Communicable Diseases & Immunisation Conference 2026

Professor Zoe Wainer is the inaugural Director General of the Australian Centre for Disease Control, responsible for establishing and leading Australia’s national public health agency and strengthening the country’s preparedness for future health threats. The Australian CDC provides independent, evidence-based advice on disease prevention, surveillance and response to safeguard the health of Australians.  
Professor Wainer is a values-driven C-suite health leader with experience across government, academia and the private sector. She previously served as Deputy Secretary for Community and Public Health at the Victorian Department of Health and as Chief Medical Officer for Bupa Australia and New Zealand.
A medical doctor with a background in cardiothoracic surgery and a PhD from the University of Melbourne, she has expertise in public health, value-based healthcare and women’s health. Professor Wainer has worked internationally in global health, including public health initiatives in Timor-Leste and surgical programs in Fiji and Tonga.

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Dr Caroline McElnay commenced as Chief Health Officer on 4 August 2025.

Dr McElnay brings more than 20 years' public health experience in New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Dr McElnay has extensive experience responding to a variety of health emergencies, including leading New Zealand's COVID-19 response in her role as Director Public Health for New Zealand from 2017 to 2022.

A former President of the New Zealand College of Public Health Medicine, Dr McElnay is highly regarded in the field with a strong background in communicable diseases, environmental health and epidemiology.

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Dr Lorraine Anderson is the Medical Director at Kimberley Aboriginal Medical Services where her primary role is in clinical governance for the ACCHO sector in the Kimberley region.  Lorraine is proudly linked through her father to the Palawa people of Tasmania.  She gained her primary degree in Medicine at The University of Auckland in New Zealand, followed by post graduate qualifications in Public Health, Child Health, Palliative Medicine and General Practice.  She has also been involved in research, medical education and business development in health (private, public and NGO sectors).  Lorraine is a Fellow of the Royal Australian College of General Practice.  She has been working in Aboriginal health and remote rural practice in the Pilbara, Indian Ocean Territories and now the Kimberley for the past 20 years.  Lorraine sits on several national, state and regional subcommittees within health - with a passion for bringing as much prevention, investigation, diagnosis and treatment to the patient in rural and remote areas.

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Dr Ushma Wadia is a paediatrician and clinical researcher in Perth, Western Australia, focusing on infectious diseases, vaccinology, and respiratory virus surveillance. She is a PhD candidate and Clinical Senior Lecturer at the University of Western Australia. Her PhD focuses on evaluating the effectiveness of RSV immunisation strategies for Australian children.

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Dr Conall Watson is a consultant epidemiologist and joint head of the respiratory virus section of the UK Health Security Agency's Immunisation and Vaccine-Preventable Diseases Division. His work encompasses immunisation programme design, implementation and evaluation, and the surveillance and control of respiratory virus diseases including influenza and RSV. Conall trained in clinical pharmacy and public health in the UK, and was a coinvestigator in the World Health Organization's Ebola ring vaccination trial. He has a PhD from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine on infectious disease dynamics in Melanesia.

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Allen Cheng is Professor of Infectious Diseases at Monash University and Program Director for Medical Specialties at Monash Health.

Professor Anne-Marie Eades is a proud Noongar woman from Western Australia's South West region, a registered nurse and Professor of Nursing at Curtin University. She has dedicated her nursing career to improving health and wellbeing of Aboriginal people and health. From her early career spent working in perioperative settings across both metropolitan Perth and regional WA hospitals, her hands on clinical work inspired her to shift to research, focus on managing chronic disease, improving patient-centred care approaches and addressing health disparities, particularly within Indigenous communities.

Professor Eades is leading a new program of work, “Closing the Vaccine Gap: Understanding and overcoming vaccine use in Aboriginal pregnant mothers, babies and adolescents in Western Australia” which seeks to ensure equitable immunisation coverage for Aboriginal people in Western Australia. Through this program, Professor Eades will provide insights into barriers and facilitators to immunisation in Aboriginal families, translating the research findings into improved health outcomes.

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Dr Gina Samaan, is a prominent field epidemiologist and global health leader currently serving as the Regional Emergency Director for the World Health Organization (WHO) Western Pacific Region. Based in the Philippines, she oversees WHO’s work on preparedness for and response to infectious and other public health hazards across the 38 countries and areas in the region.

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Dr. Fiona Kupe is a leading paediatrician and public health advocate in Papua New Guinea, dedicated to child health and immunisation. She is a prominent frontline children’s doctor who has spearheaded nationwide outreach campaigns to combat deadly, preventable diseases.

