Mortarboards and gowns are back on campus, and it was exciting to see so many NCEPH students graduate this month. With scholars from the Master of Public Health, Master of Philosophy (Applied Epidemiology) – also called MAE – and Doctor of Philosophy, these students represent the future of Australian and international health research, applied epidemiology, public health action and policy.

Stephanie Wheeler was among those receiving their MAE, and says the field epidemiology program trained her to listen, be curious, and ask the right questions.

“The MAE equipped me with the surveillance, data management and outbreak response skills, as well as the critical ‘soft skills’ like communication,” says Stephanie.

“I took the epidemiological principles I learned in the MAE classroom, then adaptively applied them in the complex situations as part of my field placements, including a Hendra virus event in Hunter New England, malaria in remote Solomon Islands, and regional-level COVID-19 response with WHO’s Western Pacific Regional Office in the Philippines,” says Stephanie.

Stephanie now works as an Epidemiologist at the University of Newcastle on an Indo-Pacific Centre for Health Security funded project called Field Epidemiology in Action (FEiA). There she works to build sustainable field epidemiology in Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea.

Congratulations to the following graduates, as well as the academic and administrative staff who helped them on their learning journey: