Rachael McGuire
Education Nurse Coordinator, MVEC

Rachael is an accredited Nurse Immuniser and experienced paediatric Registered Nurse. She has a strong interest in the immunisation of special risk groups, including those with immunosuppression, as well as vaccine safety. She is passionate about immunisation education and is currently working towards a Graduate Certificate in Clinical Education.

Julia Smith 
Immunisation Fellow, The Royal Children’s Hospital 

Julia is a paediatric registrar in her penultimate year of training and is the current Immunisation Fellow at the Royal Children’s Hospital. Julia’s interests include immunisation safety and she is currently undertaking research in this area through SAEFVIC. Her other interests include clinical education and global health.

Dr Daryl Cheng
Medical Lead, Melbourne Vaccine Education Centre

Dr Daryl Cheng is a consultant paediatrician and clinical informatician with a special interest in immunisation and travel medicine, based at The Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH) and Monash Health. He also has clinical research and educational appointments at SAEFVIC & MVEC, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute and the Department of Paediatrics, University of Melbourne.

HIs keen interests in health informatics and healthcare systems are fostered through roles with the Melbourne Children’s Centre for Health Analytics and the RCH Strategy, Quality & Improvement Team.

A/Prof Nigel Crawford
Director, Melbourne Vaccine Education Centre and SAEFVIC

A/Prof Crawford is a consultant paediatrician and vaccinologist. He is also the Director of SAEFVIC based at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI), Head of Immunisation Services at The Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH), Chair of the Victorian Specialist Immunisation Services (VicSIS). In 2021, A/Prof Crawford was appointed the Chair of the Australian Therapeutic Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI). He is an expert in the vaccination of special risk groups, a member of the ATAGI COVID-19 Working Group Executive, Chair of ATAGI Subgroup #3 (Vaccine Safety), Chair of Vaccine Safety Committee (B Part of It NT Study), Member of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) COVID-19 vaccine Expert Advisory Group (EAG) of the Department Health Canberra, and Member of the Victorian Department of Health COVID-19 vaccine Expert Advisory Group (EAG).

Prof Jim Buttery
Group Leader, Health Informatics, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute

Prof Buttery is a paediatric infectious diseases physician and vaccinologist. He is the inaugural Professor of Child Health Informatics at the University of Melbourne. He is Head of Health Informatics, Epidemiology and Signal Detection at SAEFVIC (MCRI) and Chief Clinical Research Information Officer and Infectious Diseases Physician at The Royal Children’s Hospital. Prof Buttery also serves as a member of the Australian Medical Services Advisory Committee, member of the TGA (Therapeutic Goods Administration) Advisory Committee on Vaccines, member of the Centre for Epidemic Preparedness and Innovation, SPEAC meta-DSMB COVID vaccines, and member of DSMB, COVID vaccine candidate, Serum Institute of India.

A/Prof Nigel Crawford
Director, Melbourne Vaccine Education Centre and SAEFVIC

A/Prof Crawford is a consultant paediatrician and vaccinologist. He is also the Director of SAEFVIC based at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI), Head of Immunisation Services at The Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH), Chair of the Victorian Specialist Immunisation Services (VicSIS). In 2021, A/Prof Crawford was appointed the Chair of the Australian Therapeutic Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI). He is an expert in the vaccination of special risk groups, a member of the ATAGI COVID-19 Working Group Executive, Chair of ATAGI Subgroup #3 (Vaccine Safety), Chair of Vaccine Safety Committee (B Part of It NT Study), Member of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) COVID-19 vaccine Expert Advisory Group (EAG) of the Department Health Canberra, and Member of the Victorian Department of Health COVID-19 vaccine Expert Advisory Group (EAG).

A/Prof Michael Murray AM
President, National Ageing Research Institute (NARI)
A/Prof Murray is the President of the Board of the National Ageing Research Institute (NARI). He has a broad range of management, clinical and clinical teaching experience in the area of aged care.

A/Prof Murray is the medical director of Continuing Care and head of Geriatric Medicine at Austin Health, Associate Professor at Melbourne University and Adjunct Associate Professor Australian Centre for Evidence Based Aged Care, La Trobe University, and formerly the University of Notre Dame. He holds a number of board and committee positions with a variety of government, health and educational institutions and has held the position of Continence Foundation of Australia National President since 2004.

