I am a medical epidemiologist and public health physician, graduating in the first cohort of Australia's Field Epidemiology Training Program, the MAE (1991-1993) at ANU. I am also a fellow of the Australasian Faculty of Public Health Medicine.

From 2014-2019 I was Senior Epidemiologist with WHO’s Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN). I have worked closely with many national health departments and field epidemiology training programs, regional training networks such the African Field Epidemiology Network (AFENET), the Eastern Mediterranean Public Health Network (EMPHNET), European Programme for Intervention Epidemiology Training (EPIET), and USA’s CDC; and the global Training Programs in Epidemiology and Public Health Interventions Network (TEPHINET). I have personally delivered trainings in Africa, Europe, Central America, and Australia.

I have been an early responder in a number of public health disasters, including the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami response in Banda Aceh and the 2009 tsunami in Samoa, and post cyclone responses in the Pacific. 

During the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, I chaired the GOARN Steering Committee and was involved in the training and deployment of over 1300 volunteers to the response. In my work with WHO’s Health Emergencies Program’s Acute Event Management Unit (AEMU) I provided strategic planning and management of the field epidemiological aspects of several global events. My work on the Zika response was recognised in the form of a WHO Director General’s Award. In 2018 I was the senior technical lead for the WHO response in the Rohingya refugee camp based in Cox Bazar, Bangladesh, where we responded to simultaneous outbreaks of diphtheria, cholera and other diseases. I have deployed to Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia for Ebola, Ethiopia for a cholera response, involving high-level and field-level coordination with international agencies (UNICEF, Red Cross/Red Crescent, World Food Program, etc), regional institutions (African Union/Africa CDC, European Union/European CDC, ASEAN, Secretariat of the Pacific Community, WHO Regional Offices), many NGOs and national and sub-national governments.