People
Dr Jane Hawkey
Jane is an NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellow in the Department of Infectious Diseases at Monash University, where she co-leads the Translational Microbial Genomics Program. As a computational microbiologist, her research leverages genomics to decode the evolution, resistance mechanisms, and transmission pathways of high-priority bacterial pathogens. She is the lead bioinformatician for the global ESGEM-AMR consortium, which aims to establish international standards for interpreting genotypic antimicrobial resistance across a wide range of bacterial species.
Matthew Parker
PhD Student with the Peleg Laboratory
Matt's PhD aims to examine the role aqueous environments play in hospitals, as an underappreciated reservoir of hospital-acquired infections. He is interested in determining how these bacteria may colonise, spread AMR and infect patients, while being resistant to treatment and traditional disinfection, with a particular focus on Stenotrophomonas maltophilia. He completed a BSc/BBiomedSc(Hons) in 2021, followed by clinical and research work in microbiology. Matt is supervised by Prof. Anton Peleg in the Department of Infectious Diseaes at Monash University.
Claire White
PhD Student
Claire's PhD focuses on the opportunistic pathogen Klebsiella oxytoca, which is understudied cause of drug-resistant hospital-acquired infections. She is investigating virulence factors and mobile elements in this organism. She is co-supervised by Dr Margaret Lam in the Department of Infectious Diseases at Monash University.
Alumni
Dr Hugh Cottingham
PhD Student, 2021-2025
Developed and benchmarked tools for using Oxford Nanopore sequencing in clinical microbiology applications, including rapid pathogen identification.
Rou Xuan Toh
Honours Student, 2025
Developed rules for the core antimicrobial resistance genes in Klebsiella oxytoca for the AMRrules database.
Harini Shanker
Masters Student, 2026
Developed cgMLST scheme for the Klebsiella oxytoca species complex.