As a geriatrician, A/Prof Murray was a lead in the Victorian Aged Care Response Centre, which brought together federal and state agencies to tackle the COVID-19 crisis in Victorian residential aged care homes.

A/Prof Sheena Sullivan
Senior Epidemiologist, Peter Doherty Institute

A/Prof Sheena Sullivan holds a PhD in Epidemiology from the University of California, Los Angeles.  Sheena was appointed in 2011 as the inaugural epidemiologist for the World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza. She works with sentinel surveillance programs in Australia to estimate vaccine effectiveness and safety, and to understand the validity of the methods used to conduct these studies. She also works closely with national and regional partners including the WHO and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the US to improve influenza surveillance. She holds adjunct appointments at the University of Melbourne and the University of California, Los Angeles. She is also a proxy member of the National Influenza Surveillance Committee.

Dr Angela Berkhout

Paediatric Infectious Diseases Specialist, Microbiology Department, The Royal Children’s Hospital

Dr Angie Berkhout is a Paediatric Infectious Diseases Specialist currently working in the Microbiology Department at the Royal Children’s Hospital. She is a PhD candidate with the University of Queensland and is a MCRI Clinical Research Fellow and has been working with MVEC over the last 6 months.

Dr Daryl Cheng
MBBS, MPH, FRACP Medical Lead, Melbourne Vaccine Education Centre

Dr Cheng is a general paediatrician who works at The Royal Children’s Hospital and Monash Children’s Hospital. He is a Senior Research Fellow at Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. He has special interests in immunisation, education and health informatics.

A/Prof Nicholas Cox
Clinical Associate Professor, University of Melbourne, Director Cardiology at Western Health, Victoria, Australia

Associate Professor Nicholas Cox is an interventional cardiologist with an interest in infarct angioplasty and cardiogenic shock. Nicholas was an early advocate for the use of radial access for coronary intervention and has published in this field. He has performed a very high number of coronary interventions in over 15 years of practice as an interventional cardiologist. A/Prof Cox consults in all aspects of general cardiology, including the diagnosis and management of patients presenting with coronary disease, heart attack and chest pain. He currently consults in Richmond, Glen Waverley and Sunshine.

Nicholas is a Director of the Heart Foundation Advisory Board and on the Epworth Hospital Cardiac Sciences Clinical Institute Committee. He is the Director of Cardiology for Western Health (Sunshine and Footscray Hospitals) where he manages the largest acute infarct angioplasty service in the state of Victoria.

Nicholas trained at Melbourne University, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital Sydney, and The Brigham and Women’s’ Hospital, Harvard Medical School.

Dr Bo Remenyi 
Paediatric Cardiologist, Royal Darwin Hospital

Dr Bo Remenyi is a paediatric cardiologist, PhD scholar and a former scientific advisor for the World Heart Federation on rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease. She is the 2018 Australian of the Year for the Northern Territory. Dr Remenyi received her medical degree from the University of Queensland and currently works as a paediatric cardiologist at the Royal Darwin Hospital and services many remote Indigenous communities. She also undertakes humanitarian work with Rotary in resource-poor countries in our region. Both as a clinician and as a researcher, Dr Remenyi’s interests lie in prevention and early detection of rheumatic heart disease.

Dr Amanda Buttery BAppSci MSc PhD
Manager, Clinical Evidence, Heart Foundation      

Amanda leads the development of the National Heart Foundation’s clinical agenda and manages strategic clinical projects and the development of evidenced based position statements, policies and guidelines. She has 25 years of international health care experience and has an MSc and PhD in Gerontology from King’s College London. Her practice and research in health service delivery, evaluation and national audits has spanned the UK, Germany and Australia. Amanda publishes and presents regularly at conferences on heart health, ageing, long-term conditions and health policy.

