International Health SIG Committee:
Co-convenor: Dr Mikaela Seymour
Dr Mikaela Seymour is a Public Health Registrar based in North Queensland, with interests in global health, health equity and tropical medicine. She graduated from Griffith University in 2015 with an MD and Bch MedSci, and received a Masters of Public Health and Tropical Medicine at James Cook University. Mikaela was selected for the Rural Medical Education Association (RMEA) Placement to Western Province PNG in 2015 and has continued working in Papua New Guinea since. She has been recognized by the Lowy Institute’s AUS-PNG Network as a Young Leader in the Pacific, attending the Aus-PNG Dialogue in 2017. Since then, she has been published in the Aus-PNG network blog, the Development Policy Blog Crawford Centre and the Lowy Interpreter on Pacific health issues. Dr Seymour has worked as a primary care outreach doctor, run primary care and immunisation programs in Western Province PNG, provided technical assistance to the PNG Defence Force in multiple provinces and spent 2022 seconded to the PNG Institute of Medical Research as a technical advisor, funded by the Australian Regional Immunisation Alliance. She is currently completing her Public Health Fellowship in Townsville.
Dr Chellappah completed her Bachelors of Science with honours and Masters in Clinical Microbiology and worked as a medical diagnostic scientist for several years. As she developed an interest in community health and interventions, she completed a Masters in Public Health, which progressed to a Doctorate in Epidemiology and Biostatistics in relation to cardiovascular health, obesity and nutrition surveillance and interventions. She has worked over 15 years as an Epidemiologist at the Baker Heart Research Institute, VIC, and later another 8 years as a Medical Bacteriologist with Melbourne Pathology, VIC, before joining the ADF in 2017 as an Infectious Disease Researcher. She has managed and been on International Health Survey engagements and skill exchange programs in SE Asia and the Pacific as well as conducted local disease surveillance and research in Australia.
She was seconded as an epidemiologist to the Department of Health National Incidence Room in Canberra during the COVID pandemic in 2021 and continues to work closely with local public health units in QLD in disease surveillance. As an adjunct academic with University of Queensland, she remains focused on her passion for research in multidrug resistant organisms and vector borne diseases. In her PHAA role, all activities and views are her own and does not represent the views or stance of the ADF.
Committee Members: Prof Jaya Dantas (WA), A/Prof Brahm Marjadi (NSW), Dr Tasdik Hasan (VIC), Dr Joanne
Flavel (SA), Dr Mehwish Nisar (QLD), Lily Emerson (VIC), Vaish Pillai (VIC)
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