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Dr Joshua Hayward is a Research Team Leader in the Retroviral Biology and Antivirals Laboratory at the Burnet Institute. His research sits at the interface of virology and immunology with a particular focus on bat retroviruses, their zoonotic/pandemic relevance, and host antiviral biology.

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Professor Doyle is a clinician researcher and specialist in infectious diseases and public health medicine at Monash University and Alfred Health, and Deputy Director, Disease Elimination Program at Burnet Institute. He has achieved international recognition in clinical trials and cohort studies in blood borne viruses, and leads innovative testing and treatment implementation projects, including community-based recruitment and network studies using treatment as prevention models. He is President of Australasian Society for Infectious Diseases, and President of Hepatitis Australia. He has been appointed by government statutory bodies including Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee and Communicable Diseases Network of Australia, and has been technical advisor to WHO, NIH, TGA, Australian governments.

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Abe Ropitini is an Indigenous man of Ngāti Kahungunu and Ngāti Maniapoto iwi (Aotearoa) and Palawa (Northeastern Tasmania) descent. Raised Aotearoa, his adult life has been in Australia working across health and social services. He is the Executive Director of Population Health at the Victorian Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (VACCHO), the peak body for Aboriginal health and wellbeing in Victoria. Abe is an experienced project manager who has led research and implementation projects across health, aged care, disability, and Aboriginal Social and Emotional Wellbeing. He is a current PhD scholar in medical anthropology at La Trobe University.

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Catherine Hughes AM is the Founder and Executive Director of the Immunisation Foundation of Australia (IFA), which she established in 2016 after losing her infant son Riley to whooping cough at four weeks of age. Driven by the belief that community belongs at the heart of immunisation, she has spent a decade building a consumer voice in Australia's immunisation landscape. Through IFA, Catherine leads national campaigns spanning childhood, maternal, and adult immunisation, including the Light for Riley platform, which contributed to funded maternal pertussis vaccination programs across all Australian states and territories. IFA reaches families through significant social media networks, national media, and on-the-ground presence at parenting expos across the country. Alongside her advocacy, Catherine serves as Consumer Investigator on NHMRC- and MRFF-funded research grants and chairs consumer advisory groups within major national research institutions. She was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in 2022.

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Dr. Nadia Toutounji joined the Centre for Infectious Diseases and Microbiology – Public Health in January 2026 as a Postdoctoral Fellow in Infectious Disease Informatics. She completed her PhD at the University of Sydney in June 2024. Her doctoral research was in experimental particle physics, focusing on the analysis of rare particle decays as part of the Belle II Experiment. Through her research, she has developed experience in visualising complex datasets, statistical analysis and modelling. Since commencing her position at CIDM-PH, Nadia has applied her expertise to phylogenetic analysis, using Bayesian inference and maximum likelihood approaches to investigate the spatiotemporal evolution of viruses. Her interests include studying viral outbreaks through the integration of genomic and epidemiological data. Nadia is passionate about cross-disciplinary research and collaboration, and the potential of these approaches to address public health challenges.

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Richard Brett has over 25 years’ experience of marketing communications, brand strategy and communications agency leadership. His passions including using public relations and social media to lead integrated campaigns, outcome-based measurement and using new technology to drive innovative creativity for brands. Richard is President of Ogilvy PR Asia Pacific, as well as CEO for Ogilvy PR ANZ and Ogilvy Health Australia, leading a team across 14 markets to deliver consumer PR, public affairs, influencer marketing, sustainability, corporate, B2B, investor relations and healthcare. ​

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Apart from his clinical work in treating Infectious Diseases, Sanjaya has spent much of his 30-year career communicating communicable disease information in the local and international media.

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Professor Paul Kelly is an Australian public health physician, epidemiologist and public servant who was the Chief Medical Officer of Australia. Professor Paul Kelly served as the head of Interm of Australian Centre for Disease Control (CDC), helping lay its foundational structure. He is 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.  He has worked around the world, in health system development and infectious disease epidemiology and has over 30 years of research experience in respiratory infectious diseases and has published more than 120 peer-reviewed articles. 

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Dr Monique Ryan is in her second term as the Independent Federal Member for Kooyong, having first won the seat in 2022.    
Before her move to Federal Parliament, Dr Ryan was Director of the Royal Children’s Hospital Neurology Department, Head of the Neuromuscular Research Team at MCRI, and a Professor of Medicine at Melbourne and Monash Universities.   
Dr Ryan is committed to action on climate change, integrity and transparency in government, and the cost-of-living and housing crises. She’s a strong advocate for best practice evidence-based health, mental, dental, and aged care, and for greater support of our education and research sectors.

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