INVITED SPEAKERS
Dr. April Baller is the Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) & WASH Team Lead at the Health Emergencies Programme, World Health Organization, based in Geneva, Switzerland. She holds an MBBCh, MRCGP, MPH, Masters in Infection Control, DTM&H, Diploma in HIV Management, and an MBA. April has 25 years of experience in a range of clinical medicine and public health areas, including family and reproductive health, infectious diseases, emergency medicine and outbreak management. She has been actively involved in the COVID-19 pandemic, Marburg outbreak in Equatorial Guinea, Ebola Virus Disease outbreaks in Uganda, DRC, and West Africa, as well as Lassa Fever, Dengue and most recently mpox response in DRC. Before joining WHO, April worked in protracted humanitarian emergencies settings with several NGOs including Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Darfur, Yemen, and Colombia. She has implementation research experience with Prevention of Mother-To-Child Transmission (PMTCT) of HIV programs in Malawi, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe. Prior to that April worked as a clinician in the UK, Australia, and South Africa.
Professor Bhutta is the inaugural Chair of ENT Surgery and Professor of Sustainable Healthcare at Brighton and Sussex Medical School. He has a longstanding interest in environmental and labour rights harms caused by medical supply chains. He was recently appointed as the Director of a new national academic centre to decarbonize the health service in the UK. In 2024 he was awarded the President's Medal of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow.
Dr. Mariia Dolynska, MD, PhD, is the Head of the TB Department at O.O. Bogomolets National Medical University and the Medical Director of the non-governmental organization Infection Control in Ukraine. She is an EUCIC/ESCMID-certified Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) specialist with more than 10 years of experience in implementing IPC programs and addressing antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in healthcare facilities. Since the beginning of the full-scale war in Ukraine, she has led a team supporting the implementation of IPC programs in more than 150 healthcare facilities, including those located in frontline areas.
Pauline Jumaa is a Consultant Microbiologist at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham and the Infection Control Doctor for the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital, Birmingham. She has over 30 years' experience as a Consultant Clinical Microbiologist and Infection Control Doctor/Director of Infection Prevention and Control including experience in other countries. She is a senior examiner for Medical Microbiology for the Royal College of Pathologists and is a member of the International Editorial Board of the Journal of Hospital Infection. She chaired a Healthcare Infection Society working party which published infection prevention and control guidance for Burns services in 2025.
Martin has worked in infection prevention and control for 35 years in a variety of settings. He is a Visiting Professor at the Richard Wells Research Centre at the University of West London and Conjoint Fellow at Avondale University (New South Wales, Australia). Formerly he was Nurse Consultant and Deputy Director of Infection Prevention and Control at Southport and Ormskirk NHS Trust in the North-West of England. Martin is a past president of the Infection Prevention Society. In 2020 he was awarded honorary membership of the Healthcare Infection Society and in 2023 was awarded the Ayliffe Lifetime Achievement Award by the Infection Prevention Society. He has published over 90 papers in peer-reviewed journals and is one of the co-hosts of the Infection Control Matters podcast. His research interests focus on the environment and healthcare-associated pneumonia.
Claire is a graduate of the University of Glasgow (infection prevention diploma and masters in travel medicine), and was awarded a doctorate for work in infection prevention, water, sanitation and hygiene and patient safety from Glasgow Caledonian University in 2023, where she still functions as a subject matter expert on their shaping IPC research group. She is an award winner and creator of globally used resources and, following clinical and national positions, has worked passionately at global level since 2008 with the World Health Organization among others. She has been Director of S3 Global Health consulting since 2012 and is a member of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons (Glasgow).
Dominique L. Monnet is an Associate Professor at the Centre for New Antibacterial Strategies (CANS) at UiT The Arctic University of Norway. In June 2025, he retired from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), where he had been heading the Antimicrobial Resistance and Healthcare-Associated Infections Section (or Programme) since October 2007. He holds a Doctorate in Pharmacy and a PhD (microbiology) from University Claude Bernard Lyon 1 in France. He worked in various hospitals in Lyon, at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States, and at Statens Serum Institut in Denmark. Since 1993, his research has focused on antimicrobial resistance, antimicrobial consumption and the relationships between antimicrobial consumption, infection prevention and control, and antimicrobial resistance.
Julie Storr is a global leader in infection prevention and control (IPC), patient safety and quality improvement. From developing the world's first national hand hygiene campaign to helping write WHO guidance used across the globe, her work has influenced healthcare systems on every continent. Today she is known for challenging the profession to look beyond compliance and remember the person at the centre of care. Her work explores the intersection of IPC, patient safety, compassion and leadership and what it means to make healthcare not only safer, but more human. Julie is a past president of the Infection Prevention Society of the UK and Ireland.
Dr. Ermira Tartari is a Senior Lecturer and Researcher of Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) at the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Malta, Malta. She holds a PhD in Global Health from the University of Geneva. She is an IPC consultant for the World Health Organization. Ermira is an Executive Committee Member of the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID), Study Group for Nosocomial Infection (ESGNI) and a member of the European Committee on Infection Control (EUCIC) advisory board. She is passionate about all aspects of evidence-based infection prevention to advance the science in IPC and ultimately ensure patient safety and quality of healthcare services.
