Dr Valentina Costantino

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Research Associate (Modelling)

Biosecurity Program

v.costantino@unsw.edu.au

+61466655866

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Bio:

Dr Costantino is a Research Associate for the Biosecurity Program (BSP) at the Kirby Institute for the faculty of Medicine at UNSW Sydney. She has a Mathematics background and holds an Mphil from School of Population Health, UNSW, Sydney, in modelling of infectious diseases. She completed her PhD candidature in January 2022 at the Kirby Institute, UNSW Sydney. Her work focusses on the use of mathematical modelling for the optimization of pharmaceutical and not pharmaceutical interventions in an outbreak response. She uses mathematical modelling for epidemic forecasting, preparedness and control. She contributed to the policy control for COVID-19 in Australia, with the first study showing the effectiveness of Australia international borders closure on cases control. She investigated the effectiveness of influenza vaccination uptake with immunity waning. Her research field expended on preparedness and response for bioterror attacks, with a particular focus on smallpox and bacillus anthracis release. Her research fields include modelling of infectious diseases, estimation of intervention effectiveness, risks and data analyses, using statistical methods (SPSS, SAS) and analytical methods (Matlab, R).

Qualifications:

Undergraduate degree in Mathematics and Natural Sciences

Master of Philosophy in applied mathematics to public health

PhD in Optimisation of outbreak and pandemic response for emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases

Research

Research activities:

Her research involve building mathematical models to forecast epidemics in different scenarios and to test the effectiveness of available response.

The focus is to inform policy makers for fast and effective outbreak control for infectious diseases.

Her research sought to fill critical gaps in the research to optimise the use of pharmaceutical and no pharmaceutical intervention in a pandemic or outbreak control. She has been involved in the response of many infectious disease outbreak (COVID-19, seasonal influenza, anthrax, smallpox, varicella and others). She contributed to inform policy makers for COVID-19 response in Australia supporting the extension of Australia’s international boarders’ closure to contain the pandemic, and informed pharmaceutical companies and Government for seasonal influence vaccine production and uptake timeline.

This work led to multiple high-impact journal articles and conference presentations. She counts now over 20 publications on high impact journals and 2 international conference presentations.

Teaching & Supervision

I am available to supervise:

Events

Mar 28

The Kirby Institute's presence at CROI: Recap of Kirby’s important contributions

Mar 07

International Women's Day – Dismantling barriers for a gender equal future

Feb 14

Heather McCormack - Laugh the shame away: Take Blaktion and strengths-based approaches to Aboriginal sexual health

Publications

Journal articles

Nguyen P-Y; Ajisegiri WS; Costantino V; Chughtai AA; MacIntyre CR, 2021, 'Reemergence of Human Monkeypox and Declining Population Immunity in the Context of Urbanization, Nigeria, 2017–2020', Emerging Infectious Diseases, vol. 27, http://dx.doi.org/10.3201/203569

Mohanty B; Costantino V; Narain J; Chughtai AA; Das A; Raina Macintyre C, 2020, 'Modelling the impact of a smallpox attack in India and influence of disease control measures', BMJ Open, vol. 10, pp. e038480, http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2020-038480

MacIntyre CR; Costantino V; Heslop DJ, 2020, 'The potential impact of a recent measles epidemic on COVID-19 in Samoa', BMC Infectious Diseases, vol. 20, pp. 735, http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12879-020-05469-7

Zhang Y; Muscatello DJ; Cao Z; Chughtai AA; Costantino V; Zhang D; Yang P; Wang Q; MacIntyre CR, 2020, 'A model of influenza infection and vaccination in children aged under 5 years in Beijing, China', Human Vaccines and Immunotherapeutics, vol. 16, pp. 1685 - 1690, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21645515.2019.1705692

Costantino V; Trent MJ; Sullivan JS; Kunasekaran MP; Gray R; MacIntyre R, 2020, 'Serological immunity to smallpox in New South Wales, Australia', Viruses, vol. 12, http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/v12050554

Costantino V; Heslop DJ; MacIntyre CR, 2020, 'The effectiveness of full and partial travel bans against COVID-19 spread in Australia for travellers from China during and after the epidemic peak in China', Journal of Travel Medicine, vol. 27, pp. 1 - 7, http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/JTM/TAAA081

MacIntyre CR; Costantino V; Bian L; Bethel C, 2020, 'Effectiveness of facemasks for opening a university campus in Mississippi, United States–a modelling study', Journal of American College Health, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07448481.2020.1866579

Kunasekaran MP; Chen X; Costantino V; Chughtai AA; MacIntyre CR, 2019, 'Evidence for residual immunity to smallpox after vaccination and implications for re-emergence', Military Medicine, vol. 184, pp. e668 - e679, http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/milmed/usz181

Costantino V; Trent M; MacIntyre CR, 2019, 'Modelling of optimal timing for influenza vaccination as a function of intraseasonal waning of immunity and vaccine coverage', Vaccine, vol. 37, pp. 6768 - 6775, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2019.08.069

MacIntyre CR; Costantino V; Kunasekaran MP, 2019, 'Health system capacity in Sydney, Australia in the event of a biological attack with smallpox', PLoS ONE, vol. 14, pp. e0217704 - e0217704, http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0217704

MacIntyre R; Valentina C; Biswajit M; Devina N; Mohana Priya K; David H, 2019, 'Epidemic size, duration and vaccine stockpiling following a large-scale attack with smallpox', Global Biosecurity, vol. 1, pp. 74 - 81, http://dx.doi.org/10.31646/gbio.13

Kunasekaran M; Chen X; Costantino V; Chughtai A; MacIntyre R, 2019, 'Evidence for Residual Immunity to Smallpox After Vaccination', Prehospital and Disaster Medicine, vol. 34, pp. s129 - s129, http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1049023x19002802

Zhang Y; Cao Z; Costantino V; Muscatello DJ; Chughtai AA; Yang P; Wang Q; MacIntyre CR, 2018, 'Influenza illness averted by influenza vaccination among school year children in Beijing, 2013-2016', Influenza and other Respiratory Viruses, vol. 12, pp. 687 - 694, http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/irv.12585

Costantino V; Kunasekaran MP; Chughtai AA; MacIntyre CR, 2018, 'How Valid Are Assumptions about Re-emerging Smallpox? A Systematic Review of Parameters Used in Smallpox Mathematical Models', Military Medicine, vol. 183, pp. e200 - e207, http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/milmed/usx092

MacIntyre CR; Costantino V; Chen X; Segelov E; Chughtai AA; Kelleher A; Kunasekaran M; Lane JM, 2018, 'Influence of population immunosuppression and past vaccination on smallpox reemergence', Emerging Infectious Diseases, vol. 24, pp. 646 - 653, http://dx.doi.org/10.3201/eid2404.171233

Costantino V; Gidding HF; Wood JG, 2017, 'Projections of zoster incidence in Australia based on demographic and transmission models of varicella-zoster virus infection', Vaccine, vol. 35, pp. 6737 - 6742, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2017.09.090

Preprints

Costantino V; Heslop D; Macintyre R, 2020, The effectiveness of full and partial travel bans against COVID-19 spread in Australia for travellers from China, http://dx.doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-17714/v1

MacIntyre R; Costantino V; Trent M, 2020, Modelling of COVID-19 vaccination strategies and herd immunity, in scenarios of limited and full vaccine supply in NSW, Australia, http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/2020.12.15.20248278

Costantino V; Heslop D; MacIntyre R, 2020, The effectiveness of full and partial travel bans against COVID-19 spread in Australia for travellers from China, http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.09.20032045

Dr Valentina Costantino

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