Meet the Speakers

(Subject to change)

Andrew Lee
Andrew Lee is a Professor of Public Health in the School of Medicine and Population Health at University of Sheffield. Alongside his academic role, Andrew is the Regional Deputy Director for Health Protection with UKHSA Yorkshire and the Humber and the editor-in-chief of the Royal Society journal, Public Health.

Vicki Parris
Vicki works as a Consultant in Infectious Diseases & Acute Medicine at London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust. Alongside her NHS career she works part of the year with humanitarian organisations, and has an interest in outbreaks. She has worked in Sierra Leone during the West Africa Ebola outbreak, in Bangladesh during a diphtheria outbreak, in Armenia with XDR-TB patients, and in Tigray, Ethiopia, in 2021 and 2023 providing medical care to people displaced by conflict. She has been an infectious diseases advisor in the Manson Unit, the public health department of Médecins Sans Frontières. Vicki trained in the North East, undertook the Diploma of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene in Liverpool, and holds an MSc in Public Health for Development from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. She is an examiner for the Diploma of Tropical Medicine, and sits on the Faculty Advisory Board for the Faculty of Remote, Rural and Humanitarian Healthcare at the Royal Society of Surgeons of Edinburgh.

Shamez Ladhani
Dr Shamez Ladhani is a paediatric infectious diseases specialist at St. George’s Hospital, Professor of paediatric infectious diseases and vaccinology at St. George’s University of London and consultant epidemiologist at UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), where he is the clinical lead for a number of national vaccine preventable infections.

Dipti Patel 
Dr Dipti Patel is a consultant in occupational medicine and in travel medicine. She is Director of the National Travel Health Network and Centre (NaTHNaC), and the Chief Medical Officer at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). She is also an honorary lecturer in Population Health, Health Services Research and Primary Care within the School of Health Sciences at Manchester University.

She is a member of the UK Advisory Committee on Malaria Prevention, the Travel Subcommittee of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, and the WHO International Travel and Health Guideline Development Group.

Dipti is an associate editor for Travel Medicine and Infectious Diseases, New Microbes and New Infections, and co-editor of the ABC of Occupational and Environmental Medicine
Previous roles include being a Non-Executive Director at the Health Protection Agency, the Director of Clinical Services at the Medical Advisory Service for Traveller’s Abroad, and Consultant in Occupational Medicine at the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).

James Meiring
James is a Senior Clinical Lecturer in Salmonella Epidemiology and Vaccinology at the University of Liverpool and is based full-time at the Malawi Liverpool Wellcome Trust Research Programme in Malawi. He is also an Honorary Consultant in Infectious diseases at Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Trust. His research interest is in the epidemiology of enteric fever, febrile disease and antimicrobial resistance with a focus on Africa, along with clinical vaccine trials and understanding the non-specific effects of vaccines.

Mark Garvey
Mark has worked in the field of Infection Control for over 9 years. Mark is a Consultant Clinical Scientist in Microbiology and is currently the Deputy Director of Infection Prevention and Control for the Infection Prevention and Control Service at University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust (UHB). A strategic management position within Infection Control working with the Trusts operational leads to help deliver the Infection Control service at UHB. Mark is also the Director of the Hospital Infection Research Laboratory, with the main function to investigate hospital infection, providing practical advice to Health service professionals and industry throughout the UK. Mark has more than 40 publications, including in leading journals infection control journals like the Journal of Hospital Infection and Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology. Mark’s current research interests include water microbiology focusing on Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Mycobacterium chimaera; general Infection Prevention and Control issues from MRSA to Carbapenemase Producing Enterobacteriaceae.

Titia Kortbeek
Titia Kortbeek is a clinical microbiologist and recently retired from their role at the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and Environment and am specialist in public health microbiology and parasitology.