Joanna Kirman

Jo is Director of Health Sciences First Year and Associate Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Otago.

Jo received her PhD from the University of Otago in 1999 and undertook postdoctoral studies at the National Institutes of Health (USA) before returning to New Zealand as an HRC Sir Charles Hercus Health Research Fellow. Jo became the Infectious Diseases Group Leader at the Malaghan Institute of Medical Research in Wellington in 2002 then returned to the University of Otago as an academic in 2012. As well as testing novel vaccination approaches, Jo is studying how the BCG vaccine for tuberculosis enhances innate immune responses in the lung and whether these responses exhibit features of immunological memory.