Dr Dorothy Machalek is a Senior Research Fellow at the Kirby Institute and an Honorary Research Fellow with the Centre for Women’s Infectious Disease at The Royal Women’s Hospital in Melbourne. She holds a Doctorate in epidemiology and a Master of Public Health from the University of New South Wales.
Her research focuses on the development and implementation of novel public health surveillance systems, and the evaluation of vaccination and screening strategies for the prevention of HPV and related diseases.
Since the award of her PhD in 2014, Dr Machalek has led the development and implementation of a Commonwealth Department of Health-funded National HPV Monitoring Program (called IMPACT) that is evaluating the long-term impact of HPV vaccination on HPV infections. This program has provided the basis for well-cited publications on the impact of Australia’s vaccination program. The program methodology underpinned the design of a world-first project to evaluate the impact of one and two-dose HPV vaccine schedules in South Africa funded by NHMRC and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Currently, she also coordinates the implementation of serological surveys to track the spread of SARS-CoV-2 infection in Australia.
Dr Machalek is also leading a number of projects that aim to generate new evidence to improve the control of M. genitalium infection. This includes epidemiological investigations into the association between M. genitalium infection and disease in women and novel surveillance methodologies for monitoring M. genitalium burden and patterns of resistance.