Professor Monica Slavin is the Director of the Infectious Diseases Department at Peter McCallum Cancer Centre, Director of the NHMRC CRE and Synergy funded National Centre for Infections in Cancer, NHMRC leadership fellow, Senior Strategic Research Fellow Sir Peter MacCallum Department of Oncology, inaugural Chair of Infection in Cancer and Transplantation at University of Melbourne, and leads the Infections in the Immunocompromised Host Service, Royal Melbourne Hospital.

Monica’s research group focuses on improving the surveillance, prevention, diagnosis and management of infections in cancer and transplant patients. Epidemiology, novel diagnostics, how host immune response, microbiome and pathogen genomics contribute to infection risk, sepsis and antibiotic allergies, vaccinations, digital solutions for surveillance and clinical trials are active areas of research. As a leader in the field, Monica contributes internationally to education, research and guidelines for treatment and prevention of infections. Her seminal studies of antifungal prophylaxis changed practice world-wide and improved survival after stem cell transplantation. She demonstrated the clinical value of the novel fungal diagnostics Aspergillus PCR and galactomannan; diagnostic tools which today are standard practice.

Monica received multiple awards for her work, including the Biomedical Research Victoria career recognition award in 2017, Antimicrobial Society of Australia Howard Florey Oration in 2019, Lifetime Fellow of the European Confederation of Medical Mycology in 2022 and ASID Lifetime Award in 2023. She was the first Australian president of the International Immunocompromised Host Society and executive member of the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases Immunocompromised Host Study Group.