Claire undertook her honours and PhD studies on HIV molecular epidemiology in Australia, South East Asia and the Pacific at the Burnet Institute and Monash University. In her subsequent post-doctoral position as the Laboratory team leader in the Sexual and Reproductive Health Unit at the Papua New Guinea Institute of Medical Research, Claire expanded her research interests to include sexual and reproductive health in rural settings, co-leading formative work informing the introduction and scale up of novel cervical cancer screening technologies programs, and research on point of care diagnostics to improve the health of pregnant women. Returning to Australia, Claire was part of the implementation team for Victoria’s first community-led point of care HIV diagnostic service for gay and men who have sex with men, working with community and regulatory partners to lead the development and implementation of training modules for point of care testing, laboratory and quality control systems.

Claire has spent over three years in Myanmar working in research development, laboratory and health system strengthening and program evaluation. Claire worked with the Myanmar National AIDS Program, US-CDC and WHO to develop the HIV viral load scale up plan, and advised on the development of the National Strategic Plan for viral hepatitis, ensuring community delivered treatment would be supported. Claire was also involved in the inception and implementation of formative studies on the acceptability of pre-exposure prophylaxis in Myanmar and using radio as a medium to improve maternal and child health knowledge.

Claire comes to the School of Rural Health to focus on the development of community, government and industry research partnerships to enhance the school’s responsiveness to the health research needs of communities in rural Australia.