Joe is an academic colorectal surgeon who is a consultant colorectal and general surgeon at Alfred Health and The Peter McCallum Cancer Centre, as well as a Discovery Partner Research Fellow at Peter Mac. He undertook his basic medical training (MBChB) at the University of Auckland, New Zealand (graduating in 2006), his Master of Surgery at the University of Melbourne (graduating in 2011) and then his PhD at the University of Melbourne and Peter Mac in “Immune Markers to Predict Response and Developing Methods to Enhance Immunotherapy in the Neoadjuvant Treatment of Locally Advanced Rectal Cancer”, graduating in 2018. 

Dr Kong did his general surgical training at a number of hospitals in Melbourne (FRACS 2015) and then Fellowships in Colorectal Surgery at Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane (2018) and at Alfred Health (2019). 

Dr Kong is establishing his translational gastroenterological cancer laboratory, in close collaboration with Professors Alex Boussioutous, Mark Shackleton and Wendy Brown, and will further enhance the Alfred Research Alliance (A+) Precinct’s growing strength in academic gastrointestinal (GI) oncology.  

In addition to his translational/molecular colorectal cancer interests, Dr Kong also has a strong research interest in the development and translation into practice of machine learning (artificial intelligence) and robotics, which will interface well with increasing strength in the A+ precinct in this area, including the groups of Professor Meng Law in Radiology and Professor Patrick Kwan in Neuroscience, and others. In recognition of Dr. Kong’s potential to be a national and international leader in academic surgery, he was awarded the prestigious Foundation for Surgery Research Fellowship from the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (2022-2025).