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Lisa Maher PhD
Head, Professor and NHMRC Senior Research Fellow
Lisa has expertise in research, program development and service delivery with drug users, sex workers, PLHA and other vulnerable groups in North America, South East Asia, Australia and the Pacific. Her research focuses on preventing infectious disease in vulnerable populations. She currently leads a randomised trial of hepatitis B vaccine completion and a prospective observational study of anti-HCV negative people who inject drugs (PWID) and is involved in studies of sex workers in Cambodia and PWID in Canada. She is also responsible for viral hepatitis surveillance, including Australia’s internationally renowned system for monitoring anti-HIV and HCV in PWID, the Australian Needle and Syringe Program Survey (ANSPS).
lmaher@nchecr.unsw.edu.au |
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Libby Topp BSc (Psych) (Hons 1), PhD
Senior Lecturer
Libby Topp has worked in the field of drug and alcohol and blood borne viruses as a researcher and clinician for more than 15 years. Having obtained her PhD at the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre (UNSW) in 1999, she maintains a particular interest in injecting drug use, drug dependence and the prevention of harms associated with illicit drug use. Her current research focuses on blood borne virus surveillance, patterns of comorbid mental health and drug dependence disorders, and interventions to enhance the health and well-being of, and blood borne virus vaccination coverage among, people who inject drugs.
ltopp@nchecr.unsw.edu.au |
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Mihaela Ivan MD MSc FAFPHM
Lecturer
Mihaela Ivan joined VHEPP as part of a new initiative sponsored by the Kirketon Road Centre (KRC) and South Eastern Sydney Local Health District. Mihaela is responsible for developing and conducting research on blood-borne and sexually transmitted infections, injecting drug use, and related prevention and treatment initiatives among vulnerable populations targeted by KRC. She is a public health physician and medical epidemiologist with research interests in prevention and control of communicable diseases, evidence-based public health and health-related attitudes and behaviours. She has worked for more than eleven years in both governmental and academic institutions in Australia, Canada and Europe, mostly in the area of communicable diseases.
mivan@kirby.unsw.edu.au
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Jo Kimber BSc (Psych) (Hons), PhD
NHMRC Post-doctoral Fellow
Jo has worked as a researcher in the field of illicit drug use since 1998 in Australia and the UK. She completed her PhD at the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre at the University of New South Wales and is an honorary Research Fellow at the Centre for Research on Drugs and Health Behaviour at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Her primary interests are the evaluation of harm reduction interventions and injecting drug use life course epidemiology. As part of her fellowship, Jo recently collaborated with researchers from University of Bristol and University of Edinburgh examining mortality, morbidity and long term injecting cessation in the Edinburgh Addiction Cohort. She is currently examining lifetime injecting exposure and injecting cessation in the HITS-c cohort.
jkimber@nchecr.unsw.edu.au
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Peter Higgs PhD, MA, BSW
NHMRC Post-doctoral Fellow
Peter has a background in community development (BSW, UNSW 1988) and has worked with marginalised populations in Melbourne, Sydney, Vietnam, Indonesia and China. He completed his PhD with the Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine at Monash University after an MA in Asian and International Studies at Victoria University (2000) where he studied the footpath economy of street traders in Hanoi. Between 1996 and 2007 he was employed at the Burnet Institute where his field based research was focussed on risk and ethnic Vietnamese heroin users. As part of his post-doctoral research, Peter is working with an international collaboration on understanding protective factors (behavioural, structural and environmental) against hepatitis C transmission among long term injectors.
phiggs@nchecr.unsw.edu.au
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Anna Olsen PhD
NHMRC Post-doctoral Fellow
Anna’s primary interests lie in anthropology, public health, the sociology of health and illness, social inequalities, illicit drug use, hepatitis B & C, sexual health and Indigenous health. As part of her fellowship, she will be conducting qualitative and quantitative research on hepatitis B with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.
aolsen@nchecr.unsw.edu.au
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Will Small PhD
Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Post-doctoral Fellow
Will is a social scientist who conducts ethnographic and qualitative research examining the health of injection drug users. Will recently completed his PhD at the University of British Columbia. His thesis work investigated the influence of different types of injection settings, including public injecting venues and a local supervised injection facility, upon injection-related harm and individual ability to enact risk-reduction strategies. Will has been awarded a Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research to examine the social and environmental contexts of HIV vulnerability among injecting drug users in Vancouver, Canada and Sydney, Australia. His post-doc is supervised by Professor Lisa Maher and Dr Thomas Kerr (British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS). |
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Heidi Coupland BAppSc, MPH, PhD
Project Coordinator
Since 2000 Heidi has been involved in ethnographic research with injecting drug users in South Western Sydney with a focus on hepatitis C, housing and homelessness, barriers to health care for marginalised and culturally diverse groups of IDUs, and participatory action research. In 2008, she completed a PhD exploring Indo-Chinese IDUs’ experiences of hepatitis C prevention and treatment-seeking. Heidi’s current research focus is on exploring the health needs of older opiate users.
