Introducing you to the current Executive Committee for the Sexual Health Society of Victoria.
The following committee was voted in at the SHSOV AGM in March 2026.
Dr Jacqueline Coombe, President
Dr Jacqueline Coombe is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne. Her research critically examines the use of long-acting reversible contraception in Australia, with a focus on the experiences of those using these methods. Her work also explores more broadly the experiences of accessing sexual and reproductive health care in Australia. Jacqueline is a qualitative researcher, with a particular interest in the use of free-text comments collected in health surveys as qualitative data.
Dr Lenka Vodstrcil, Vice President
Dr Lenka Vodstrcil is a Senior Research Fellow and epidemiologist in sexual and reproductive health at the Melbourne Sexual Health Centre-Central Clinical School, Monash University. Her translational research program focuses on improving treatment strategies for bacterial vaginosis and other STIs that are refractory or resistant to current therapies.
Professor Eric Chow, ASRHA Representative
Associate Professor Eric Chow is a sexual health epidemiologist at the Central Clinical School, Monash University, the Head of Health Data Management and Biostatistics Unit at the Melbourne Sexual Health Centre, Alfred Health, and an honorary principal fellow at the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne. His research focuses on male HPV vaccination programs and novel interventions for STI prevention and control. He has received several national and international research awards including the Levinia Crooks Emerging Leader Award in Blood Borne Viruses and Sexually Transmissible Infections (2020) and Commonwealth Health Minister’s Award for Excellence in Health and Medical Research (2020).
Dr Amie Bingham, Secretary and Website Administrator
With a background in sociological research, Amie has been a mixed methods academic in the public health arena for over a decade. Her sexual health work has focused on marginalised and underserved populations, including out-of-school youth, sex workers, and rural populations, strongly informed by a social determinants of health and social ecological lens. She has a particular interest in understanding ‘place’ and sexual and reproductive health outcomes.
Amie has significant experience in the fields of health systems and workforce, including the development and retention of rural health workforces, and also has a strong background in program evaluation and policy development. She is currently a Research Fellow with the Indigenous Epidemiology and Health Unit, Centre for Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health.
Dr Lydia Di Stefano, Medical Representative and Memberships Coordinator
Lydia is a doctor currently working as a registrar in obstetrics and gynaecology. She is passionate about maternal, newborn, reproductive and sexual health, and is forever balancing clinical medicine with research in this field. Lydia’s degrees include a MSc from London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine where she studied stillbirth in low-income settings, and a BMedSc(Hons) undertaken at the University of Oxford and focusing on the ethics of artificial wombs.
Dr Michael Traeger, Treasurer
Michael completed a Master of Science in Epidemiology in 2017, and is currently undertaking a PhD at the Burnet Institute with a focus on STI epidemiology and prevention among gay and bisexual men using HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis. Michael’s research involves using large sentinel surveillance datasets to monitor epidemiological trends in blood-borne viruses and STIs among priority populations and to evaluate large-scale public health interventions.
Associate Professor Christopher Fisher, Vice Treasurer
Associate Professor Christopher M Fisher is the Associate Dean of Learning & Teaching for VU College of Sport, Health and Engineering offerings at VU Online.
In this role, he provides academic, administrative, research and marketing leadership to achieve VU’s Strategic Plan. Christopher heads the Health portfolio, providing quality and assurance for the development and end-to-end delivery of the Graduate Certificates and/or Masters degrees in Public Health, Nursing and Mental Health.
Previously, Christopher fostered a higher degree by research teaching environment where innovation and creativity thrived, at the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society (ARCSHS) at La Trobe University (2017-22). At ARCSHS, Christopher also lead a research program on young people’s sexual health and wellbeing, leading the National Survey of Secondary Students and Sexual Health. He maintains adjunct positions with The Kirby Institute (UNSW), ARCSHS and Department of Health Promotion (University of Nebraska).
Prior to coming to Melbourne, Christopher lead teaching and research programs at Curtin University (2015-17), University of Nebraska Medical Center (2009-14) and Indiana University (2006-09).
Dr Teralynn Ludwick, Scholarships Coordinator
Teralynn Ludwick is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne. Working on an NHMRC-funded project, she is managing the co-design and implementation of an online STI testing service for Victoria. As an implementation researcher, Teralynn’s work focuses on health services research and evaluation.
Dr Erica Plummer, Executive Assistant and Vice Secretary
Dr Erica Plummer is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow and Bioinformatician with the Melbourne Sexual Health Centre, Central Clinical School, Monash University. Erica’s broad research interests include women’s health, sexual heath and the genital microbiome. Erica’s research uses next generation sequencing data to understand the contribution of the genital microbiome to common genital infections, and she is particularly interested in determining how interventions, behavioural practices and sexual practices influence the composition of the genital microbiome.
Trey Cardwell, Newsletter and Social Media coordinator
Trey has a Master of Public Health degree from the University of Kentucky and is a PhD candidate in the Sexual Health Unit at University of Melbourne on an NHMRC-funded Partnership Grant (GNT2006486, 2021-2026) lead by Prof. Jane Hocking and A/Prof. Fabian Kong. This grant is to develop Victoria’s first comprehensive web-based STI testing service (Test it) targeted at young people aged 16-29. Prior to commencement of his PhD, Trey worked on HIV prevention in the USA and internationally on HIV surveillance at the Kentucky Department of Public Health and the US Department of Defense HIV/AIDS Prevention Program. He served 2 years of US Peace Corps service in Lesotho, Africa as an HIV/AIDS and youth empowerment volunteer.