Associate Professor Iain Duggin
Interim Institute Director, Australian Institute for Microbiology and Infection (AIMI), UTS
Associate Professor Iain Duggin leads the Microbial Morphology and Development (MMD) research theme at the Australian Institute for Microbiology and Infection (AIMI) at UTS. Iain’s research aims to understand cell division and shapeshifting in model archaea and bacteria, especially during changes in environmental conditions and develop ways to address the growing problems of climate change and infectious disease.
Distinguished Professor Steve Djordjevic
Infectious Diseases Group Leader
Professor Steven Djordjevic’s research focuses on bacterial pathogen evolution and emerging lineages. His team analyses genomic data to understand lateral gene transfer and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) from a One Health perspective. They also use proteomics to identify novel vaccine antigens. The group studies bacterial molecules involved in adherence, colonisation, and invasion of eukaryotic cells, with a special interest in protein processing and multifunctionality in pathogenesis.
Associate Professor Louise Cole
Director and Facility Manager of the Microbial Imaging Facility (MIF)
Associate Professor Cole has three decades of experience working with microscope methods that facilitate research with impact. She is passionate about training the next generation of imaging scientists and co-supervises Honours and PhD students. The MIF is an open-access core facility that provides advanced microscopy and image analysis platforms, expert training and support, and advice on specimen preparation for microbiological, biological, and biomedical samples.
Associate Professor Cindy Gunwan
UTS Chancellor’s Research Fellow
Associate Professor Cindy Gunawan leads the Biofunctional Nanomaterials ResearchGroup theme at the Australian Institute for Microbiology and Infection (AIMI) at UTS. The research team focuses on multi- targeting antimicrobials, to understand how they work and in turn, how pathogens develop resistance to the complex mechanisms. With the rapid rise of antibiotic resistance, advanced antimicrobials, such as nanoparticles, have been used as alternative technologies to fight infections.
Dr Piklu Roy Chowdhury
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Dr Piklu Roy Chowdhury (nee: Piklu Bhattacharya) is a senior research associate theme at the Australian Institute for Microbiology and Infection (AIMI) at UTS. Expert in both clinical and molecular microbiology, she tackles complicated problems in public health epidemiology and the emergence of various drug-resistant pathogens using multi-omics approaches. Her research is primarily aimed at generating a comprehensive understanding of infection mechanisms and host responses, with the overarching objective of developing diagnostic and preventative tools.
Dr Amy Bottomley
Imaging Scientist, Microbial Imaging Facility (MIF)
Dr Amy Bottomley, in her role within the MIF, contributes microscopy expertise to facilitate cutting-edge biological and biomedical research applications for all researchers at UTS wishing to use these technologies. She provides hands-on training and ongoing support across advanced optical imaging platforms within the facility, covering experimental design, sample preparation, image acquisition, and image analysis. Her main areas of focus are imaging of microbes and super-resolution microscopy. Amy can co-supervise Honours and PhD students.
Dr Bill Söderström
ARC Future Fellow and Senior Lecturer
Dr Bill Söderström has an extensive expertise in super-resolution microscopy and infection models. Bill is the Theme lead for the Imaging Microbes in Human Health, Disease & Death theme, where his two main foci are to improve infection models (both in-vitro and mouse) with the goal of developing mRNA vaccines for urinary tract infections, and to develop forensic microbiology for an Australian context, particularly improving time since death estimations based on the post-mortem microbiome.
Dr Mehrad Hamidian
Senior Lecturer
Dr Mehrad Hamidian is specialised in microbiology and genomics. His research focuses on studying antibiotic resistance and genomic evolution of the opportunistic pathogen Acinetobacter baumannii, which has recently been placed as number 1 in the list of World Health Organization for development of antibiotic research. He is particularly interested in studying clonality as well as the role of mobile genetic elements (e.g., plasmids insertion sequences, transposons, integrons and genomic islands) in development and spread of antibiotic resistance in this important superbug.
Dr Daniel Mediati
Chancellor’s Research Fellow & Lecturer
Dr Daniel Mediati is a Junior Group Leader within the themes of microbial development and RNA therapeutics at the Australian Institute for Microbiology and Infection (AIMI) at UTS. His team aims to discover new microbial mechanisms for therapeutic and biotechnological applications.
Dr Gustavo Espinoza
Research Associate, ARC DECRA Fellow
Dr Gustavo Espinoza leads the Single Cell Transcriptomics in Bacteria Lab theme at the Australian Institute for Microbiology and Infection (AIMI) at UTS. His laboratory uses cutting-edge techniques in molecular biology to study how infectious bacteria are transported from the environment to the host. His current research is focused on the host-impact of bacteria transported in novel transmission vectors.
Dr Parisa Noorian
Research Fellow
Dr Parisa Noorian is a research fellow theme at the Australian Institute for Microbiology and Infection (AIMI) at UTS. Her research focuses on prevention and treatment of urinary tract infections. Her current projects include a multicentre clinical trial on catheter associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI) in people with spinal cord injury (SCI) and a multi-institute project on the development of mRNA vaccines for recurrent UTIs.
