Ms Madeeha Afzal

Dr. Madeeha Afzal is post-doctoral fellow in the Immunovirology and Pathogenesis program at the Kirby Institute. She has more than 9 years of experience in Microbiology and Molecular biology laboratory techniques. She also has one year of teaching experience in Medical Microbiology. Her passion towards research made her effective researcher. She had previous experience of working with different infectious Bacteria and Viruses, during academic and research carrier she worked with Hepatis B, D, Staphylococcus aureus and SARS-CoV-2. She is keen to learn advanced laboratory techniques and spread that knowledge.

Dr. Madeeha Afzal was awarded her PhD in early 2023 for her work in "Determining the pathogenic traits of Staphylococcus aureus associated with keratitis" by using different molecular techniques and whole genome sequencing. Dr. Madeeha is basically a Microbiologist. She completed her M.Phil. in Microbiology from Hazara University Mansehra, Pakistan. After completing her education, she started working as Research officer in one of the reputed diagnostics and research institute in Pakistan, later due to her passion and deep understanding for research, she was promoted to "Research Manager" at same research institute. Meanwhile she got admission and scholarship at UNSW SOVS and moved Australia to explore the world of Micro-organisms in Eye.

During her PhD she published 4 research papers and presented her work on different platforms. She also got industrial internship during her PhD where she worked on SARS CoV-2 virus. This internship gave her exposure of industrial world which later paved her ways for post-doc.

Currently she is working as a post-doc researcher at the Kirby Institute, UNSW. Dr. Madeeha is responsible for the surveillance of emerging pathogens, including SARS-CoV-2, Mpox, and influenza, and conducts advanced genotypic and phenotypic analyses of SARS-CoV-2. Her work directly informs public health responses through systematic reporting to the NSW Ministry of Health.