Bhargavi Rao is a Clinical Associate Professor in Humanitarian Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and Senior Malaria and Infectious Diseases specialist at Médecins sans Frontières (Operational Centre Amsterdam). She has worked in humanitarian responses and outbreaks across multiple contexts, and is a infectious diseases/public health clinician with a PhD in infectious disease epidemiology.

Professor Peter Richmond is a Consultant Paediatric Immunologist and Paediatrician at Perth Children’s Hospital and Director of the Child and Adolescent Health Service Research Network. He also heads the Vaccine Trials Group within the Wesfarmers Centre of Vaccines and Infectious Diseases at the Telethon Kids Institute. The Vaccine Trials Group is a multidisciplinary research group which provides a coordinated approach to the development, delivery, clinical and laboratory assessment and promotion of vaccines. His major research interests are in the prevention of meningitis, pneumonia respiratory infections and otitis media. He has authored over 300 scientific publications in these areas and has worked in vaccine research for over 25 years.

I am a respiratory doctor with an interest in respiratory infection and the use of human challenge models for vaccine research. I am currently completing my PhD with the Experimental Human Pneumococcal Challenge team at Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.

Gail Rodgers received her Doctorate in Medicine from Temple University School of Medicine. She did her pediatric residency and pediatric infectious diseases fellowship at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children in Philadelphia where she served as attending physician and Associate Professor for nine years. In 2005 she moved to industry worked as Senior Director for Vaccines Scientific Affairs at Wyeth and Pfizer, where she led the strategy to incorporate pneumococcal conjugate vaccine in emerging markets. She led a multinational population-based epidemiologic study to assess the burden of pneumonia and invasive pneumococcal disease in Latin America. Additionally, she evaluated the global epidemiology of S. aureus and C. difficile to anticipate global need and usage of potential vaccines for these diseases. Prior to joining BMGF, worked as an independent consultant working to promote vaccine usage in Latin America and Asia. Since joining the Pneumonia Team at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in October 2014, she has led the Pneumococcus Initiative with a focus on development of a low cost pneumococcal vaccine, assessment of alternate dosing strategies of pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV), and assessment of impact of PCVs in GAVI Alliance countries. Gail also leads the Meningococcal Initiative that focuses on the development and use of meningococcal vaccines to decrease the burden of meningitis globally and especially in the African meningitis belt. Additionally, she lead the effort to understand the role of household air pollution (HAP) on pneumonia in children and interventions that can be done to decrease pneumonia due to HAP.

Professor Fiona Russell (BMBS, Grad Dip(Clin Epi), Dip Paeds, MPHTM, FRACP, PhD) is a paediatrician, epidemiologist and translation researcher. She is Director of the Child and Adolescent Health PhD Program, Department of Paediatrics, The University of Melbourne, and is a member of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Child and Neonatal Health Research and Training; and Group Leader for Asia-Pacific Health research, MCRI. Her research provides evidence for policy decisions regarding immunisation and child health in low- and middle-income countries.