Tropical Diseases, James Cook University, Australia.

He is currently President of the Australasian College of Tropical Medicine (ACTM) and Immediate Past Dean of the Faculty of Travel Medicine of the College. He is a Foundation Fellow and Honorary Fellow of the College. A former Fulbright Scholar, he has published more than 500 journal papers, more than 90 chapters and more than 30 books and other monographs. He has also presented more than 400 papers at National and International conferences.

Professor Leggat is an experienced company director and was elected as a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors in 1991. His current Board (Non-Executive Director) appointments include the ACTM (President, 2020-), The Australasian College of Aerospace Medicine (Dean of Education), the International Society of Travel Medicine (President-Elect, 2019-), St John Ambulance Australia, and the World Safety Organization.

Sarah McGuinness, MBBS, PhD, is an infectious diseases physician, educator and researcher based in Melbourne. She has particular interests in travel medicine, tropical medicine, and infection prevention. She currently holds roles as a Consultant Physician in the Department of Infectious Diseases at the Alfred Hospital (Travel Medicine Clinic) and Lecturer in Infectious Disease Epidemiology at the School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine at Monash University. She chairs the International Society of Travel Medicine’s Digital Communications Committee and serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Travel Medicine. She also facilitates an annual Travel Medicine Masterclass in Melbourne alongside Professor Karin Leder and Associate Professor Mike Starr.

I am a Nurse Practitioner with a scope that includes travel medicine and primary care. I am an academic at JCU and UTS, teaching post graduate nurses.

I started working in travel medicine in 2001, and joined ISTM in 2003, this followed with sitting the CTH in 2014, and joining the NPG steering committee in 2017, and being endorsed as a FFTM shortly after. I am passionate about sharing information on travel medicine so that our specialty can one day be recognised on esteemed lists alongside other specialties. I have a love of travel and preventative health care, and am looking forward to exploring more of the destinations in the world once we can get back to doing this.

Dr Harunor Rashid is a senior research officer at the Australian National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance (NCIRS), and a clinical associate professor, Faculty of Medicine and Health, the University of Sydney. He undertook paediatric and tropical medicine training in Bangladesh, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the UK, ultimately receiving, in 2009, Doctor of Medicine (MD) degree from the University of London for his thesis on ‘Epidemiology of respiratory infections associated with Hajj pilgrimage’. He is a Fellow of the Faculty of Travel Medicine, Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons, Glasgow, UK, and acted as its Co-opted International Academic Advisor in 2018-2019. He is also a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, London. Harunor is an active member of the International Society of Travel Medicine (ISTM), and serves on its Research and Awards Committee. He is currently serving as the Honorary Secretary of the Australasian College of Tropical Medicine. Harunor co-leads Mass Gathering Medicine Node of Sydney Institute for Infectious Diseases. He has authored over 130 publications including six book chapters mainly on topics related to the epidemiology of vaccine-preventable diseases among travellers.

Prof. Leanne Robinson is a recognised expert in malaria and lymphatic filariasis epidemiology, intervention trials and implementation research, with a particular focus on working in partnership with local disease control programs to address priority knowledge gaps and generate the critical evidence necessary to reduce the burden of, and ultimately eliminate, malaria and lymphatic filariasis. She leads a highly collaborative, multi-disciplinary and translational research program, with strong links to the Papua New Guinea Institute of Medical Research and National Malaria Control Program. Her collaborative research program includes numerous epidemiological studies, intervention trials, feasibility studies and surveillance programs, with a focus on the safety, effectiveness and acceptability of new tools, the integration of molecular and serological data to guide decision-making and generating evidence to directly inform policy and scale up through an explicit partnership-based and systems strengthening approach.

Kia Ora,

 I am Lisa Scotland, a Travel Nurse Specialist based in Palmerston North New Zealand.

I have a special interest in Women’s Health and Sexual Health and this often coincides with her travel consultations. I am a Director of Worldwise Travellers Health and Vaccination Centre in Palmerston North New Zealand. I have specialised in Travel Medicine for the last 20 years

I attend as many overseas conferences as I can to expand my knowledge furthermore, I sat and passed the Certificate in Travel Medicine Exams at the ISTM conference in 2017 in Barcelona.

I am from Bulls in New Zealand and married to Tim, a dairy veterinarian, we have 3 adult children.

We love to travel and see interesting places. I am a keen cyclist for leisure and have enjoyed exploring many of New Zealand’s cycle trails over recent years.

I am a committee member of the Nurse Professional Group for the ISTM, a Fellow of the ACTM, co-chair of the THAANZ and Chair elect for the New Zealand Society of Travel Medicine

In 2015 I was co-author involved in the writing of the ‘The Practical Compendium of Immunisations for International Travel’ Chapter 10 The Last-Minute Traveller.

Nursing has a pivotal role in Travel Medicine in the teaching, education and providing advice for our travellers. Although challenging in recent times, it is a rewarding career with a diverse scope of practice.

Nga Mihi

With life-experiences in both medicine and travel, Marc Shaw is able to feed his other passions in life – the theatre and fine humour.

A Fellow of the Royal New Zealand College of General Practice, he was a Family Practitioner for 15 years before specialising in travel and tropical medicine. A Fellow of the Faculty of Travel Medicine from Glasgow, he is also a Fellow of the Australasian College of Tropical Medicine and of the Faculty of Travel Medicine and Expedition Medicine from the same College.

In 2008 he was made a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, and was a recipient of the Inaugural Award for Travel Medicine from the Australasian Society of Tropical Medicine.

