We are excited to introduce a distinguished line-up of local and international speakers who are leaders in the field of Q Fever research and management.

International Speakers

Prof Pierre-Edouard Fournier

Prof Chantal Rovers

Chantal Rovers works as an infectious diseases physician and outbreaks of infectious diseases professor at Radboud university medical center in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. From the beginning of the large Q fever outbreak in the Netherlands between 2007 and 2011 she has been treating patients with Q fever and has led many research projects on this topic. She has also participated in several guideline committees, advised the national public health institute about Q fever and authored the Q fever chapters in, among others, Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine and Mandell, Principles and Practices of Infectious Diseases.

Prof Loïc Epelboin

Prof. Loïc Epelboin is a French physician specializing in infectious and tropical diseases, as well as a researcher in the epidemiology of infectious and tropical diseases. He lives and works in French Guiana, a French overseas territory about the size of Portugal, located in the northeast of South America, between Brazil and Suriname, and covered by more than 90% of Amazonian rainforest. He has published on various topics, including zoonoses, arboviral diseases, histoplasmosis in people living with HIV, and attacks by Amazonian wildlife. He is the author of numerous publications on the very specific characteristics of human and animal Q fever in French Guiana and South America. He has also co-authored several comprehensive articles on Q fever in leading French educational reference books.

Dr Dimitrios Frangoulidis

Dr. Dimitrios Frangoulidis is a medical doctor as well as a specialist in clinical microbiology and infectious diseases with 20 years of scientific experience in the field of special pathogens, diagnostics and identification up to BSL 3. His research interest is in epidemiology, pathogenesis and laboratory diagnosis of bacterial zoonoses. Over the past 4 years, he has been able to further refine his expertise in pandemics and public health including wastewater-based epidemiology. So far, he has supervised several basic research projects and has already successfully applied for national and European grants. He is work package leader/PI in the German Q-fever network (Q-GAPS), granted by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research.

Dr Gil Kersh - TBC

Local Speakers

Prof Stephen R. Graves

Stephen R. Graves is a medical microbiologist and Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia (RCPA). He is a former Chair of the RCPA Faculty of Science. Almost 30 years ago he established the Australian Rickettsial Reference Laboratory (ARRL) as a boutique, not-for-profit, microbiology diagnostic and research laboratory, located at University Hospital Geelong, Victoria. He is the Approved Pathology Provider (APP) for this laboratory which specialises in diagnosing infections transmitted by ectoparasites such as ticks, lice, fleas and mites. In Australia these infections are mainly rickettsial and Q Fever (Coxiella burnetii). He was involved in the discovery of Flinders Island Spotted Fever (Rickettsia honei) and has had a new rickettsia, found in the kangaroo tick (Amblyomma triguttatum), named after him (Rickettsia gravesii). He is involved in the development of new vaccines against Q Fever, for use in goats and humans.

Dr Jenny Robson

Dr Jenny Robson (MBBS, FRACP, FRCPA, FACTM) is an infectious diseases physician and microbiologist working at Sullivan Nicolaides Pathology for the past 35 years.  This private clinical pathology laboratory strives to provide state of art diagnostic services to Queensland and Northern NSW, which are at the heart of many of classical zoonoses (especially Q fever) in Australia.

A/Prof Simon Firestone

Simon is an Associate Professor in Veterinary Epidemiology and Public Health in the Melbourne Veterinary School. He teaches epidemiology in the Doctor of Veterinary Medicine, One Health breadth subjects and the Science degree. His research focuses on modelling infectious disease outbreaks, Bayesian diagnostic test validation, zoonoses surveillance, outbreak investigation and control, with projects on COVID-19, Q fever, foot-and-mouth disease, African swine fever, Mycoplasma bovis, foodborne disease, influenzas and arboviruses.

Prof Hayley Newton

Professor Hayley Newton is a cellular microbiologist with a keen interest in understanding the ways in which intracellular bacterial pathogens can manipulate their human host cells. She has worked with a range of bacterial pathogens, but her main research impact has come from studies into the zoonotic pathogen Coxiella burnetii. As a pathogen of both humans and animals, C. burnetii, remains an important example of the need for a one health approach for research into human health and disease.After completing her PhD, studying pathogenesis of Legionella pneumophila at Monash University, Hayley was awarded a NHMRC Training Fellowship to undertake postdoctoral research at Yale University. Here she applied pioneering techniques to genetically manipulate C. burnetii and discovered key virulence factors of this poorly understood human pathogen. This research has led to a significant shift in our understanding of this mysterious intracellular pathogen. Hayley moved to the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Melbourne, in 2013 where she established her independent research program and a substantial teaching portfolio. In 2022, Hayley was recruited to the Infection Program, Department of Microbiology and Biomedicine Discovery Institute, at Monash University.

