People

Associate Professor Lee Skerratt

Lee leads the One Health Research Group together with Principal Research Fellow, Associate Professor Lee Berger. Expert in Wildlife Biosecurity, wildlife diseases, epidemiology and conservation

Associate Professor Lee Berger

Leads the One Health Research Group with Associate Professor Lee Skerratt. Expert in wildlife health, conservation, amphibian health and declines, chytridiomycosis expert.

Lee commenced her PhD in 1995, with the aim of diagnosing the cause of the mysterious amphibian declines that were occurring in protected areas of Queensland.  She discovered chytridiomycosis, now recognised as the worst disease to impact biodiversity as it has caused hundreds of amphibian species to decline globally.  In 2011 she was awarded an ARC Future Fellowship, and in 2018 was awarded the Frank Fenner Prize for Life Scientist. Her research has enabled further discoveries on pathogenesis, distribution, disease ecology, diagnosis,  conservation management and immunity resulting in over 100 publications, 10,000 citations and an H-index of 43.

Dr Laura Brannelly

                                 

Laura is an ARC DECRA Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne. Her DECRA research project focuses on the effects of disease on reproduction in frogs, specifically in species of conservation concern.  She is aiming to understand multiple aspects of amphibian reproduction that are affected by disease, such as gamete production and viability, mating behaviors and offspring success. She hopes to be able to directly use the information generated from her research to further conservation efforts to protect Australia’s declining frog species.

Laura received her a Bachelor of Arts in anthropology and Bachelor of Science in ecology and evolutionary biology from Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana in 2010. She went on to complete her Masters of Science in environmental biology from Tulane University in 2011 where she participated in a number of amphibian projects including clinical chemotherapy trials for treating Bd, studying non-amphibian hosts of the amphibian chytrid fungus, quantifying sub-lethal effects of disease, and determining best practice methods for marking amphibians.

Laura received her PhD at James Cook University in Townsville, Queensland Australia in 2016. For her PhD research, she explored the interactions between frogs, disease, and the management of critically endangered species. She explored the pathogenesis of disease on understudied and endangered species, as well as determining mechanisms of population persistence.

She completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh from 2016-2018, where she investigated the interactions between frogs, chytrid fungal disease, and the environment: specifically, how climate change impacts these relationships.

Laura’s research interests include amphibians, wildlife disease, endangered species, conservation, and chytridiomycosis. She is particularly interested in the mechanisms of population persistence for species declining due to disease, particularly with species and populations that have not developed an effective immune response. She is interested in the interactions between chytridiomycosis and amphibian reproduction. Laura is interested in directly combining academic research into management strategies for the protection of endangered species.

Anthony Waddle

Anthony Waddle is a PhD candidate in the One Health Research Group (OHRG) within the Faculty of Veterinary and Agricultural Sciences at the University of Melbourne. Before beginning his PhD, Anthony worked on understanding the impacts of the amphibian chytrid fungus (Batrachochytrium dendrobatidisBd) in imperiled amphibians in the Mojave Desert, USA. His past work focused on the demography of Bd in the Mojave, assessing how Bd was shaping amphibian population adaptation, and trialing conservation interventions (e.g. immunizations).

After earning his B.S. and M.S. at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Anthony joined the OHRG where he is developing synthetic biology techniques (e.g. CRISPR) to elucidate immunological mechanisms that contribute to amphibian host resistance to Bd. In addition to his research endeavors, Anthony is fervent advocate for community outreach, speaking at schools, community centers, and as a volunteer lecturer for continuing education programs; he hopes to expand these efforts in his new community in Australia.

Danielle Wallace

Danielle is a PhD student in the One Health Research Group, co-supervised by Dr Laura Brannelly and Dr Lee Berger, at the University of Melbourne. Before beginning her postgraduate research, Danielle completed a Bachelor of Environmental Science (Wildlife and Conservation Biology) and Honours at Deakin University in Melbourne, Victoria. For her Honours project, Danielle studied the habitat use of Victorian frogs in an alpine ecosystem, and the role of disease and reservoir hosts for amphibian chytrid fungus within the population of a critically endangered amphibian. She has also worked as a field ecologist in East Gippsland, Victoria. As part of her role as an ecologist, Danielle has conducted field surveys for threatened fauna and flora communities in forests across Gippsland and has participated in monitoring projects for endangered amphibians.

