Meet the Speakers
Dr Esther Robinson
Dr Esther Robinson is head of UKHSA’s national TB unit, a consultant clinical microbiologist and clinical lead for the National Mycobacterial Reference Service. She was previously the Consultant in Public Health Infection for the English Midlands, with broad expertise in clinical and public health infection specialties.
She was instrumental in the implementation of whole-genome sequencing for mycobacteria in the Reference Service and continues to lead on its application and development for clinical and public health use. She co-authored the 2021-6 collaborative TB Action Plan and co-chairs the implementation and oversight group.
Dr Robinson is the mycobacterial theme lead for the NIHR Health Protection Research Unit in collaboration between UKHSA and Imperial College London. She has ongoing research interests in mycobacterial diagnostics and public health, including whole-genome sequencing, TB transmission and non-tuberculous mycobacteria.
Prof Alasdair MacGowan
Professor Alasdair MacGowan is Consultant in Infection Research at North Bristol NHS Trust and Professor of Antimicrobial Therapeutics at the University of Bristol. He has led research groups in the area of antimicrobial chemotherapy for over twenty-five years, and also provides medical input into the National Antibiotic Assay Reference Laboratory at Southmead Hospital.
Professor MacGowan has a research interest in antibacterial pharmacokinetics/dynamics, rapid diagnostics, antimicrobial resistance in the community and also encouraging patient and public involvement in infection research. He currently holds several Programme Grants related to antibacterial drug development.
He is a former President of the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (BSAC), is a member of the BSAC Standing Committee on Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing, and is UK representative on European CDC Expert Committee EUCAST. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (Edinburgh), Royal College of Pathologists, and was a first title bearer of Fellowship of ESCMID.
Dr Andrew Seaton
Andrew Seaton is a Consultant in Infectious diseases and General Medicine in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde. Andrew also leads the NHS GGC Antimicrobial Management and OPAT teams, is Chair of the Scottish Antimicrobial Prescribing Group, and is the President of the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy.
Dr. Beatriz Larru Martinez
Beatriz joined the Infectious Diseases department at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool in 2018 after having completed a Paediatric Infectious Diseases Fellowship and MSCE at Children´s Hospital of Philadelphia in the US. In Nov 2020, she became the Director of Infection Prevention and Control and Infection Control doctor for Alder Hey.
Beatriz’s research interest focuses on the prevention of healthcare- associated infections and antimicrobial resistance in hospitalized neonates and children. Beatriz is currently a member of the Research subcommittee and Wastewater and AMR Special Interest Collaborative (SPARC) of the Healthcare Infection Society (HIS) and holds an honorary appointment at the University of Liverpool.
Dr Deidre Brady
Dr Deirdre Brady has been Consultant Microbiologist Clinical Lead for Infection Prevention and Control at the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital since 2016, an acute teaching hospital in Dublin city centre with a combined ICU/HDU of 44 beds and tertiary services for multiple national clinical programmes. As such her work includes patients admitted acutely from the community with life and limb threatening infection and inpatients from the Mater and elsewhere with healthcare associated infection and complex microbiology. She is current President of the Irish Society of Clinical Microbiologists and a trainer on the Royal College of Physicians in Ireland Higher Specialist Training Scheme in Clinical Microbiology.
Dr Michaela Day
Michaela Day is a Clinical Scientist and is Head of the Opportunistic Pathogens Section, Antimicrobial Resistance and Healthcare Acquired Infections (AMRHAI) for UKHSA.
Dr Stephen Hughes
Stephen is a consultant antimicrobial pharmacist leading the antimicrobial stewardship service at the Chelsea & Westminster NHS Trust. He is a member of the UKCPA Pharmacy Infection Network. Postgraduate education includes an MSc in Pharmacy Research and Practice, non-medical independent prescribing status and MBA.
Stephen has particular interests in antimicrobial stewardship around improving systems and improving treatment options for management of antimicrobial resistant pathogens. He was published extensively on improving antimicrobial prescribing and is completing his PhD presently on this topic.
Bobson Derrick Fofanah
Bobson Derrick Fofanah is a certified anaesthetist and public health officer currently working for the World Health Organization (WHO) in Sierra Leone as an Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) national professional officer, providing guidance and related technical support to the Ministry of Health and Sanitation, and other partner organizations to achieve the strategic objectives of the national IPC programme and Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) programme in Sierra Leone.
Dr Riina Richardson
Dr Richardson is the Clinical Head of Service for the NHS Mycology Reference Centre Manchester (MRCM) and a member of the Infectious Diseases team. She is an internationally recognised expert, senior researcher, educator and clinician in the field of fungal infectious diseases. She is an academic clinician
who has published over 200 peer-reviewed articles and books or book chapters in the field of medical microbiology, medical mycology, mucosal immunology, infectious diseases and oral medicine, and has an h-index of 53.
Dr Rautemaa-Richardson has special expertise in the diagnosis and management of a spectrum of mycoses, and a special interest in the health impact of environmental mould exposure. She has years of experience on infection prevention and she is the clinical lead for the MRCM Environmental mould monitoring service. She is a member of the Healthcare Infection Society’s Moulds in Healthcare guideline writing group. She is also the Chair of the UK SMI Bacteriology Working Group, a member of the Royal College of Pathologists’ Special Advisory Committee for Medical Microbiology and Virology, and the lead for the ESCMID Academy. She has years of editorial experience and is currently an Editor for the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy and the Royal College of Pathologists’ Pathology Portal.