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).

Margie is a consultant paediatrician at the Royal Childrens Hospital and Clinician Scientist, University of Melbourne, and Murdoch Childrens Research Institute (MCRI). As leader of the Vaccine Uptake Group, MCRI, her research focuses on vaccine confidence and uptake, particularly amongst high risk-groups and in low and middle-income countries, and on effective risk communication. In Australia, she is a member of the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) and chair of the Social Science Advisory Board and a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee, National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance (NCIRS). She is committed to efforts to improve vaccine confidence and uptake in the Asia Pacific Region, particularly Fiji, Tonga, the Philippines and Vietnam, and she works closely with DFAT to provide technical immunisation support for the region. She is Chair, Australian Regional Immunisation Alliance (ARIA) and is on the Australian Expert Technical Assistance Program for Regional COVID-19 Vaccine Access: Policy, Planning and Implementation (AETAP-PPI) Advisory Board. She is on the steering committee for the MCRI COVID Governance Committee and Melbourne Children’s Global Health.

During the pandemic, Margie worked closely with the Commonwealth and Victorian State Governments on the COVID-19 rollout, including work to optimise uptake with priority adult and paediatric populations and co-led the Victoria’s COVID-19 Response: Stronger Together conference with the Victorian Department of Health to reflect on what was achieved, discuss successes and challenges and to shape the future of Victoria’s public health. Margie received the Bob and June Prickett Churchill Fellowship in 2020 to improve vaccine and risk communication to optimise COVID and routine vaccine acceptance and uptake in Australia (taken 2023)

As Director of Clinician Scientist Pathways within the Melbourne Medical School (MMS), she is an associate director of the MACH-Track, founded the MMS Women Clinicians in Academic Leadership (WCAL) group and is passionate about instilling belief and ensuring women reach their leadership potential. Margie works closely with the media, is co-host of the RCH Kids Health Info podcast and is passionate about effective science communication.

Prof Danchin received the Bob and June Prickett Churchill Fellowship in 2020 to improve vaccine and risk communication to optimise COVID and routine vaccine acceptance and uptake in Australia (taken in 2023) is now a member of the the Health and Medicine Panel of the Victorian Selection Committee for the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust.

My aim is to decipher the specific relations between viruses and their variety of hosts in the specific insular environment of New Caledonia. For this purpose, in the past years, I have conducted research to understand the phylodynamic of arbovirus circulation in New Caledonia and the Pacific region. We also identified specific factors at the origin of outbreaks and their importance for dengue virus vector-driven selection. Currently, we are investigating dengue virus evolution in Aedes aegypti driven by Wolbachia-selective pressure in the framework of the World Mosquito Program, to guide the Wolbachia strategy application. In addition, we are deploying research projects linked to the specific populations of New Caledonia and Vanuatu to study their previous exposure to infectious diseases.

Dr Furuya Kanamori is a medically trained clinical epidemiologist, Senior Lecturer and Amplify Fellow at the University of Queensland, School of Public Health. His research focuses on optimisation of vaccination strategies by dose sparing to reduce costs and increase uptake, while maintaining vaccine efficacy and safety; and the implementation of decision support systems for personalised risk assessment.

Prof Kristine Macartney is a paediatrician specialising in infectious diseases and vaccinology. She is the Director of the Australian National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance (NCIRS) and a Professor in the Faculty of Medicine and Health of the University of Sydney. She is the senior editor of the Australian Immunisation Handbook, a member of numerous Australian Government advisory committees, and an expert consultant to the World Health Organisation (WHO). She is the founding Chair of the Australian Regional Immunisation Alliance (ARIA) and a member of the WHO Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety.

Prof Karin Leder is an infectious diseases clinician, epidemiologist and public health researcher.

She is internationally recognised for expertise in transdisciplinary collaborations related to environmental exposures and spread of pathogens across international borders. She is Head of the Infectious Disease Epidemiology Unit and co-leads the Planetary Health Division at the School of Public Health at Monash University.

She is also Director of Travel and Migrant Health Services at Melbourne Health. She has >280 manuscripts and book chapters, and has secured >$45 million in career funding. She serves as an expert advisor to WHO and the Australian Academy of Science.

She has been on the EB of ISTM, is Past-President of the Asia-Pacific Travel Health Society, is Chair of the Research Committee for GeoSentinel, Section Editor for the Travel Medicine chapters of UpToDate, Regional Advisor for the Journal of Travel Medicine, and Editor for two travel medicine textbooks.

Robert Steffen, Professor Emeritus at the University of Zurich was the Head of the Division of Communicable Diseases in the Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Prevention Institute and Director of a World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre for Traveller’s Health. He also is Adjunct Professor at the University of Texas School of Public Health in Houston.

  In the 1970’s he started systematic research in morbidity and mortality of illnesses and accidents related to international travel. Meanwhile he has (co-)authored over 400 publications, among them many relating to vaccination. He was the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Travel Medicine, of the International Journal of Public Health and Section Editor for Clinical Infectious Diseases. In the 27 years of his tenure at the Zurich University Center for Travel Medicine he supervised over 1 million vaccinations as in that travel clinic there were almost 20,000 consultations per year.

Robert Steffen presided the Swiss Federal Commission for Influenza; he was Vice-President both of the Federal Commission on Vaccination and of the Swiss Bioterrorism Committee. The WHO often has invited him to advisory boards, such as during the revision of the International Health Regulations (IHR). During the Ebola outbreaks in West Africa 2014-2016 and 2018-2020 in the DRC he served as Chair of the Ebola Emergency Committee.

Jenny is the lead academic for Travel Medicine Postgraduate Studies and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Primary Health Care and General Practice, University of Otago, Wellington. She teaches and convenes the University’s postgraduate qualifications in Travel Medicine enjoying the stimulation that teaching brings. Her research interests include the travel health needs of long term expatriates and expedition medicine. She also works part time in clinical travel medicine in Wellington.  

Jenny’s background is in general practice. She has worked in many roles and places, including being a full time general practitioner in Wellington for 12 years before specialising in travel medicine. She is medical advisor to New Zealand Land Search and Rescue, has been medical officer on the research vessel Tangaroa (spending nine summers in Antarctica), a season as a volunteer doctor at a high altitude rescue post in Nepal, two months on set in a remote village in Bougainville as film crew doctor and expedition doctor on treks to Kilimanjaro, China and Fiji. Her personal travels have taken her to all continents where her preferred mode of travel is backpacking, cycle touring and hiking.  

Nick is a staff specialist general paediatrician and Associate Professor and Sub-Dean (Postgraduate Research) in the Discipline of Child and Adolescent Health at the University of Sydney.

He holds anNHMRC Career Development Fellowship. He leads the NSW Immunisation Specialist Service and coordinates the Immunisation Adverse Events Clinic at The Children’s Hospital at Westmead.

He is interested in maternal and neonatal immunisation, as well as research into vaccine safety and the genetics of adverse events.