Speakers
Dr Jessica Taylor
Event Essentials
Dr Jessica Taylor is a microbial ecologist based in Singapore. During her time as a research fellow in the Case lab (SCELSE, NTU) she worked on microalgae-bacteria interactions, combining culture-based experimentation with -omics tools with the aim of increasing algal protein and lipid content for sustainable future foods. Jessica’s PhD research (CMSI, UNSW) was on marine sponge holobiont microbial communities, using metagenomics and metatranscriptomics to examine symbiosis, metabolic versatility and responses to environmental variation and stress. Jessica has recently begun working on the influence of nutritional supplementation on gut microbial communities and host health outcomes.
Melinda Ashcroft is a Research Fellow in Infectious Disease Epidemiology (Climate Change) at the University of Queensland, where she investigates how climate-related factors influence the emergence and spread of infectious diseases. Her current work focuses on Nontuberculous Mycobacteria (NTM) and the ways extreme weather events and climate change may be fuelling infections across different settings. Melinda’s background is rooted in microbial genomics and epidemiology. She has previously worked on the sero-epidemiology of Klebsiella species at Monash University, the genomic epidemiology of Neisseria gonorrhoeae at the University of Melbourne, and the molecular genetics of extraintestinal pathogenic Escherichia coli at UQ. Her PhD explored the evolution and function of mobile genetic elements and DNA methyltransferases in these E. coli strains.