Fiona completed her PhD at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, with Professor Jake Baum in 2015. Her research focused on investigating the way in which Plasmodium parasites move, both into the red blood cell during the process of invasion, and through the mosquito midgut during the process of transmission.

After her PhD, Fiona completed a 4 year post-doctoral position at Imperial College London and Cambridge University with Dr Andrew Blagborough. During this time, her research focus shifted to incorporate a more translational emphasis, with the overall aim of identifying and developing anti-malarial transmission blocking vaccines.

There is currently a huge gap between demand and supply of preventative and control instruments for malaria. Fiona’s key interests involve the discovery of multiple new anti-malarial vaccine antigen candidates, the establishment of new delivery systems, and the design of multiple pre-clinical and clinical studies to assess vaccine effectiveness.