For her postgraduate research at the One Health Research Group, Danielle is investigating the fungal pathogen that causes amphibian chytrid fungus – Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) – and its influence on the breeding behaviour of tree frogs from the genus, Litoria. In particular, she is exploring how infection with Bd may affect aspects of male courtship display such as calling effort and colour change, female mate choice and male-male competition. Danielle is passionate about all things frog-related and is also interested in scientific communication through art. Her research interests include endangered species, chytridiomycosis and wildlife conservation.

 

Rebecca Webb

             

Rebecca is a PhD candidate at James Cook University, supervised by Dr Alex Roberts, and Dr Lee Berger and Dr Lee Skerratt at the University of Melbourne.  Her research is focussed on the amphibian fungal disease chytridiomycosis.  Rebecca hopes to find novels approaches to reduce the virulence of this disease.  To do this she is investigating the use of interfering RNA to knockdown virulence genes, as well as viruses that could be used as biological control.

Before starting her PhD, Rebecca worked for many years as a research assistant, during which she specialised in testing chytrid fungi susceptibility to various disinfectants.  Rebecca also is an experienced histologist, and maintains an interest in determining the age of amphibians using skeletochronological techniques.

Rebecca is passionate about amphibian conservation, and loves to learn new laboratory techniques.

Sieara Claytor

         

Sieara is a PhD candidate in Medical and Molecular Sciences at James Cook University, supervised by Dr. Lee Berger, Dr. Alexandra Roberts, Dr. Lee Skerratt, and Dr. Diana Mendez. Her research project investigates the metabolites in frog skin that fight Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) infection, and examines if antioxidants are involved in Bd’s ability to evade host defences.

Sieara received a Bachelors of Science in Biology and a Bachelors of Arts in Spanish from Kansas State University. She has a Master’s of Science in Biological Sciences from California State University, and a Master’s of Science in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation from the University of Florida.

Sieara is interested in chytridiomycosis, amphibian and wildlife pathogens, molecular biology, and wildlife conservation. She uses molecular techniques to understand the mechanisms of host-pathogen interactions.

 

Adeline Chew

Adeline is a Masters of Science student at the University of Melbourne in Biosciences. She is supervised by Dr Matt West, Dr Lee Berger and Dr Laura Brannelly.  Her masters research is focused on exploring the effects of heavy metals on the growth and survival of the chytrid fungus, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd). She is also looking for any potential synergistic/antagonistic interactions between heavy metals and temperature on Bd.

With many frog species readily found in polluted wetlands, it is possible that contaminants act to provide environmental refuges for frogs by limiting the prevalence of chytrid. Her project addresses this and aims to inform disease mitigation strategies by understanding how Bd grows in polluted environments.

 

Dr Tiffany Kosch

                     

Tiffany Kosch is an adjunct Research Fellow with One Health Research Group. She is investigating the genetic basis of immunity to the amphibian fungal disease chytridiomycosis in the southern corroboree frog, an endangered amphibian endemic to the Snowy Mountains of Australia. Her goal is to apply approaches from genomics, synthetic biology, and animal breeding to increase chytrid resistance in corroboree frogs and improve the success of the reintroduction program.

Tiffany received her PhD in Interdisciplinary Biology in 2012 from East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina, USA where she studied the distribution of chytridiomycosis in Peruvian amphibians and optimized methods for detecting the disease. She has worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at Seoul National University in Seoul, South Korea; James Cook University in Townsville, Australia; and Massey University in Hamilton, New Zealand where she has studied MHC variation in Bd susceptible and resistant frogs, the evolution and origin of Bd, the genome-wide association of Bd resistance, epistasis in production trait associated genetic variants, and genomic improvement for animal breeding.

Tiffany’s research interests include emerging infectious diseases of wildlife, amphibian chytrid fungus, conservation genomics, functional genomics, threatened species management, and engineering resilience.