Our members

Dr Mikaela Seymour has worked throughout the Pacific for the last 7 years with specific expertise in the Extended Program of Immunisation (EPI} in Papua New Guinea. The majority of her work has been focused on remote health care where vaccination is key. As lead clinician, Dr Seymour was responsible for the roll out and surveillance of EPI as well as the introduction of the COVID19 vaccination program in Middle and South Fly Western Province. 

Working alongside fantastic PNG health workers, she generated significant demand for the COVID-19 vaccine, helping the province reach the second highest vaccination rates outside the capital. Furthermore, her efforts saw the normal EPI maintained and enhanced during the global pandemic, utilising pandemic opportunities from cold chain investment to increase the childhood and antenatal immunisation coverage in remote villages. 

Dr Seymour has worked as a research medical officer with the malaria and infectious disease institute in Brisbane, with exposure to work on vaccines related to vector borne disease. Mikaela is a medical educator with Rural Medical Education Australia, lecturing students on tropical medicine and vaccine preventable disease. She is also an associate lecturer with University of Queensland and a lecturer with Griffith University supervising medical students.

Sera is an Epidemiologist within the Communicable Disease Control Directorate in the Immunisation team at the Western Australian Department of Health. 

In 2021, Sera was involved in the COVID-19 immunisation program implementation as a Master of Applied Epidemiology scholar, specifically vaccine safety surveillance and reporting. Sera is a member of the Global Vaccine Data Network Rapid Cycle Analysis working group and the Western Australian Vaccine Safety Advisory Committee.

Sera has worked in international development for over 10 years with a focus on the Pacific region. In Tonga and Papua New Guinea, Sera worked with local partners and the Ministry of Health to strengthen medical supply chain management around the country as well as providing training to pharmacy staff. Additionally, Sera also worked in Vanuatu and was involved with utilising existing health data to better inform issues with supply chain management and health resourcing.

Yasmin Mohamed is a registered nurse and public health researcher with eight years’ experience in global health research and international development, predominantly in the Asia-Pacific region. Yasmin is currently employed in the Vaccine Uptake group at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, where she works on improving vaccine confidence and uptake in the Western Pacific region.

She previously worked at Burnet Institute as a Global Health Specialist where she led and supported a range of projects focusing on health systems strengthening, newborn and child health, maternal health, and infectious diseases.

Jane Williams is a public health ethics researcher at the Australian Centre for Health Engagement, Evidence and Values (ACHEEV) at the University of Wollongong. She works on various ethics related aspects of infectious disease, including planning for emergencies and anti-microbial resistance. Dr Williams has worked on how to prioritise vaccination in the event of scarce supplies, and on vaccination strategies and mandates. She is currently working on societal preparedness for infectious disease emergencies.

Dr Williams’s previous work included supporting the development of institutional capacity in southeast Asia and the Pacific. 

Nikki is a Public Health & Health Development Specialist with extensive experience across the Asia and Pacific Regions. Her work builds on over twenty years of clinical, teaching and management roles in paediatric nursing. Through her current role as Senior Technical Lead for the ASHM International Division, she established information and support platforms for over 250 health workers in Papua New Guinea during COVID-19. Adopting an infodemic management approach, Nikki strived to streamline the overabundance of information to health workers by creating pathways for consistent, evidence-based messaging with live debunking of misinformation.

Nikki is passionate about driving advances in international health and universal health access.

Jessica is a gastroenterologist at St Vincent's Hospital Melbourne and Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Medicine, University of Melbourne and Disease Elimination Program, Burnet Institute, where she leads the hepatitis B research group. Jessica completed a PhD in translational immunology of hepatitis C (University of Melbourne) and then completed post-doctoral studies as part of PROLIFICA, the first hepatitis B screen-and-treat program in Africa (NHMRC/ Imperial College London/ MRC The Gambia). Jessica also completed a Masters Science (Epidemiology) and Post-Graduate Diploma Public Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (UK). 

Jessica is regularly invited to appear as a plenary speaker and chair at national and international meetings, has over 60 peer-reviewed publications including invited reviews on birth dose vaccination in Africa and the Asia-Pacific region and is a regular invited panel member for national and international clinical guidelines and technical advisor to the WHO (WPRO).

