Professor Melissa Penny
Chair in Child Health Research, University of Western Australia and The Kids Research Institute, Australia
Biography
Professor Melissa Penny is a mathematical modelling and malaria expert and heads the Global Disease Modelling Group at The Kids Research Institute Australia. She was appointed the Fiona Stanley Chair of Child Health Research at the University of Western Australia in 2023. She holds a PhD in applied mathematics and a Bachelor of Science with First Class Honours, both from Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia.
Professor Penny has over 2 decades’ experience and interest in developing mathematical and computational models to provide quantitative and model-based evidence to support malaria control and elimination decisions, particularly for product development, for policy decisions on new tools, or for intervention mixes. Professor Penny is highly collaborative and has participated in or led international multi-institute consortiums to provide evidence to WHO and other stakeholders for decision making on new malaria interventions. This evidence includes the likely public health impact and cost-effectiveness of new interventions, such as malaria vaccines RTS,S/AS01, R21, and novel immune therapies. She was a key member of the Swiss national COVID-19 Science Taskforce, providing quantitative modelling estimates and analysis to the group.
Professor Penny works closely with numerous international research partners and provides advice to WHO and regional partners via several expert review groups and WHO guidance development groups. Since 2013 and up to 2024, Professor Penny has been an active member of no fewer than 9 WHO technical expert and guidance development groups, and in addition contributes impact and economic evidence to WHO-SAGE and MPAG on new malaria vaccines.
Alongside her research, Professor Penny has mentored numerous students and trainee scientists to their chosen careers and has delivered in-person and online lectures to courses, including for MalariaX. Her work to develop data- and epidemiology-informed mathematical models and analysis to understand pathogen, host and intervention dynamics has applications not only for malaria research and policy impact, but for other infectious diseases as well.