Staff
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Research Staff
Laboratory Heads
Dr Jennifer Juno @jenjuno.viralvaxlab.com
Dr Jen Juno is a talented Canadian scientist who first started postdoctoral work with the Kent Lab in September 2016 and now heads her own lab. She completed a PhD at the University of Manitoba in 2014 on aspects of HIV disease progression. She has an interest in T-follicular helper cell immunity, COVID-19, HIV/SIV, TB, MAIT cells, gamma-delta cells and CD1-restricted T cells. She has been awarded Canadian Institutes of Health Research, NHMRC and Viertel grants and fellowships. See her lab web page at the ViralVax, The Doherty Institute and UoM websites.
Dr Adam Wheatley @wheatleyak.viralvaxlab.com
Dr Adam Wheatley completed his PhD in this department in 2010. He then worked as a post-doctoral scientist at the NIH’s Vaccine Research Centre in the US with Drs Rick Koup, Adrian McDermott and others. He returned to the Kent group in 2015 and now heads his own lab developing novel nano-medicine projects and developing insight into B cell and antibody based immunity projects to influenza, HIV and COVID-19. He was awarded the Frank Fenner Prize for the leading NHMRC EL Investigator grant and now holds an L1 NHMRC investigator grant and multiple other awards. See his lab web page at the ViralVax, The Doherty Institute and UoM websites.
Post Doctoral Fellows
Wen Shi Lee
Wen Shi completed a Bachelor of Biomedicine at the University of Melbourne in 2013 and completed First Class Honours with us in 2014 and his PhD in 2019. Wen Shi has broad skills in both ADCC immunity and virology. He was awarded an NHMRC EL Investigator Grant and a Cummings Pandemic Centre grant.
Hyon-Xhi Tan
Hyon-Xhi graduated with a BSc (Hons) from the University of Otago in 2010 and completed a highly successful PhD with us in 2016. He was the Frank Fenner prize winner for the best NHMRC EL1 investigator grant. His work focussed on mucosal and lung immunity.
Marios Koutsakos @marioskoutsakos.viralvaxlab.com
Marios completed his PhD with the Kedzierska lab in our department in 2019 and joined our group as a post-doctoral fellow in 2021. He has published multiple high impact papers on influenza and COVID-19 immunity and was awarded a highly competitive NHMRC EL2 Investigator grant in 2025. He is studying immunity to Influenza B and manages a group of PhD students and research staff.
Mai Vu
Mai completed her PhD in 2022 co-supervised by Stephen, Tom Davis and Nghia Truong at Monash Pharmacy in Parkville. She joined our group as a postdoctoral fellow and is working with Adam developing and evaluating novel nanoparticle vaccines.
Lara Schwab
Lara participated in the International Research Training Group (IRTG 2168), a PhD program between the University of Melbourne and the University of Bonn/Germany and was awarded her joint PhD degree in 2022. She joined us as a postdoctoral fellow and is working on influenza B virus virology and immunology with Marios.
Christopher Gonelli
Chris completed his PhD in our department on various vaccine projects and then completed a post doc at the NIH’s Vaccine Research Centre, including a first authored Nature paper. He returned to Australia to work with Adam on a range of monoclonal antibody and immunology projects.
Mitchell Zheng
Mitchell conducted his PhD with Linda Wakim and Pat Reading at the Doherty Institute in 2023 focussing on mucosal immunity. He joined our group to work with Jen Juno and her team on T cell immunity to pandemic pathogens.
Dr Jen Audsley
Jen is a senior PhD scientist in the Department of Infectious Diseases and is now working with us part time. She is highly experienced in conducting and analysing randomised clinical trials and is managing most of our clinical studies.
Research Assistants
Thakshila Amarasena
Thakshila is an experienced technical scientist helping with our studies of viral quantification, sequencing and flow cytometry. She obtained her science degree in Sri Lanka and is a very experienced laboratory scientist. She is also our diligent safety and compliance officer.
Robyn Esterbauer
Robyn completed a BSc (Honors) in our department in 2016 topping her honors class. She has previously worked in several IT areas and brings a wide range of skills to our lab. She is working with Adam on several immunity projects and is an extremely valued team member.
Andrew Kelly
Andrew completed a Bachelor of Biomedical Science Advanced (Honours) at Monash University in 2021. He joined our lab to work with Adam and Robyn on a series of projects involving protein expression systems.
Kathleen Wragg
Kathleen is a highly experienced research assistant working with Jen Juno on T cell immunity studies. She worked with our group previously (27 publications, including 2 first author publications in Nature Immunology and Cell Reports) and returned in 2024 after spending time at a lab in the USA.
Ellie Reilly
Ellie completed her BSc Honours at the University of Wollongong in NSW. She previously worked with the Lung transplant service at the Alfred Hospital / Monash Immunology Department. Ellie joined us in 2024 to work with Marios and Wen Shi on various immunology and virology projects
Helen Kent
Helen is an RN trained in clinical research and helps coordinate and conduct our clinical studies. She has previously conducted clinical research at the Melbourne Sexual Health Centre and Royal Women’s Hospital.
Students
Thu Do
Thu completed a successful MSc with the Rossjohn group at Monash. She joined our group to undertake a PhD with Marios on Influenza B projects.
Yee-Chen Liu
Yee-Chen completed her DVM and MSc in Taiwan and has worked in Avian disease laboratories. She joined us to do a PhD with Adam on vaccines and immunity to Influenza B and Avian Influenza.