Padmasiri (Pad) is a Senior Technical Officer in the Global Health team at NCIRS. Pad is a medical graduate with postgraduate qualifications in epidemiology and community medicine. He previously worked at NCIRS before joining the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2008. He worked as a medical officer with WHO in tropical diseases and immunisation for 12 years in South-East Asia and the Western Pacific, including the Solomon Islands where he supported the Ministry of Health and Medical Services (MHMS) in the country-wide rollout of rotavirus vaccines in early 2020.

He has also worked as a public health specialist in Sri Lanka and Botswana, and completed advanced training in public health medicine in Australia. His particular interest is the introduction of new vaccines, including COVID-19 vaccines, in developing countries.

From March to December 2022, Pad was deployed to the Solomon Islands as part of Australia's support for the COVID-19 vaccination rollout in the South East Asia and Pacific regions. As part of this deployment, Pad worked as an immunisation advisor supporting the MHMS in the continued rollout of both COVID-19 vaccines and routine vaccines in varied provinces of the Solomon Islands.

Nevio is a Senior Scientist and Microbiologist at the National Health Laboratory (NHL) in Timor Leste and member of the National Immunization Technical Advisory Group  Timor-Leste (NITAG-TL). In his role at the NHL, Nevio contributes to the testing and surveillance of COVID-19 in the Timor-Leste community. As a member of NITAG-TL , Nevio advises the Ministry of Health on the protection of the Timorese people from vaccine preventable diseases through immunisation.  
 
Nevio is also a PhD student at Menzies School of Health Research studying the serotypes of pneumococcus (Streptococcus pneumoniae) in pneumonia and malnourished children under five in Dili, Timor-Leste.
 

Michelle O’Connor is the Director of ASHM’s International Division. ASHM supports the development of sustainable health workforces globally, particularly in the areas of sexual and reproductive health and blood-borne viruses.  

Michelle holds a PhD in adolescent sexual and reproductive well-being from the University of New South Wales, A Masters Degree in International Public Health from the University of Sydney and a Bachelor with Honours in Psychology from Warwick University (UK). Michelle has close to 20 years of experience working in international development and health for a variety of organisations including not-for-profits, government, the United Nations and academic institutions. Her strengths and experience lie in executive management and strategy, program management, research and strategic information and technical expertise in sexual and reproductive health.

Michelle’s work in relation to immunisation includes providing oversight and technical input into the ASHM Triple Elimination of Mother to Child Transmission of HIV, Syphilis and Hepatitis B in Timor-Leste and Papua New Guinea Project, Hepatitis B Health Workforce Capacity Building in the Pacific and the Covid-19 Infodemic Management for Health Workers in Papua New Guinea Project.

Magdalene (Lena) is a doctor with a background in global health and development, and has held a variety of roles in adult, child and community health throughout the Asia-Pacific region. She has experience across the spectrum of immunisation policy and delivery, from community engagement and education to vaccine deployment and evaluation. She has previously worked in research on novel vaccine schedules for chronic disease prevention and in Covid-19 vaccine delivery in regional and marginalised communities.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic she held roles in both the Victorian and Queensland state pandemic responses, and has extensive experience in outbreak management, disease surveillance and vaccine strategy with a focus on emerging vaccine-preventable diseases and engagement with vulnerable communities. 

Lena is currently undertaking research mapping the impact of the pandemic on influenza vaccination in Queensland children, and working as a Principal Policy Advisor to the Victorian Health Department in climate change and heatwave adaptation. 

Lena has experienced first-hand the impacts of vaccine-preventable disease in vulnerable communities in Australia and the Pacific, and is deeply committed to vaccine access and equity in the region.

Wedyan is a Global Health Technical Officer at NCIRS. She is a graduate of the NSW Public Health Training Program, and holds Bachelor of Pharmacy and Master of International Public Health degrees, and a Certificate in Clinical Epidemiology from the University of Sydney.

Wedyan has worked across the Australian health system in areas including safety and quality, health literacy, epidemiology, data management, policy and evaluation, along with international experience that includes South Sudan with Médecins Sans Frontières and Medair. Wedyan’s interests include health system strengthening, communicable diseases, and emergency preparedness and response in low resource countries with a strong interest in operationalising health program delivery in complex areas. 

Dr Samantha Carlson is an early-career mixed-methods social researcher. Based at Telethon Kids Institute and the University of Western Australia, Samantha leads and designs research that seeks to understand how to improve access to, and understanding of, vaccination. She is a founding member of the Collaboration on Social Science and Immunisation.