A/Prof Noleen Bennett is a Senior Infection Prevention and Control Consultant at the VICNISS Coordinating Centre and National Centre for Antimicrobial Stewardship (NCAS), both located at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity.

At VICNISS, Noleen is the State Coordinator of the Aged Care Infection Indicator Program for the 180 Victorian public sector residential aged care services (PSRACS). At NCAS, Noleen is the inaugural Project Officer for the Aged Care National Antimicrobial Prescribing Survey. Noleen obtained her Doctor of Philosophy (‘The development and evaluation of the Victorian hospital acquired infection surveillance program for smaller public acute care hospitals’) in 2011.

A/Prof Leon Worth is an infectious diseases physician with post-graduate training in epidemiology, biostatistics and public health, Associate Professor Leon Worth is an infectious diseases physician and clinical researcher. His research interests include the monitoring and prevention of device-related bloodstream infections, novel interventions and bundle approaches for infection prevention, infection surveillance in aged-care, and emerging trends in infections due to multi-resistant organisms.

He provides medical lead to infection prevention departments in two major teaching hospitals. He actively implements and validates healthcare infection surveillance strategies across Victorian hospitals, and as a national leader in infection prevention, he is engaged in establishing standardised frameworks for equitable reporting of key healthcare associated infections.

Professor Karin Thursky is the Director of the National Centre for Antimicrobial Stewardship, the Deputy Head of Infectious Diseases at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, and the Director of the Guidance Group at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. She leads the implementation stream of the Centre of Research Excellence – National Centre for Infections in Cancer based at Peter Mac. Karin is an infectious diseases physician and clinician-researcher whose research spans paediatric and adult medicine, immunocompromised patients, primary and secondary healthcare, and veterinary antimicrobial stewardship.

She is a national leader and recognised international expert on the design and implementation of antimicrobial stewardship programs, with expertise in the use of information technology for antimicrobial stewardship and more broadly in healthcare. Karin has active roles with the Australian Commission of Safety and Quality in Healthcare as an expert advisor for the Antimicrobial Usage and Resistance in Australia program, and the antimicrobial stewardship advisory group.

Prof Maria Inacio is an epidemiologist with expertise in population health surveillance systems and utilisation of existing data and informatics to enhance these systems. She is the Director of the Registry of Senior Australians (ROSA) at SAHMRI, a Hospital Research Foundation Mid-Career and NHMRC Emerging Leadership 2 Fellow.

ROSA is a SA-based Clinical Quality Registry developed to support the monitoring and evaluation of the quality of ageing and aged care services provided to older Australians. Maria’s work has the goal of identifying good models of care, areas in need of improvement, risk factors for poor health outcomes, and opportunities to improve health and wellbeing of older Australians accessing aged care services.

Dr Janet Sluggett is a Senior Research Fellow at UniSA Allied Health & Human Performance, University of South Australia. She is an Affiliate Post-doctoral Researcher at the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute and an Adjunct Research Fellow at the Centre for Medicine Use and Safety, Monash University.

She is undertaking an NHMRC Early Career Fellowship (2019-22) which focuses on using big data to maximise the benefits and reduce the risks relating to medicines use among older people receiving community and residential aged care services. This involves close collaboration with the Registry of Senior Australians (ROSA) at SAHMRI and aged care provider organisations.