A/Prof Nigel Crawford
Director, Surveillance of Adverse Events Following Vaccination In the Community (SAEFVIC), Victoria, Australia
Chair, Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI)

Associate Professor Crawford is a vaccinologist and consultant paediatrician with a strong track record in vaccine safety research. His main research activities are in the fields of vaccine safety and surveillance, COVID-19 in families and children, special risk group’s immunisation, vaccine preventable diseases epidemiology including emerging infections (RSV and invasive Group A streptococcus (iGAS)) and immunisation, and public health policy development. He is the Director of SAEFVIC (Murdoch Children’s Research Institute) and Head of Immunisation Services at The Royal Children’s Hospital. He is currently a senior medical advisor to the Victorian Department Health COVID-19 vaccine and is Chair of the Victorian Specialist Immunisation services (VicSIS). Most recently on 1^st July 2021, he was appointed the new Chair of ATAGI and is also on the COVID-19 ATAGI executive and chair of Subgroup#3 which includes vaccine safety, monitoring, evaluation, communication and confidence.

Dr Daryl Cheng
MBBS, MPH, FRACP Medical Lead, Melbourne Vaccine Education Centre

Dr Cheng is a general paediatrician who works at The Royal Children’s Hospital and Monash Children’s Hospital. He is a Senior Research Fellow at Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. He has special interests in immunisation, education and health informatics.

Mel Addison
Immunisation Nurse, Surveillance of Adverse Events Following Vaccination In the Community (SAEFVIC), Victoria, Australia

Mel is an accredited Nurse Immuniser and experienced paediatric Nurse Consultant in Dermatology.  She has a Graduate Diploma in Public Health. Her current position as a Research Nurse with SAEFVIC (MCRI) incorporates her strong interest in paediatrics and vaccine safety. She is also passionate about immunisation education. Mel has worked as a casual Nurse Immuniser with a local council for 10 years.

Adele Harris
Immunisation Nurse, Surveillance of Adverse Events Following Vaccination In the Community (SAEFVIC), Victoria, Australia

Adele is an accredited nurse immuniser and a research nurse at SAEFVIC. Her interests include vaccine safety and surveillance, immunisation research and education, and vaccine allergy.

Dr Sally Gordon
Victorian Specialist Immunisation Services (VicSIS) Manager, COVID-19 Vaccination Program, Department of Health, Victoria

Dr Sally Gordon is the manager of the Victorian Specialist Immunisation Services (VicSIS) of the Victorian Department of Health COVID-19 Vaccine Program. She has been working in the COVID-19 response team throughout the pandemic. Sally is a paediatric registrar by training and is combining a career in clinical medicine and public health to advance health equity.

Professor Jim Buttery
Medical Advisor, Melbourne Vaccine Education Centre      

Prof Buttery is a paediatric infectious diseases physician and vaccinologist. He is the inaugural Professor of Child Health Informatics at the University of Melbourne. He is Head of Health Informatics, Epidemiology and Signal detection at SAEFVIC (MCRI) and Chief Clinical Research Information Officer & Infectious Diseases Physician at The Royal Children’s Hospital. Prof Buttery also serves as a member of the Strategic Priority Group of WHO Global Vaccine Safety Initiative, the Australian Medical Services Advisory Committee, and the TGA Advisory Committee on Vaccines.

A/Prof Nigel Crawford
Director, Surveillance of Adverse Events Following Vaccination In the Community (SAEFVIC), Victoria, Australia  

Associate Professor Crawford is a vaccinologist and consultant paediatrician, Director of SAEFVIC (Murdoch Children’s Research Institute) and Head of Immunisation Services at The Royal Children’s Hospital. He is an expert in the vaccination of special risk groups (e.g. immunosuppressed patients), a member of ATAGI and the co-lead of AEFI-CAN.

Dr Daryl Cheng
MBBS, MPH, FRACP Medical Advisor, Melbourne Vaccine Education Centre

Dr Cheng is a general paediatrician who works at The Royal Children’s Hospital and Monash Children’s Hospital. He is a Senior Research Fellow at Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. He has special interests in immunisation, education and health informatics.

Professor Jim Buttery
Head of Health Informatics, Epidemiology and Signal Detection, SAEFVIC (Murdoch Children’s Research Institute)    

Prof Jim Buttery is a paediatric infectious diseases physician and vaccinologist. He is the inaugural Professor of Child Health Informatics at the University of Melbourne. He is Head of Health Informatics, Epidemiology and Signal detection at SAEFVIC (MCRI) and Chief Clinical Research Information Officer & Infectious Diseases Physician at The Royal Children’s Hospital. Prof Buttery also serves as a member of the Strategic Priority Group of WHO Global Vaccine Safety Initiative, the Australian Medical Services Advisory Committee, and the TGA Advisory Committee on Vaccines.

