Background

Stefanie is an epidemiologist and senior research fellow at Burnet Institute. She currently leads the Immunisation and Health Systems Strengthening group, and has secured over A$2.9 million funding since 2022 to support local governments and community partners to implement evidence-based health programs across the Asia-Pacific. Her work focuses on the identification of zero-dose and under-immunised children and co-designing innovative and sustainable solutions to increase vaccine coverage. 

She has experience in managing outbreak responses, routine disease surveillance and disaster preparedness activities across the Asia-Pacific region. She previously worked in Papua New Guinea, where she led the World Health Organisation COVID-19 surveillance team. She also supported Australia's COVID-19 response at the NSW Health Public Health Response Branch, and the 2019 Pacific measles outbreak response at the Fiji Centre for Disease Control.

Her PhD research was undertaken at the Kirby Institute, UNSW, where she investigated the implementation of and adherence to HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), a daily pill taken to prevent contracting HIV. Her research formed part of the submission to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme to enable to the national subsidy of PrEP in Australia, and provided the impetus for the EPIC-NSW study, the largest PrEP trial in the world. 

Key research interests include infectious disease epidemiology, global health, surveillance, and vaccine-preventable diseases.

Stefanie's Google Scholar profile

Qualifications

• 2019: PhD, UNSW, Australia
• 2014: First Class Honours (Clinical Pharmacology), UNSW, Australia
• 2014: Bachelor of Advanced Science (Pharmacology), UNSW, Australia

Appointments

• 2022–present: Victorian Department of Health Human Research Ethics Committee
• 2023–present: Australian Regional Immunisation Alliance Steering Committee
• 2022–present: Adjunct Senior Research Fellow, Department of Epidemiology and Preventative Medicine, School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University

Positions

• 2025: Head, Immunisation and Health Systems Strengthening group, Burnet Institute
• 2022–2024: Senior Research Fellow, Burnet Institute
• 2021: Epidemiologist and Intelligence Advisor, Burnet Institute