Valérie Delpech
HIV&AIDS
Theme: Epidemiology, Prevention & Health Promotion
Valérie is a public health physician and currently Director of the Communicable Diseases Branch at NSW Health. She was Head of HIV at Public Health England (UKHSA) from 2005-2021. In close collaboration with researchers, clinicians and civil society, for the past 2 decades, Valerie’s work has focussed on understanding the impact of HIV, other BBVs and STIs and driving policy change to reduce these in diverse communities.
Todd Fernando
Joint Conferences
Theme: First Nations
Todd Fernando is a descendant of the Kalarie peoples of the Wiradjuri nation, and identifies as queer with pronouns he/him. Todd is the Victorian Commissioner for LGBTIQ+ Communities – the second person to fill this ground-breaking position. In this role, Todd provides high-level strategic advice to the Victorian Government on the development of policies, services and programs to meet the needs of LGBTIQ+ communities. Todd is a leading expert in reforming social policy and cultural safety frameworks in public and private sectors across Australia. Todd is recognised as a strategic thought leader, with a commitment to improving outcomes and opportunities for all Australians.
Ya-Chi Ho
HIV&AIDS
Theme: Discovery and Translational Science
Ya-Chi Ho, MD, PhD is an Associate Professor in Microbial Pathogenesis and Medicine at Yale University, an infectious disease physician in Taiwan, and PhD in Cellular and Molecular Medicine at Johns Hopkins University. Using single-cell multiomics, she works on mechanisms of HIV-1 persistence and HIV-1-induced immune dysfunction for a cure.
Helen Marshall
Sexual Health
Theme: Discovery and Translational Science
Professor Marshall AM is a clinician researcher and NHMRC Practitioner Fellow with specialist training in child health, public health and vaccinology. She is Professor and Consultant in Vaccinology in the Adelaide Medical School and the Women’s and Children’s Hospital, South Australia. Her research program is focused on generating real world evidence for immunisation policy. She was awarded the SA Science Award for Excellence in Research for the Public Good, the SA Science Award for Excellence in research collaboration and a Member of the Order of Australia in 2022. She is the 2022 SA Australian of the Year and SA Woman of the Year.
Heather McCormack
Sexual Health
Theme: Social, Political and Cultural Aspects
Heather is a Wiradjuri woman with fifteen years’ experience as a health communications specialist in the sexual health and blood-borne virus sector. She is a Senior Program Manager at the NSW STI Programs Unit and a current PhD candidate exploring strategies to optimise STI and HIV screening in routine care at the Kirby Institute. Heather’s work with the NSW STI Programs Unit brings together digital communications tools and strengths-based health promotion to improve sexual health outcomes for Aboriginal young people and other priority populations.
Joel Palefsky
HIV&AIDS
Theme: Clinical Management and Therapeutics
Joel Palefsky, M.D., C.M., F.R.C.P.(C). Professor of Medicine and Infectious Diseases at the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine. He is an internationally recognized expert on the molecular biology, treatment, pathogenesis and natural history of anogenital human papillomavirus infections, particularly in the setting of HIV infection. He is the director of the world’s first clinic devoted to prevention of anal cancer, the Anal Neoplasia Clinic Research and Education Center at the UCSF Cancer Center. He is the chair of the ANCHOR Study. He is founder and past president of the International Anal Neoplasia Society.
Aadia Rana
HIV&AIDS
Theme: Clinical Management and Therapeutics
Dr. Aadia Rana is an Infectious Diseases physician and Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Alabama-Birmingham Heersink School of Medicine, and co-director of the UAB Center for AIDS Research Ending HIV in Alabama Scientific Working Group. Her research focuses on disparities in access and adherence to medical treatment among people with HIV, outcomes of women with HIV, and implementation of combination biomedical/behavioral interventions to improve treatment adherence.
Kane Race
HIV&AIDS
Theme: Community
Kane Race (BA (Hons), LLB, PhD, FAHA) is Professor of Gender & Cultural Studies at the University of Sydney. He was diagnosed HIV positive in 1996. He began to investigate people’s experiences with HAART at the National Centre in HIV Social Research in 1997. Among his books are Pleasure Consuming Medicine: the queer politics of drugs (2009) and The Gay Science: intimate experiments with the problem of HIV (2018).
Marsha Rosengarten
HIV&AIDS
Theme: Social, Political and Social Aspects
Marsha Rosengarten is Professor of Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London. She is the author of ‘HIV Interventions: Biomedicine and the Traffic in Information and Flesh,’ co-author with Mike Michael of ‘Innovation and Biomedicine: Ethics, Evidence and Expectation in HIV’ and co-editor with Alex Wilkie and Martin Savransky of ‘Speculative Research: The Lure of Possible Futures’
Lisa Vallely
Sexual Health
Theme: Epi, Prevention and Health Promotion
Dr Lisa Vallely has more than 20 years’ experience in low-resource settings as a midwife and public health researcher. She has led community- and facility-based research in Papua New Guinea and is a chief investigator of the WANTAIM trial, a cluster randomised crossover trial among 4600 pregnant women and their newborns in PNG to evaluate antenatal point-of-care STI testing and treatment to improve birth outcomes.
Teodora Wi
Sexual Health
Theme: Clinical Management and Therapeutics
Teodora Elvira Wi, M.D., is currently the Team Lead, Sexually Transmitted Infection in the Department of Global HIV, Hepatitis and STIs Programmes, World Health Organization (WHO), Geneva. In WHO HQ, she leads the development of STI guidelines, address STI antimicrobial resistance, and support countries to accelerate STI control. She has more than 25 years of experience in STI programming working directly in more than 25 countries.