Speaker information - 15th Annual EID Symposium

Emma Thomson

Professor Thomson works as an infectious diseases and general (internal) medicine consultant with specialist interests in returning travellers with fever, early hepatitis C infection, HCV drug resistance and HIV co-infection at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow and have experience looking after patients with a wide range of infectious diseases. She is chair of the British HIV Association Hepatitis Sub-committee and works as an external consultant for the World Health Organisation. 

Ocean Chau

Ocean graduated in 2017 with a BSc in Biomedical Sciences from the University of Surrey, where he first developed an interest in virology.

He subsequently completed a MSc in Molecular Biology and Pathology of Viruses from Imperial College London in 2018, before returning to Hong Kong joining a local biotech working on in vitro diagnostic device for human papillomavirus.

In 2020, he was awarded an Edinburgh Global Research Scholarship to begin his PhD. Ocean is currently a postdoc at the University of Cambridge, where he continues to pursue his research interest in species-specific pathology following viral and bacterial infections. 

Nelly Mak

Nelly holds a BA in Cell and Systems Biology from the University of Oxford. In the second year of her undergraduate degree, she began her first research project on Leishmania motility mutants, which sparked her interest in infectious disease research. Soon after, the COVID-19 pandemic led her to study virus-host interactions during her PhD in Edinburgh.

After completing her PhD, Nelly joined Prof. Clare Jolly’s lab as a research fellow to study host responses to HIV-1. She recently pivoted into the AIxBio field to ensure that AI accelerates scientific research while mitigating risks arising from its misuse.

Valentina Busin

Laurie Denyer Willis

Laurie Denyer Willis is a medical anthropologist at the University of Edinburgh and Director of the Edinburgh Centre for Medical Anthropology, though she’s happiest when anthropology spills out of the university altogether into zines, soundscapes, sculptures, cookbooks, podcasts, films, and Edinburgh's streets and rivers. Laurie is committed to making anthropology bold, political, and a little unruly. She thrives on thinking and writing with others, and her research these days is deliberately collaborative, experimental, and open. 

Andrew Maclean

Andrew is a molecular parasitologist who recently set up his group in Edinburgh, arriving as a MRC development fellow in 2025. His research focuses on the human parasite Toxoplasma gondii, and aims to understand key areas where parasite metabolism differs from the human host. Previously he was a postdoc fellow in the lab of Prof. Lilach Sheiner at the University of Glasgow, focused on uncovering the divergent respiratory complexes of apicomplexan parasites.

Fernando Mardones

Fernando is a veterinarian and epidemiologist specializing in aquatic animal health, epidemiology, and sustainable aquaculture. He is currently a Senior Lecturer in One Health and Aquaculture at the Global Academy of Agriculture and Food Systems, part of the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies at the University of Edinburgh. His work focuses on understanding and managing infectious diseases in farmed aquatic species, improving disease surveillance, and promoting sustainable practices in global aquaculture.

Laura McCulloch

Dr Laura McCulloch is a Sir Henry Dale Research Fellow in the Centre for Inflammation Research and the University of Edinburgh. Her research focuses on how stroke alters systemic immune function and how these immune changes contribute to complications of recovery, including infection, gastrointestinal dysfunction and post-stroke cognitive decline. Using integrated experimental and clinical approaches, her work aims to identify new therapeutic strategies to improve long-term outcomes after stroke. Dr McCulloch’s research has particularly focused on B cell dysfunction and pneumonia susceptibility following stroke.

Iain Page

Dr Iain Page is a Consultant in Infectious Diseases & General Medicine at the Western General Hospital in Edinburgh. He has a sub-specialist interest in Fungal Infections and in particular Chronic Pulmonary Aspergillosis (CPA) and is establishing a clinical service for CPA patients in collaboration with respiratory physician colleagues. He is also engaged in COVID-19 research and is Principal Investigator for the Valneva COVID vaccine trial and an Investigator for the Oxford vaccine trial and RECOVERY therapeutics trials in Edinburgh.

Rute Pinto

Rute Maria Pinto is a molecular virologist and Chancellor’s Fellow at the Roslin Institute, University of Edinburgh. Her research focuses on the molecular biology and evolution of influenza viruses, with a particular interest on the host genetic factors that limit viral replication and cross-species transmission. Through interdisciplinary studies of virus–host interactions, she aims to better understand how emerging viruses overcome biological barriers to infect humans, helping inform surveillance strategies and pandemic preparedness. More recently, Rute has been an avid contributor of the Flu TrailMap consortia where she focused on the viral polymerase adaptations and innate immunity contributions to the success of circulating H5N1 influenza viruses in different species.

Lesley Smith

Dr Lesley Smith is a Lecturer in Animal and Veterinary Sciences at Scotland's Rural College and a disease ecologist whose research focuses on antimicrobial resistance (AMR), animal behaviour, and disease dynamics at the wildlife-livestock-environment interface. Her work combines ecological surveillance, behavioural ecology and field-based monitoring techniques to investigate disease processes across livestock and wildlife systems. Her research interests include the use of animal behaviour as an indicator of disease, alongside One Health approaches to infectious disease and AMR.  Lesley currently leads RESAS-funded research exploring the flow of AMR from livestock production into the environment and humans.