Katrina Roper

I am a Research Fellow (adjunct) in the Research School of Population Health. I was a member of faculty on the Australian Field Epidemiology Training Program for two years from January 2016 to October 2017. I graduated as a field epidemiologist from the program in July 2008, having completed my placement at the Centre for Disease Control in the Northern Territory of Australia where I worked on trachoma eye disease; injury and safety; diabetes; and hepatitis C surveillance.

Prior to joining the ANU staff, I worked for six years with the World Health Organization, three years as a consultant and three as a staff member with the Laboratory Strengthening and Biosafety team based in Lyon, France. In that time, I worked at country level in the Middle East, South East Asia and Africa, supporting countries to implement International Health Regulations (IHR 2005) through laboratory strengthening activities. I deployed three times to Sierra Leone in 2014-2015 as part of the Ebola Viral Disease Outbreak Resposnse, during which time I provided Infection Prevention and Control training to nurses and other health care workers so that they could work safely in Ebola Treatment Units.

Previously, I worked at the Australian Government Department of Health as Coordinator of OzFoodNet and Assistant Director of Vaccine Preventable Diseasese Surveillance; as a Risk Assessor Microbiologist with Food Standards Australia New Zealand and as Scientist at the Therapeutic Goods Administration Laboratories.

In my early academic career, I worked at James Cook University studying the crown-of-thorns starfish for my PhD research project and the viruses that affect aquacultured prawns for a three-year ARC-funded post-doctoral research fellowship.