Dr. Arkadii Vodianyk is Head of the Service Delivery Unit at the World Health Organization (WHO) Country Office in Ukraine. He oversees programmes related to infection prevention and control (IPC), antimicrobial resistance (AMR), primary health care, health workforce, nursing and service delivery. Dr. Vodianyk holds a medical degree from Bogomolets National Medical University, a Master of Public Health from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and a PhD in Microbiology. He is a certified specialist in IPC and recognized as Advanced Leader in Infection Prevention and Control (AL-CIP) by CBIC/APIC. For the last decade, he has worked on the development and implementation of national IPC and AMR programmes in Ukraine, including surveillance, capacity building, programme assessments, and healthcare-associated infection prevention.
With over 21 years of experience in public health and hospital epidemiology, Dr. Oxana Vrabie works at Hîncești District Hospital and the Municipal Clinical Hospital of Phthisiopneumology. Passionate about infection prevention through strategic communication and behavioural change, she is a master's student in Public Relations and Advertising and an active APCI member. She is the author of the innovative campaign "Jewellery — the direct route of infection from hospital to home", a project created to shift healthcare workers' perceptions and decisions regarding the wearing of accessories in hospital. At the APCI Conference, she will speak about how social media can be used to build safe behaviours.
WORKSHOP SPEAKERS
Dina Budacan, BSc Sterile Services Management, is CSSD Manager and Decontamination Lead at a private hospital in Ireland, with over 11 years of experience in the sterilisation and decontamination of reusable medical devices. She is an international speaker, a registered post-secondary educator, and a creator of educational content in the field of sterilisation and patient safety.
Carole Hallam, MSc, BSc, RN — Independent Infection Prevention and Control Nurse Consultant. Carole is a UK registered nurse with extensive experience working in the speciality of infection prevention and control. Since 2005, Carole has provided training and education across Romania in a voluntary capacity. She has supported the APCI summer school training programme in 2023 and 2024. Since 2019, Carole has worked as an independent infection prevention nurse and in 2023 she was proud to be awarded APCI honorary membership.
Having worked in infectious diseases and Infection Prevention and Control for the last 17 years, Kerry is Deputy Director of IP&C at Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. An active member of the Infection Prevention Society, Kerry is their Vice President and will become their president in September 2026. She is chair of the Chief Nursing Officers national IPC shared professional decision making council and South West IPC Network. Kerry is passionate about prevention, patient safety, quality improvement and supporting expanding and evolving the role of IPC practitioners to meet the diverse and evolving needs of our communities. Kerry is an independent nurse prescriber and uses her role to support nursing involvement in antimicrobial stewardship.
Master of Science in Nursing (MSN), Operating Room Nursing Specialist, Nursing Team Coordinator at Matopat Specialist Hospital, Toruń, Poland. Academic Lecturer at the University of Economy in Bydgoszcz, College of Medical Sciences in Toruń, Poland.
Master's Degree in Management and Marketing. Matopat Sales Coordinator, TZMO SA.
ROMANIAN SPEAKERS
TBA
Senior specialist in laboratory medicine and national expert within the College of Physicians, with a career dedicated to excellence in the Microbiology Laboratory of Bacău County Emergency Hospital. International technical assessor (RENAR and MOLDAC) and co-author of national guidelines for combating antimicrobial resistance and preventing healthcare-associated infections. Dr. Indreaș is directly involved in international antibiotic resistance surveillance programs, with extensive experience as a lecturer and trainer, and with interests in the standardization of current methods in microbiology.
Beatrice Mahler is an Associate Professor with habilitation at the “Carol Davila” University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Bucharest, a senior pulmonologist, and Head of Pneumology Clinic I at the “Marius Nasta” Institute of Pneumoftisiology.
Her research activity focuses on priority areas such as tuberculosis, the impact of air pollution on health, and lung cancer.
An important area of her work is doctor-patient communication, reflected in the publication of the book “Doctor-Patient Communication in Words and Beyond” and the development of the “Narrative Medicine and Clinical Doctor-Patient Communication” course for students at the “Carol Davila” University of Medicine and Pharmacy. She also provides professional training courses in Leadership and Communication for physicians seeking to improve their interpersonal and teamwork skills.
Dr. Lavinia-Cipriana Rusu, MD, PhD, MSc, is a senior epidemiologist at the National Institute of Public Health – National Centre for Surveillance and Control of Communicable Diseases, with over 20 years of experience in epidemiology and public health. At the beginning of her career, she worked as an epidemiologist in two hospitals in Bucharest, coordinating activities related to the prevention and control of healthcare-associated infections.
Her current work focuses on the surveillance and control of communicable diseases, preparedness and response to public health threats, and the coordination of alert and rapid response mechanisms. She is the National Focal Point for Preparedness and Response at ECDC and the National Focal Point for food- and waterborne diseases and zoonoses, and has been involved for over 15 years in European surveillance networks coordinated by ECDC. In this field, she is responsible for the epidemiological surveillance of food- and waterborne infections, including antimicrobial resistance surveillance of Salmonella, Campylobacter, Shigella and Escherichia coli strains.
She represents Romania in European structures and working groups dedicated to preparedness and response to public health emergencies and serious cross-border health threats. She is involved in national and European projects, training programmes and simulation exercises. She holds a PhD in Medical Sciences and a Master's degree in Health Promotion and Preventive Strategies. Her scientific activity focuses on the epidemiology and surveillance of communicable diseases, as well as public health preparedness and response.
Contact
Program, Lectori și Parteneri
Alina Hanuschi | +40 752 168 817 |
alina.hanuschi@pproevents.com
Înregistrări și Rezumate
Adriana Bârsan | +40 752 168 810 |
adriana.barsan@pproevents.com