HCoupland@nchecr.unsw.edu.au
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Sarah Wright BSc., PGDip Sci., PhD (Physiology)
Associate Lecturer
Sarah has a background in cardiovascular physiology with a PhD in comparative physiology from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. Although having a strong laboratory based background, Sarah is also keenly interested in evidence based public health. She has worked primarily in the health research sector, and undertook her post-doctoral research at the Christchurch School of Medicine, New Zealand. Her current role in the VHEPP team is as Study Coordinator for the Hepatitis Incidence and Transmission Study – community (HITS-c).
sewright@kirby.unsw.edu.au |
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Jenny Iversen BAppSc
IDU/NSP Surveillance Coordinator
Jenny has worked in the harm reduction sector since the early 1990s. She previously worked as a health service manager in south western Sydney, and came to NCHECR from her role as a senior policy analyst at the AIDS/Infectious Diseases Branch, NSW Department of Health. Jenny currently coordinates the Australian NSP Survey (ANSPS) and is a part-time PhD student.
jiversen@nchecr.unsw.edu.au |
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Bethany White BA (Psych), MPH
Study Coordinator
Bethany White is a PhD candidate who has worked in public health research focused on people who inject drugs (PWID) for eight years in both Sydney and Melbourne. Her PhD is looking at Hepatitis C Vaccine Preparedness, based on findings from the Hepatitis C Incidence and Transmission Study - community (HITS-c), a prospective cohort of young PWID in several Sydney neighbourhoods.
bwhite@nchecr.unsw.edu.au
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Anna Bates BA, MPH
Research Assistant
Anna coordinates the HITS-c field team and is a part-time MPH student. Anna has seven years experience in public health research and community work with a particular focus on PWID, marginalised youth and culturally and linguistically diverse populations.
abates@nchecr.unsw.edu.au |
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Jarliene Enriquez
Research Assistant
Jarliene has been a member of the HITS-c field team for three years. Her role is to recruit and screen people who inject drugs for the study and to follow-up participants, including participants in the incident case cohort (HITS-i). Jarliene has been involved in community development work for over five years.
jenriquez@nchecr.unsw.edu.au
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Sammy Chow BSc (Hons)
Research Assistant
Sammy’s role is to facilitate the running of the HITS-c study, both in the field and in the office. He assists with data collection, including fieldwork, screening and interviews and data management and analysis.
schow@kirby.unsw.edu.au |
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Len Liao
Research Assistant
Len is part of the HITS-c field team. Her role is to assist with participant recruitment and field-based data collection. Len is also an artist and designed the HITS-c study logo.
lliao@nchecr.unsw.edu.au
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Anh (Steve) Pham
Research Assistant
Steve is a member of the HITS-c field team. His role is to assist with participant recruitment and field-based data collection. |
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Rachel McCleave BA (Hons), Bed (Prim)
Program Coordinator
Rachel has a background in education and university administration. She is responsible for providing administrative support to the VHEPP team.
rmccleave@nchecr.unsw.edu.au
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Suzanne Polis BN, MPH (research)
PhD Student
Suzanne is a Clinical Nurse Consultant in Hepatology. She has worked as a nurse consultant within the field of Alcohol and other Drugs and HIV/AIDS and is currently a part-time PhD student investigating hepatitis B virus treatment adherence.
Suzanne.polis@sesiahs .health.nsw.gov.au |
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Sowbhagya Somanadhan BSc, MA, MPH
PhD Student
Sowbhagya is a PhD student studying the influence of civil society on HIV/AIDS policies in India with a particular focus on the participation of people living with HIV in HIV-policymaking processes.
s.somanadhan@unsw.edu.au |
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Mofi Islam BSc (Hons), MSc (Med), MPhil
Research Assistant
Mofi is a Research Assistant on the Hepatitis Acceptability and Vaccine Incentive Trial (HAVIT) and a PhD student at UNSW, supported by a UIPA scholarship. As part of his PhD programme he is examining the impact of targeted primary healthcare on the health of people who inject drugs.
m.m.islam@unsw.edu.au |