He has interests in travel, the theatre and in expeditions to remote regions. Currently he is both Medical Director of the Worldwise Travellers Health Centres of New Zealand, and an Adjunct Professor College of Public Health, Medical and Veterinary Sciences, James Cook University, Australia.

He writes poetry, creates sculpture and can definitely tell the difference between a glass of Château d’Yquem and a bottle of gin!

Trish Smith is a Registered Nurse with post graduate qualifications in Midwifery, Education, Child, Adolescent and family Health and Travel Medicine. Her career spans four decades, of which the last 19 years has been working and volunteering overseas, while accompanying her spouse with his career transfers. Locations included  Tinian Island, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands; St Thomas US Virgin Islands; London United Kingdom and Kuala Lumpur Malaysia. This exposed her to both the positive and negative impact of tourism. Trish credits these experiences as prompting her interest in responsible travel and tourism.

Completing the Diploma in Travel Medicine in 2011 at The Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons in Glasgow, Trish was also was admitted as an Associate of the Faculty of Travel Medicine AFTM RCPS (Glasg). An active member of ISTM since 2011, completing the ISTM Certificate in Travel Health™ CTH® examination in 2012.  A member of the Responsible Travel Group council since 2015, she became Chair of the Group in June 2019. A current member of the ISTM Examination Committee since 2016.  On her return to Australia, Trish applied successfully to became a Member of the Faculty of Travel Medicine (MFTM), Australasian College of Tropical Medicine  and is a member of the Standing Committee for Travel Health Nurses of Australia and New Zealand.

Professor Andrew Steer is based in Melbourne, Australia, and is a paediatric infectious diseases physician at the Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne; Director of the Infection and Immunity Theme, and Group Leader of the Tropical Diseases Research Group, at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute; and Professorial Research Fellow in the University of Melbourne Department of Paediatrics.

Professor Steer’s research is focussed on three related areas: neglected tropical diseases, strep A vaccine development, and rheumatic heart disease. Professor Steer is recognised as an international leader in neglected tropical disease research, particularly the control of scabies. He was inaugural Chair of the International Alliance for the Control of Scabies and is the Director of the World Scabies Program and Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Scabies Control. Professor Steer is recognised as an international leader in streptococcal research and vaccine development for Strep A. He is President of the Lancefield International Society for Streptococci and Streptococcal Diseases. He is Co-Chair of the Strep A Vaccine Global Consortium and Co-Director of the Australian Strep A Vaccine Initiative.

Professor Steer is passionate about global child health, and is Co-Chair of Melbourne Children’s Global Health.

Professor Steer has produced over 250 peer-reviewed publications, including 4 articles in the New England Journal of Medicine and 20 in The Lancet family journals, and has attracted over $90 million in research funding. His research has been recognised nationally by the Eureka Prize for Infectious Diseases Research in 2017, fellowship of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences in 2020, and the Jian Zhou Medal for medical research in 2020. His research was recognised internationally in 2020 by the awarding of the Bailey K Ashford Medal from the American Society for Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.

Dr Michael Tong DipB&M Bsc(Hons) BMedSc(Hons) BMed DCH DTM&H FRACGP

Mick Tong is a GP, working in Darwin, Northern Territory, since 2014. In 2016 he joined ISTM and completed the Certificate in Travel Medicine. He is passionate about GPs offering Travel Medicine to their regular patients and is involved in the RACGP Travel Medicine Special Interest Group. 

Dr Gabby Walters is an Associate Professor in Tourism with the University of Queensland’s Business School. She holds significant expertise in market recovery following crises and disastrous events. Her research primarily explores the travellers’ perspective and how crises influence travel planning, risk mitigation behaviour and market sentiment more generally. Gabby has conducted numerous consultancies and projects with tourism destinations from different parts of the world seeking to enhance or revitalise their reputations and regain trust among the tourism market as a result one or many critical events. She has a well-established publication record in the field including a recent book publication titled ‘Image and Reputation Recovery for the Tourism and Hospitality Industry’.

Jeff Wilks, PhD is a psychologist and qualified lawyer specializing in tourism health, safety, and wellbeing. He has led risk management programs for the United Nations, government and industry groups in the Middle East, the UK and the USA, as well as closer to home in Asia Pacific. Jeff is the lead author on six tourism safety books and worked as a professor at several universities. Currently he is a consultant to the Asian Development Bank and serves as an Adjunct Professor at James Cook University.

Claire’s travel medicine career began in 1996 when she took a locum job in a London based travel clinic simply because it sounded interesting, and the hours didn’t include shift work! Little did she know that travel medicine would take over as a major focus in her life. 

Since this time Claire has worked in several specialist travel clinics in the United Kingdom, gaining a Diploma in Travel Health and Medicine along the way. She then became a Specialist Nurse at the National Travel Health Network and Centre (NaTHNaC) in 2002, a position she held for over 10 years. This role allowed her to gain experience working at a national level, setting standards in travel medicine, and supporting other practitioners by providing a telephone advice line. Whilst there she sat the ISTM Certificate in Travel Health® exam and gained an MSc in International and Travel Health.

In 2013, Claire relocated to New Zealand where she worked as a Travel Health Specialist Nurse at Worldwise Travellers Health, Auckland for four years before joining the team at Worldwise Palmerston North. She has been awarded Fellowship of the Faculty of Travel Medicine of the Australasian College of Tropical Medicine and the International Society of Travel Medicine.

Claire is also a Professional Practice Fellow for the post graduate papers run by Otago University in New Zealand.

When not practicing travel medicine, Claire can usually be found with a pair of knitting needles in hand, in front of a sewing machine, or cuddling her chickens.