Dr Veronica Jarocki
Research Fellow
Dr Veronica Jarocki is a CRC SAAFE Foundational Postdoctoral Fellow at the Australian Institute for Microbiology and Infection (AIMI) at UTS. Her research focuses on genomic surveillance of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) across human, animal, and environmental systems. Her work applies a One Health approach to understand AMR dissemination, pathogen evolution, develop vaccines, and inform public health and agricultural interventions. She can supervise PhD and Honours students.
Dr Tim Williams
Senior Research Assistant
Dr Tim Williams has extensive experience in environmental microbiology, especially microbial metabolism and physiology. Tim combines culture-independent and culture-dependent methods to investigate unusual and novel microorganisms from diverse habitats. Culture-independent methods include genomic analysis, metagenomics, and metaproteomics. Culture-dependent methods include the cultivation of bacteria and archaea in the laboratory, using different growth conditions.
Dr Dalong Hu
Bioinformatics Engineer
Dr Dalong Hu specialises in microbiology, epidemiology and bioinformatics for clinical pathogens detection, infectious diseases diagnosis/tracing/prevention and intestinal bacteria with their effect on health. He’s working on mRNA medicine design algorithm using AI. His highlighted works include revealing the origin of the 7th cholera pandemic and prognostic factors in elderly COVID-19 patients.
Dr Claire Rennie
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Dr Claire Rennie is early-career researcher specialising in the field of neuro-nanomedicine at the Australian Institute for Microbiology and Infection (AIMI) at UTS. Her current research focuses on the pre-clinical evaluation of unique protein nanocages that have been engineered for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, primarily Alzheimer’s Disease.
Dr Hannah Brown
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Dr Hannah Brown is a postdoctoral researcher in Associate Professor Iain Duggin’s group, where she also completed her honours and doctoral degrees. Hannah’s research centres around the evolution of cytoskeletons across the tree of life. She investigates the functions of cytoskeletal proteins in diverse species of archaea, including salt-loving Haloarchaea and Asgard archaea, the closest living ancestors of Eukaryotes.
Dr Ethan Wyrsch
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Dr. Ethan Wyrsch is a post-doctoral research fellow in the field of genomic microbial epidemiology. Working in the lab of Distinguished Professor Steve Djordjevic, his research is centred on understanding the transmission of antibiotic resistance in pathogenic bacteria. Using his expertise in phylogenomic analysis and genome sequence annotation, Dr. Wyrsch’s work also explores the themes of One Health, identifying cases of microbe transfer between human, animal, and environmental reservoirs.
Our PhD students
Xiaorong Liu
Xiaorong Liu is a PhD student specialising in microbiology, nanomaterial engineering, and cellular biology. The research focuses on understanding the evolutionary adaptation, genetic mutations, and defense mechanisms of Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilms, both as single-species and mixed-species, under long-term exposure to nanosilver (NAg).
Matthew Pittorino
Matthew Pittorino is a PhD student in the Microbial Morphology and Development team supervised by Associate Professor Iain Duggin. Matthew specialises in molecular biology and super resolution microscopy, using these approaches to characterise the synergism between cell wall remodelling proteins during bacterial cell division.
Saleh Almusabi
Saleh Almusabi is a PhD student specialising in microbiology and genomic epidemiology. His research focuses on tracing antibiotic resistance genes and mobile genetic elements carried by extraintestinal pathogenic Escherichia coli (ExPEC) in different microbial communities to support the One Health approach for the genomic surveillance of AMR.
Ophelia Phraphone
Ophelia Phraphone is currently completing a PhD project under the supervision of Dr Steven Djordjevic and Dr Veronica Jarocki, in collaboration with SAAFE CRC and Sydney Water. Her work focuses on the genomic surveillance of E. coli in Sydney wastewater treatment plants, aiming to gain insight into the evolution of resistance gene carriage and how the phylogeny of E. coli is affected by different treatment processes.
Amna Zafar
Amna Zafar is specialising in nanoscience and microbiology, with a dedicated focus on antimicrobials. Her ongoing research is to investigate the mechanisms by which nanosilver interacts with and disrupts both single and mixed-species biofilms at molecular level.
Eradah Abusabah
Eradah Abusabah is a PhD student focusing on microbiology and genomics, particularly antibiotic resistance. Her research explores the genomic evolution and resistance mechanisms of Acinetobacter baumannii, a critical bacterium identified by the World Health Organization. With a background in Medical Biotechnology and Microbiology, Eradah is investigating how mobile genetic elements contribute to the spread of antibiotic resistance.
Aleksandra Stanczak
Aleksandra ‘Ola’ Stanczak is currently completing her PhD under the supervision of Prof. Steven Djordjevic and Dr Veronica Jarocki. Her research focuses on the genomic epidemiology of Escherichia coli sourced from dairy cattle across New South Wales. She employs bioinformatic approaches to interrogate complex datasets, aiming to gain insights into the evolution and dissemination of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in agricultural settings and its potential implications for transmission to humans.
Contact us
For general enquiries, please contact AIMI administration: aimi@uts.edu.au