Professor Paul Monagle
Professor of Paediatrics, University of Melbourne 

Prof Paul Monagle is a past chair of the paediatric/perinatal Scientific Subcommittee of ISTH; leader ACCP /ASH antithrombotic guidelines in children for almost 2 decades; member of PODIUM, PEACE initiatives driving research in complex coagulopathies of childhood, and a key player in the Einstein Junior studies of rivaroxaban. Co-author of multiple textbooks; 40 chapters in major international textbooks; over 300 publications, with over 10000 citations.

Paul has long term interests in reference ranges and normative data, epidemiology of thrombosis in children, paediatric stroke, age related changes in anticoagulant use and monitoring and anticoagulant clinical trials.  Over the last 12 months he has been actively involved in research related to SarsCoV-2 and clotting.

Dr Daryl Cheng
MBBS, MPH, FRACP Medical Advisor, Melbourne Vaccine Education Centre

Dr Cheng is a general paediatrician who works at The Royal Children’s Hospital and Monash Children’s Hospital. He is a Senior Research Fellow at Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. He has special interests in immunisation, education and health informatics.

Professor Ian Barr
Deputy Director, WHO Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza, Melbourne, Australia

Professor Ian Barr is Deputy Director of the World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza. Ian has had over 35 years’ experience in biological research and development in academic institutions and at CSL Limited on various topics such as vaccine development, mucosal immunology, adjuvants, cancer therapeutics, immune system development and diagnostics. Ian joined the Centre in 2000 and has served as Deputy Director since 2005. He is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at Federation University and holds an honorary position at the University of Melbourne.

Professor Michael Gold
Professor, Adelaide Medical School, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, Adelaide, Australia       

Professor Michael Gold is a paediatric ​allergy and immunology specialist and senior lecturer in paediatrics at the University of Adelaide, South Australia. His research and clinical interests ​focus on the areas of childhood food allergy and vaccine safety. In 2010, he was the first Australian appointed to the World Health ​Organization (WHO) Global Advisory Committee for Vaccine Safety. He has been an expert vaccine advisor to the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) since 2006. He is a member of the Australasian Society of Clinical Immunology (ASCIA) and the medical board of Allergy Anaphylaxis Australia

Professor Paul Heath
Professor of Paediatric Infectious Diseases, St George’s University of London & St George’s University Hospitals NHS Trust, London

Paul Heath is a Professor and Honorary Consultant in Paediatric Infectious Diseases at St George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and St George’s, University of London, where he co-leads the Paediatric Infectious Diseases Research Group and is the Director of the Vaccine Institute. His training in paediatrics and infectious diseases was at the Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne, Australia, the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford and St George’s Hospital, London. His particular research interests are in the epidemiology of vaccine preventable diseases, in clinical vaccine trials, particularly in at-risk groups and in perinatal infections, and he has over 300 publications in these areas. He coordinates a European neonatal infection surveillance network (neonIN: https://www.neonin.org.uk) and the UK Paediatric Vaccine Group (UKPVG), and other recent work includes national surveillance on neonatal meningitis, neonatal GBS and Listeria infections, maternal immunisation trials, studies of different vaccine schedules in preterm infants and COVID-19 vaccine trials (Phase I-III). He sits on national UK committees concerned with meningitis, Group B streptococcus prevention, immunisation policies in children and COVID-19 vaccine trial delivery. He is Chair of the Research Committee of the European Society of Paediatric Infectious Diseases, Section Editor of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Journal (maternal & neonatal), Clinical Lead for Children’s research for South London and a member of the WHO GBS Surveillance Technical Working Group.

Dr Daryl Cheng
MBBS, MPH, FRACP Medical Advisor, Melbourne Vaccine Education Centre

Dr Cheng is a general paediatrician who works at The Royal Children’s Hospital and Monash Children’s Hospital. He is a Senior Research Fellow at Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. He has special interests in immunisation, education and health informatics.

