Staff
A/Prof. Jodie McVernon (programme leader)
Dr. James McCaw
Prof. John Mathews
Dr. Dora Pearce
Dr. Kirsty Bolton
Dr. Mathew Dafilis
Dr. Nicholas Geard
Ms. Anna Forsythe
Ms. Paula Nathan
Jodie McVernon is a Monash University Medical Graduate with subspecialty training in Paediatrics, Public Health and
Vaccinology. She has extensive expertise in clinical vaccine trials, epidemiologic studies and mathematical modelling of
infectious diseases, gained at the University of Oxford, Health Protection Agency (London) and University of
Melbourne. This interdigitating research focus continues in her present post. Her primary interests are transmission
of influenza and vaccine preventable diseases in populations, and the modifying impacts of demography and public
health interventions.
James McCaw is an ARC Future Fellow, with a background in theoretical physics. He moved into the field of mathematical modelling of
infectious diseases in 2005, having obtained his PhD from the University of Melbourne (2004) on the classification of solutions to periodically
perturbed quantum mechanical systems. His current interests include the study of the within-host dynamics of influenza infection and the use of
historical data sources from
past influenza pandemics to inform pandemic preparedenss plans, and investigation of the role of antiviral agents to control influenza.
You can find more details on his personal webpage.
John is a Professorial Fellow with an eclectic background in epidemiology. He has a keen interest in using
mathematical modelling to understand (unobserved) epidemiological and aetiological processes. Collaborative work,
mostly with data from the 1918 influenza pandemic has led to strong inferences about influenza susceptibility,
transmission and asymptomatic infection. Current interests relate to the importance of influenza in contributing to
all-cause and cardiovascular mortality, and to the importance of low-dose radiation, from CT scans and other sources,
in contributing to cancer-risk, particularly after exposures at an early age.
Dora has a background in spatial epidemiology. She applies her statistical skills to gain insight into spatio-temporal
trends in historical and current data sets of seasonal and pandemic influenza infection and mortality, in Australia and
overseas. She works closely with John Mathews on a project to investigate the relationship between influenza exposure,
vaccination and infection, and their long-term consequences.
Kirsty joined the group in mid 2009 as a research assistant with James, John and Jodie. In 2010 she was successful in attaining a prestigeous
McKenzie Fellowship (2010-2013). She currently uses Monte Carlo Maximum Likelihood (MCMC) techniques to make
inferences on the biological and epidemiological mechanisms responsible for the triple-wave behaviour of the 1918-19 influenza pandemic in the
United Kingdom.
Mathew joined the group in mid 2010 with support from the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute (MCRI). He is investigating how different types of
vaccines and different delviery strategies may drive the evolution of influenza and so modify the epidemiology of disease, particularly in the
pandemic context.
Nic received his PhD in complex systems simulation from the University of
Queensland in 2006, after which he worked with the Science and Engineering of
Natural Systems Group at the University of Southampton (UK). His broad research
interests are in the application of computational simulation models to the study of
complex biological, social and artificial systems. He has recently joined the
Melbourne group (with an adjunct appointment with
Monash University) as part of an ARC Discovery project and will develop simulation models that
combine dynamic demographics and dynamic patterns of immunity to help optimise vaccine
scheduling in diverse populations.
You can find more details on his personal webpage.
Anna joined the Centre for Molecular, Environmental, Genetic and Analytic (MEGA) Epidemiology in June 2010.
She works with John Mathews on an NHMRC funded research project which investigates the effects of low-dose radiation
in children, testing the hypothesis of an increase in cancer risk following CT scan exposure.
Paula Nathan is a research assistant with responsibility for running the Contact Diary study.
Past staff
Dr. Rob Moss
Dr. Paul Pallaghy
Mr. Chris McCaw
Rob is working as a research assistant with James and Jodie on providing updated advice on antiviral agent deployment recommendations
in the context of the 2009 H1N1/v "swine-flu" pandemic. He is investigating the role that rapid point of care tests may play in future waves of the
pandemic and how different severity profiles or characteristics may influence recommendations for strategic antiviral use.
Paul's interest is in historical influenza. He uses Monte Carlo Maximum Likelihood techniques
to fit biologically plausible models of influenza transmission to mortality and morbidity data.
Chris McCaw is a research assistant working on historical influenza research projects under the supervision of Prof John Mathews. He
developed FluWeb as a public resource for the influenza research community.