Zoonoses 2024

Professor Paul Kelly is a public health physician and epidemiologist with more than 30 years’ research experience. He has worked around the world in health system development and infectious disease epidemiology.
Paul was one of the leads in developing the FluCAN project – a national influenza surveillance system used by hospitals to track patients who are hospitalised with influenza. This work helps to determine the effectiveness of the yearly influenza vaccine.

Dr Cookson has worked in various operational and policy roles in the department since 2006, most recently as Deputy Chief Veterinary Officer where she had a strategic focus on emergency animal disease preparedness in northern Australia and strengthening engagement within the Indo-Pacific region.
Dr Cookson is Australia’s Delegate to the World Organisation for Animal Health.

Professor Edward Holmes is a world-leading authority on viral evolution whose work has transformed his field. He has revealed the fundamental processes of microbial evolution, determined the origin and evolution of major human pathogens including influenza, dengue and the AIDS virus, and shown how genetic and epidemiological data can be combined to radically improve our understanding of disease evolution. Edward’s work has enabled more accurate assessments of what types of viruses, and from which animal species, are most likely to emerge in human populations, and how they will evolve in response to our attempts to control them.

Shana Ahmed is a Project Officer in the Wildlife Disease Surveillance team at Wildlife Health Australia. After completing postgraduate studies in Conservation Biology at Macquarie University she has worked in a range of fields including eco-tourism, bush regeneration, environmental education, and wildlife rescue and rehabilitation. Shana is interested in wildlife health, welfare, and rehabilitation in the context of One Health and enjoys working in a multi-stakeholder environment.
She will be speaking on: Talking Bats: A Public Health Communication Guide.

Belinda Linnegar is a PhD candidate at Griffith University, interested in the interspecies transmission dynamics of zoonotic pathogens. Her current research investigates the role of domestic animals as bridging hosts for emerging zoonoses.
She will be speaking on: The bridge between wildlife and humans: the ecological dynamics driving Hendra virus transmission from bats to horses.

Megan Staples is the Supervising Scientist of the Queensland Health Leptospirosis Reference Laboratory, and Head of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Leptospirosis for the Western Pacific Region. Megan’s interests lie in the design and implementation of enhanced diagnostic and surveillance capabilities for Leptospira spp. including application of genomics.