I am a Research Group Leader and Deputy Director of the Centre to Impact AMR at Monash University, Australia. I co-lead the Monash University Department of Infectious Diseases, Infectious Diseases Genomics research stream and hold an Honorary Associate Professor position at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK. I am a Monash University Research Talent Accelerator Fellow 2024, former NHMRC (Australia) Emerging Leadership Fellow and recipient of multiple research funding awards, including from the Australian Research Council and the Gates Foundation. In 2024 and 2025 I was named as a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher, and in 2025 awarded the Australian Society of Microbiology's prestigious Frank Fenner Award.

I use comparative genomics techniques and metabolic modelling to investigate the diversity of baceterial pathogens, with a major focus on the global priority pathogen, Klebsiella pneumoniae. I am particularly interested in diversity of surface antigens (targets for novel anti-Klebsiella vaccines and phage therapies), as well as the features and evolution of closely related groups of K. pneumoniae, called ‘clones,’ that seem to be associated with distinct behaviours and clinical risks (e.g. some are particularly good at becoming drug-resistant while others are particularly virulent).

My team are the developers of Kaptive and Kaptive Web (tools for identification of Klebsiella surface polysaccharide loci in whole genome sequence data), which are used by research and public health labs globally. We also recently developed Bactabolize, a tool for rapid generation of strain-specific metabolic models and growth phenotype predictions from genome assemblies, which we are applying to understand how K. pneumoniae metabolic diversity is associated with ecology and clinical risk.

My team are also major contributors to the KlebNET-GSP project (Klebsiella genomic surveillance platform), which aims to implement accessible and harmonised tools that support global genomic surveillance for K. pneumoniae and closely related species. As part of this work, I coordinate the KlebNET-GSP Epidemiology Consortium, comprising colleagues from around the globe working to build an open source repository of K. pneumoniae genome metadata and a genomically-informed K. pneumoniae clone risk framework.

My prior experience includes 2 ½ years as a Staff Researcher at IBM Research – Australia where I was a founding member of the IBM Research – Australia Genomics Team and later became the Team Lead. My team was interested in exploring the use of computing for clinical and public health genomics. We collaborated with colleagues around the world and contributed to a number of applied and pure research projects, including an evolutionary exploration of drug-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacterium that causes TB.

Before moving to Australia and joining IBM I completed my Bachelor’s and Doctoral degrees at the University of Oxford, UK. During my doctoral degree, I studied the genomic evolution of another important disease-causing bacterium, Streptococcus pneumoniae. I focused on the evolution of penicillin resistance and capsule switching, which is important for vaccine design.