Christina Varghese is a public health researcher with experience across government, policy and practice. She previously worked at SA Health in the COVID‑19 response and in Drug and Alcohol Services, where she contributed to outbreak management, risk assessment, and alcohol and other drug policy and prevention initiatives. These roles strengthened her interest in infectious diseases, health equity and evidence‑informed decision making. Christina is now a PhD candidate in Public Health at the University of Adelaide. Her doctoral research uses advanced epidemiological modelling to examine how changes in temperature and rainfall influence food‑ and vector‑borne infectious diseases in Australia, and to project future disease burden under different climate scenarios.