Prof Ricardo J. Soares Magalhães

Ricardo Soares Magalhães (LMV, MSc, PhD, ECVPH) is a veterinary public health specialist and zoonotic disease epidemiologist whose research focuses on the distribution, control, and biosecurity implications of zoonotic diseases and antimicrobial resistance. He is a Professor at the University of Queensland and Director of the Queensland Alliance for One Health Science at UQ School of Veterinary Science. His work integrates disease surveillance and One Health geospatial analysis frameworks to inform targeted public health and veterinary interventions. In the area of Q fever, Ricardo's research group examines the spatial epidemiology and transmission risk of Coxiella burnetii in both humans and animals across Australia and overseas. His studies have used ecological modelling, geospatial landscape and climate data, and farm-level risk factors to better understand the drivers of Q fever transmission especially at the human-livestock-wildlife interface.

A/Prof Katrina Bosward

Prof Robert Norton

Prof Robert Norton is a Clinical Microbiologist and Professor at James Cook University, Townsville. He is a past Director of Microbiology and Pathology at Townsville University Hospital. He has worked in remote Australian indigenous communities in the Top End of Australia and has a research interest in tropical infectious diseases. 

Dr Robert Horvath

Robert Horvath is an infectious diseases physician at The Prince Charles Hospital (TPCH) in Brisbane, and a Microbiologist at Pathology Queensland. His career spanned NSW, ACT and Queensland (including Torres Strait and Cape York). In 2015 He co-founded the Infective Endocarditis Working Group (IEWG) which evolved into ieQ (infective endocarditis Queensland) in 2018. He co-founded ACE (Australasian Collaboration in Endocarditis) which includes Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Malaysia and is currently the chair. He also is a co-founder of QFIG (Q fever Interest Group) and is currently on its steering committee. He was a convenor of the 2019 and 2024 Endocarditis Symposia, both held in Brisbane. His Clinical and research interests include cardiovascular infections, Q fever, and various viral infections.

Dr Ayesha Salgadu

Ayesha is a postdoctoral research associate in the Melbourne Veterinary School. Her research includes diagnostic test validation studies, disease risk assessments and modelling of infectious diseases in livestock, wildlife and human populations. She is currently the main modeller and analyst in a CSL-funded study investigating potential vaccination requirements for Q fever outbreak scenarios in Australia.

Dr Karren Plain

Dr Tarka Raj Bhatta

Tarka has a BSc in Microbiology and an MSc in Biotechnology from Tribhuvan University, Nepal. He has a joint PhD degree from Deakin University (based at Geelong Centre for Emerging Infectious Diseases (GCEID) now CIIDIR) and University of Copenhagen in Denmark and completed his joint PhD in Jan 2022.Then he moved to Denmark where he was in a postdoctoral position in Department of Veterinary and Animal Sciences at the University of Copenhagen till May 2023.Then he migrated back to Australia and joined ARRL as the postdoctoral Fellow to work on Genomics of Coxiella burnetii using whole genome sequencing. He is also working with the team for the development of human Q fever vaccine. Recently, he has started working to develop metagenomic platform for diagnostic purposes.

Dr Lucinda Taege

Lucinda Taege is an anatomical pathologist and Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists (RCPA) as well as holding a senior lecturer position at the University of Queensland. She works in Brisbane at the Royal Brisbane Hospital and Queensland Children’s Hospital, with special interest in paediatric and perinatal pathology including placental pathology.

Alana Jenkins

Alana Jenkins is a very experienced scientist in both public and private pathology both in Australia and overseas. In recent years she has developed a keen interest in Q fever and its diagnosis and working with clinicians to further this. She is energised by extracurricular projects including syphilis prevalence testing and this project to improve diagnosis of acute Q fever.

Debra Lee

Deb is a Registered Nurse with over 30 years of experience. Deb began her journey into Infection Prevention and Public Health in 2009 during the H1N1 Pandemic and has since completed postgraduate qualifications in both specialties. In 2021, she began working for the Office of Industrial Relations as the Principal Advisor for Occupational Health – biological hazards.
Her work with Workplace Health and Safety Queensland has her providing advice for the Inspectorate and businesses throughout the state.