People

Bayden Wood

Bayden is a Co-Director of the Centre for Biospectroscopy and a Professor in the School of Chemistry, Monash University. He completed his PhD in 1999 under the supervision of Professor Don McNaughton where he pioneered new ways to analyse cells and tissues using infrared and Raman modalities. The Centre is focused on translating vibrational spectroscopic techniques to solve a range of biomedical and biological problems spanning the medical, food and agricultural sectors. His vision is to set up a world leading laboratory specialised in translating spectroscopy to find solutions for the most devastating diseases on the planet.

Phil Heraud

Phil is Co-Director of the Monash Centre for Biospectroscopy. Phil comes from a biomedical research background and brings his wealth of experience in this area to the directorship of the Centre. Phil is a member of the Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences and the Monash Biomedical Discovery Institute. His connections to the infectious disease and malaria research communities underpin the development of new spectroscopy-based disease diagnostics in the Centre.

Don McNaughton

Don McNaughton completed a PhD in microwave spectroscopy studying transient species of astrochemically important species at Monash University in 1981, and followed that with an SERC postdoctoral fellowship at Sussex University, UK. He was appointed a lecturer in 1988 and has pursued interests in high resolution infrared spectroscopy and more recently in the area of biospectroscopy. His current research involves developing Raman and IR micro and nano-spectroscopy and imaging techniques to understand biological processes and disease at a molecular level in cells and tissue. He also runs a program aimed at generating and studying, by high resolution spectroscopy techniques, species of interest in understanding interstellar and atmospheric chemistry.

Finlay Shanks

Technical supervisor for the Chemistry School's vibrational spectroscopy equipment and supports user training. Finlay has extensive experience in molecular spectroscopy instrumentation and previous background in mass spectrometry, environmental colloids analysis and other measurement methods.

Peter Jordan

Executive Director and CEO of Biotech Resources (Aust). Peter’s 25-year business career includes senior roles in corporate enterprises as well as four start-up ventures. He has extensive experience in general management, finance, marketing, new business development and key account management. Peter has both a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Melbourne and a Graduate Diploma in Entrepreneurship and Innovation from Swinburne University of Technology.

Despina Demertzidis

Grant Writer for the Monash Centre for Biospectroscopy. Despina’s had a broad array of experience, in grant writing and development, research management, project and financial management. Her experience spans across the not for profit, higher education and government sectors. Despina has a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Melbourne.

David Perez-Guaita

David obtained his PhD in Chemistry from the University of Valencia (Spain) in 2014 working in the “Solutions and innovations in analytical chemistry” research group and immediately joined Monash CfB. He has worked in several international laboratories, including the “Laboratoire de Physicochimie de l'Atmosphère” in Strasbourg (France), the organic chemistry department of the University of Valencia (Spain), the “Institut de Chimie Moléculaire” of Reims (France) and the “Institute of Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry" in Ulm (Germany). His research focuses on the development of vibrational spectroscopic based solutions to clinical problems, including point-of-care, nano-imaging and chemometrics applications.

Kamila Kochan

Kamila obtained her PhD in chemistry from Jagiellonian University (Poland) in 2016. She worked in the Raman Imaging Group investigating models of liver injury and their pathogenesis with the use of vibrational spectroscopy (Raman, FT-IR), with particular emphasis on macro- and microscale imaging. During her PhD she worked in several international spectroscopic laboratories including Institute of Photonic Technology (Germany) and Manchester Institute of Biotechnology (UK). She also visited several times CfB in Melbourne, which she has joined later on as a postdoctoral researcher. Her research focuses on application of vibrational spectroscopy to biological materials, including micro- and nano-scale imaging as well as clinical diagnostic solutions.

