Australia’s trusted immunisation experts
11 September 2025 | NewsThere’s a new vaccine for pneumococcal disease in Australia. Here’s what to knowRead the full article
Parveen Fathima is an infectious diseases epidemiologist with a particular focus on public health and immunisation research. She holds a PhD in Epidemiology and Public Health from the University of Western Australia. Parveen has previously worked in public health research and government positions, including at The Kids Research Institute Australia and the Western Australian Department of Health. She has extensive expertise in leveraging routinely collected data, such as electronic medical records and linked administrative health datasets, for epidemiological research and evaluation. Her work focuses on quantifying the burden and impact of vaccine preventable diseases and assessing vaccine coverage, effectiveness and safety at the population level. Currently, Parveen also holds an academic research appointment at the School of Public Health at the University of Sydney.
Jo Reekie is an epidemiologist and biostatistician with a strong track record working with and developing large cohort studies, utilising data from national health registries and through international collaborations. Her main research interests are understanding the impact and outcomes of infectious diseases, with a focus on HIV, hepatitis and, more recently, SARS-CoV-2. She holds a PhD in Epidemiology from University College London and master’s degree in Statistics and Modelling Science from the University of Strathclyde, Scotland.
Sandrine Stepien is a biostatistician and holds a masters degree in applied biostatistics from the University of Montpellier in France. She started her career in pharmaceutics and worked on various clinical trials in various therapeutic areas. She then moved toward a more academic position at The George Institute for Global Health in Sydney. Her experience in clinical trials and pharmaceutical settings has helped her develop a rigorous approach to processes and a mindset for traceability and reproducibility. Academic research, on the other hand, has increased her capacity to adapt to unexpected challenges. She enjoys making sense of the data she analyses, finding achievements working with researchers, and providing statistical support and robust analysis.
Zoe Croker is an epidemiologist and data analyst. She completed the Master of Philosophy in Applied Epidemiology (MAE) at the Australian National University in 2024 while on placement at NCIRS. She previously worked in international health policy and development doing research and policy development for DFAT-funded health programs, most often in the Pacific and Southeast Asia. Before that, she worked in access to medicines policy and in other domestic health areas in the private sector. Zoe has a master’s degree in international relations from the University of Melbourne, in which she specialised in global health, which included an internship at the World Health Organization Headquarters in Geneva in 2012. Zoe has a strong interest in equity and access to healthcare.
Jiahui Qian is an epidemiologist and data analyst with a specific focus on vaccine-preventable diseases. She was awarded her PhD in epidemiology from UNSW Sydney in 2021 and has since worked as a post-doctoral fellow at the Black Dog Institute, UNSW Sydney and, subsequently, NCIRS as a contingent worker. Her research has been focused on utilising record linkage of health datasets to uncover the epidemiology of infectious diseases and to evaluate vaccine effectiveness. She has actively contributed to a range of research projects, including on herpes zoster, COVID-19 and maternal vaccine effectiveness.
Shayal Prasad joined NCIRS in 2022, initially supporting the COVID-19 Schools Study. Since then, she has contributed to multiple projects within the Clinical Research, PAEDS, Serosurveillance and Population Health teams, including the implementation of a national serosurveillance program for Japanese encephalitis virus and COVID-19 in children. She holds a Bachelor of Health Sciences (Movement Science) and a Master of Public Health from the University of Sydney.