Veronica Zoest
Nicky completed her undergraduate BSc honours at the University of Auckland and has studied Mycobacterial infections in NZ. She joined us in 2023 to do a PhD with Adam, studying immunity to pandemic vaccines in a range of models.
Rachel Evans
Rachel did honors with Laura MacKay’s group at the University of Melbourne. She joined our group to undertake a PhD with Jen Juno on flavivirus immunity.
Amanda Kyaw Zin
Amanda joined us to do a 3rd year project in 2024 through our Department at the University of Melbourne. She started a Masters with Marios Koutsakos’s group in 2025.
Carl Yao
Carl joins us for his Honours project. He is working with Jen on developing germinal centre organoids.
Emily Ye
Emily is undertaking her Honours project with Jen and is working on T cell help in vaccine immunology.
Sushma Bhandarkar
Sushma completed her Masters in clinical virology and has joined our group for a PhD. She will be working with Marios and Lara on Flu B evolution.
Research Administrators
Janavi Rambhatla
Janavi completed her Ph.D. in 2019 on malaria immunity from the University of Melbourne and joined our lab in 2021. She works with Stephen, Adam and Jen on MRFF and other projects related to clinical development of vaccines and therapeutics.
Honorary Staff
Professor Amy Chung @amywchung.bsky.social
Prof Amy Chung completed her PhD with our group in 2011 and was then awarded both an NHMRC CJ Martin award and an Australia-America fellowship to work with Dr Galit Alter at Harvard University/Ragon Institute. She had a highly successful post-doc there with first authored publications in Science Translational Medicine and cell. She returned to our group in 2016 and has subsequently received multiple NHMRC fellowships. She was promoted to a Laboratory Head in 2018, now managing a large team of scientists. She still collaborates widely with members of the Kent group. Her own website is here
Dr David (Yi) Ju @davidyiju.bsky.social
David is an NHMRC EL Investigator and Lab head at the Olivia Newton John Cancer Research Institute. He is interested in nanoparticle-immune cell interactions and is a long term collaborator. He did his Bachelor of Engineering degree in Tianjin China and a MSc and PhD at the University of Melbourne. He is working with us on several collaborative projects around immunity and mRNA vaccines. Visit his website here
Professor David O'Connor
Dave is a full professor at the University of Wisconsin and an expert in viral and immunology genetics. He spent 11 months with the Kent lab as a visiting Miegunyah professor at UoM on sabattical. He continues to collaborate with our group and retains an honorary position with us. Visit his website here
Professor Shelby O'Connor
Shelby is an Associate Professor at the University of Wisconsin and an expert in viral immunology and viral dynamics. She spent 11 months with the Kent lab at UoM on sabattical. She continues to collaborate with the Kent/Juno/Chung groups and we hold a joint NIH grant together. Visit her website here
Dr Hillary Vanderven
Hillary started a PhD with us in 2014 studying ADCC immunity to influenza. She has studied ADCC immunity to internal influenza proteins, to H7N9 pandemic influenza and in response to vaccination of the elderly. After finishing her PhD she was immediately recruited to a Lab head and lecturer position James Cook University in 2018. We continue to collaborate on viral immunity.
Dr Kevin John Selva @kev-in-science.bsky.social
Kevin first joined our group to conduct a PhD on aspects of NK cell biology and ADCC immunity to HIV. He passed his PhD with us in 2019 and is now working with Amy on aspects of functional antibody immunity to viruses. He was awarded a prestigious NHMRC EL1 Investigator grant in 2025.
A/Prof Steve Rockman
Steve is Director of Global Innovation at Seqirus, a CSL company. He has a long association with UoM dating back to his University days. He is a long term collaborator with our group on aspects of influenza immunity and vaccines with multiple joint publications over the years. He sits on many of the committees of many of our PhD candidates, assists us with several of our large MRFF grants and provides excellent technical advice and directions to our work.
Dr Sinth Jegaskanda
Sinth completed honours, PhD and postdoctoral studies with our group. He has also been a postdoc at the NIH, trained as a patent attorney, worked for UoM’s research office and is now working with a biotech company Myrio. He provides great advice on strategy and direction for our group and has been working with another former PhD student Dr Hillary Vanderven on various Influenza projects with commercial potential.
Guest Scientists
Dr Emily Pilkington
Emily hails from New Zealand and completed her PhD with Tom Davis and colleagues at Monash pharmacy. She worked as a post-doctoral fellow in our group for 3-4 years studying nanoparticle-immune cell interactions. She has returned to Monash Pharmacy but continues to collaborate with our group.
Dr Shiyao Li
Dr Shiyao Li, PhD, is a junior postdoctoral scientist within Frank Caruso’s group at the Dept of Chemical Engineering at the University of Melbourne. She is working with our group and David Ju on nanoparticle-immune cell interactions.
Ms Diyana Hassanel
Ms Diyana Hassanel is a PhD student at Monash Pharmacy working with Drs Nghia Truong and Emily Pilkington. She is collaborating with our group on the influence of PEG on nanoparticle-immune cell interactions in vivo.
Ms Zihnil Mazrad
Ms Zihnil Mazrad is a PhD student at Monash Pharmacy supervised by Dr Kristian Kempe. She is working with our group and Drs Shiyao Li and David Ju studying alternatives to PEG in the generation of lipid nanoparticles and reducing their interactions with immune cells in vitro.