Anja Ruether

Anja obtained her Dr.rer.nat. from the University of Freiburg (Germany) in 2016. She worked at the Department of Pharmaceutical and Medicinal Chemistry monitoring perturbation-dependent systems by the use of chiroptical spectroscopy namely ECD, QCL-based VCD, FT-VCD and ROA in several international collaborations. During her PhD she worked in the spectroscopic laboratories of BioTools in Palm Beach Gardens (FL,USA) and the Fraunhofer IPM in Freiburg (Germany). She joined the Monash CfB as a postdoctoral researcher in 2016 and works at the CfB and the Department of Microbiology. Her research focuses on the development of vibrational spectroscopic methods (ATR-FTIR, Raman, imaging techniques) combined with chemometric analysis for monitoring infectious diseases and their application in the field as point-of-care diagnostic tools.

Aazam Khoshmanesh

A PhD (Monash University) qualified professional who has over twenty five years’ experience with Chemical & Biochemical Engineering within both Industry and University. Held positions as Research & Development Technologist, Chemical Process Engineer, Scientific & Engineering Consultant at Uhde Shedden (Australia), ORICA, Industrial Research Institute of Swinburne University of Technology (IRIS), Kodak Australasia where she led multidisciplinary projects related to mathematical modelling, process design, technical problem solving, process improvement & product development. Since 2011 joined Monash University as Research associate-affiliate has been engaged with research towards application of Biospectrosopy & Multivariate analysis in Malaria & Dengue mosquito infection diagnosis as well as as poly-phosphate detection in soils & sediments.

Khansa Al-jorani

Khansa Al-jorani is a 3rd year PhD student , she is working on synthesis of platinum complexes and testing the activity of those compounds against some cancer cells and DNA.

Supti Roy

Supti Roy is a 3rd year PhD student who has been awarded a Monash International PhD scholarship. In her 1st year she gained experience in spectroscopic analysis of blood samples infected with malaria parasites. She has undertaken the relevant training for dealing with PC2 infectious agents. Her main focus on diagnosis of blood borne diseases (HIV, Hep B, Hep C) by IR-ATR spectroscopy. In collaboration with VIDRL she is working on the ability of ATR-FTIR to detect viruses in clinical samples.

Dale Christensen

Dale completed his Bachelor of Science (Advanced with Honours) at Monash in 2014, with a double major in chemistry. He is now working on a PhD with the Centre for Biospectroscopy, developing a spectroscopic method for screening mosquitos for the presence of Wolbachia bacteria. He is working in conjunction with the Eliminate Dengue program.

Shuhui Eunice

Eunice is a 1st year PhD student interested in understanding the interactions between anti-cancer drugs and the different conformations of DNA using both an experimental and computational approach.

Miguela Martin

Miguela is commencing her PhD, having been awarded the Research Training Scholarship (formerly APA). Having completed her undergraduate degree, Bachelor of Biotechnology with Honours (Monash University, 2016), she plans to continue her work begun in her Honours with the CfB on the spectroscopic analysis of aqueous malaria-infected blood.

Kris Stefanidis

Qualified professional Engineer with over 20 years experience in industry. Areas of expertise are mainly instrumentation, automation systems design and electrical power distribution. Recent experience has been focused on Food & Beverage sector, specifically Dairy and Brewing engineering design and execution. The focus of my research is to investigate what effect variable environmental conditions have on the accuracy of these instruments and how we can compensate either by process equipment or statistical methods.

Merrilyn McKee

Merrilyn is currently studying Honours in Chemistry as part of her Bachelor of Science Advanced (Research). She has previously completed chemistry research projects with the Monash Centre for Biospectroscopy, Leipzig University (Germany) and CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere in Hobart. Her project focuses on imaging marine cable bacteria found in the Yarra River using Raman and nano-IR.

Hoang Tran

Hoang completed his Bachelors of Biomedicine and Commerce (Monash University, 2016) and is now heading into his Honours year in Microbiology under Phil Heraud. He plans to examine the phenotypic response of the malaria parasite to antimalarial drugs using infrared spectroscopy.

Jasmine Brazilek

Zack Richardson

Zack is a Monash undegraduate student who has been awarded a Summer Research Scholarship with the Centre of Biospectroscopy, looking at detecting bacterial contamination of Milk using ATR-FTIR.

Ellen Lowrey

Ellen is a Monash University undergraduate student currently undertaking a Summer Research Project using a quantum cascade laser microscope to image dynamic cellular processes in live cells.