Professor Benjamin Cowie
Medical epidemiologist, Communicable Disease Epidemiology and Surveillance, DHHS Victoria

Prof Benjamin Cowie is an infectious diseases physician and epidemiologist, holding appointments with the Victorian Infectious Diseases Service (VIDS) at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and the Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory (VIDRL) at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity. He is a medical epidemiologist with Communicable Disease Epidemiology and Surveillance at the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services, and is an Honorary Principal Fellow in the Department of Medicine at the University of Melbourne. He serves on a range of communicable disease, clinical and public health committees at state, national and international levels.

A/Prof Melissa Stockwell
Chief of Division of Child and Adolescent Health, Director of Center for Children’s Digital Health Research, Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Population and Family Health, New York, USA

A/Prof Stockwell is Chief of the Divisions of Child and Adolescent Health and an Associate professor of Pediatrics (Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons) and Population and Family Health (Mailman School of Public Health). She is the Medical Director of the New York Presbyterian Hospital Immunization Registry, Co-Director of the Columbia University Primary Care Clinician Research Fellowship in Community Health, Co-Chair of the Columbia University Irving Medical Center COVID-19 Vaccine Committee and co-PI of Columbia’s US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Clinical Immunization Safety Assessment (CISA) site, and a New York based paediatrician. She serves on the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s Immunization Improvement Team. Her research focuses on translational interventions to improve vaccinations with an emphasis on healthy technology and health literacy in order to promote vaccination and surveillance of vaccine-preventable diseases and adverse events.

Associate Professor Nigel Crawford
Director of Melbourne Vaccine Education Centre

Associate Professor Crawford is a vaccinologist and consultant paediatrician, Director of SAEFVIC (Murdoch Children’s Research Institute) and Head of Immunisation Services at The Royal Children’s Hospital. He is an expert in the vaccination of special risk groups (e.g. immunosuppressed patients), a member of ATAGI and the co-lead of AEFI-CAN.

Dr Daryl Cheng
MBBS, MPH, FRACP Medical Advisor, Melbourne Vaccine Education Centre

Dr Cheng is a general paediatrician who works at The Royal Children’s Hospital and Monash Children’s Hospital. He is a Senior Research Fellow at Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. He has special interests in immunisation, education and health informatics.

Professor Katie Flanagan
Head of Infectious Diseases, Launceston General Hospital 

Prof Katie is Head of Infectious Diseases at Launceston General Hospital and is affiliated with the University of Tasmania, Monash University and RMIT where she is involved in a broad range of research projects, with her main interests being in vaccinology and infectious diseases immunology. She has led a number of vaccine immunology trials and serves as a member of ATAGI.

Professor Jim Buttery
Medical Advisor, Melbourne Vaccine Education Centre

Prof Buttery is a paediatric infectious diseases physician and vaccinologist. He is the inaugural Professor of Child Health Informatics at the University of Melbourne. He is Head of Health Informatics, Epidemiology and Signal detection at SAEFVIC (MCRI) and Chief Clinical Research Information Officer & Infectious Diseases Physician at The Royal Children’s Hospital. Prof Buttery also serves as a member of the Strategic Priority Group of WHO Global Vaccine Safety Initiative, the Australian Medical Services Advisory Committee, and the TGA Advisory Committee on Vaccines.

Dr Annaliese van Diemen
Deputy Chief Health Officer, Communicable Diseases, DHHS Victoria

Dr van Diemen has experience across both public health and clinical medicine, and holds post graduate qualifications in public health and paediatrics. She has worked in hospital, public health and primary care settings in both Victoria and Western Australia. Her key interests are in antimicrobial resistance, health systems and vaccine preventable diseases. She is a fellow of the Australian Faculty of Public Health Medicine and the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners.

Professor Benjamin Cowie
Medical epidemiologist, Communicable Disease Epidemiology and Surveillance, DHHS Victoria

Prof Benjamin Cowie is an infectious diseases physician and epidemiologist, holding appointments with the Victorian Infectious Diseases Service (VIDS) at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and the Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory (VIDRL) at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity. He is a medical epidemiologist with Communicable Disease Epidemiology and Surveillance at the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services, and is an Honorary Principal Fellow in the Department of Medicine at the University of Melbourne. He serves on a range of communicable disease, clinical and public health committees at state, national and international levels.