Congratulations to our August 2019 PhD graduates

From: Kirby Institute

The Kirby Institute would like to congratulate our PhD graduates, Dr Steve Badman and Dr Sasiwimol Ubolyam.

The two Kirby Institute alumnus were awarded their PhDs at the UNSW Medicine graduation ceremony on Wednesday 28 August 2019.

Steve Badman completed his thesis on “The molecular diagnosis of sexually transmissible infections at the point of care in Papua New Guinea and remote Australia.” Steve was based in Brisbane and spent years working with point-of-care diagnostic technology in many challenging environments. His supervisors were Professor Basil Donovan from our Sexual Health Program, Professor Rebecca Guy from our Surveillance Evaluation and Research Program and Professor Andrew Vallely from our Public Health Interventions Research Group.

Sasiwimol Ubolyam’s thesis was titled “Assessment of possible diagnostic and prognostic markers of Tuberculosis infection.” Sasi is currently using her learnings to help with efficient screening of people who are incarcerated as they enter prisons in Thailand as a way of improving their care. She was initially supervised by the late Professor David Cooper AC, inaugural director of the Kirby Institute; Dr Mee Ling Munier from our Immunovirology and Pathogenesis Program; Professor Jintanat Ananworanich from the Amsterdam Institute for Global Health and Development/University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands; and Associate Professor Stephen Kerr from Chulalongkorn University, HIV-NAT (HIV Netherlands Australia Thailand Research Collaboration) and Kirby Institute. After Professor Cooper’s passing, Professor Anthony Kelleher, from the Immunovirology and Pathogenesis Program and the Kirby Institute’s Director, took over as her primary supervisor.

We are proud of our latest graduates, whose achievements and expertise through their studies will contribute important knowledge to improve the health of people across the globe. We wish them all the very best in their future research careers.