Dr Melinda Ashcroft

University of Queensland

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.