Dr Wendy Munckhof completed her medical degree at the University of Melbourne in 1985 and went on to complete her specialty training as both an Infectious Diseases Physician and Clinical Microbiologist in Melbourne, working at Fairfield Hospital, St Vincent’s Hospital, Austin Hospital, Monash Medical Centre, the Royal Children’s Hospital and the Alfred Hospital.

Dr Munckhof was awarded an NHMRC Research Scholarship in 1996 and completed her PhD in 1999 from Monash University (topic, the postantibiotic effect and its relevance to optimal antibiotic dosing). She then moved to Brisbane to undertake postdoctoral research and whilst there pursued numerous other research interests most notably in the study of Staphylococcus aureus including seminal work on community acquired MRSA in the late 1990s. She discovered the ST93 community acquired strain of MRSA in southern Queensland in 1999 and was the first in the world to characterise its clinical and microbiological features; this is now the most common strain of community acquired MRSA in Australia. She has 59 peer-reviewed journal articles, 7 book chapters and 57 international conference abstracts.

Dr Munckhof has many academic achievements, including Dux of Siena College Camberwell in 1979, winner of the Julia Flynn Memorial Prize in 1979 (top female HSC student in a Victorian Catholic School), finalist in the Jamieson Prize in Medicine (1985), winner of the Edgar Rouse Prize in Occupational Medicine (1985), the SmithKline Beecham ASID ICAAC travel award (1993), the Young Investigator Travel Award in 1997 (International Society for Anti-infective Pharmacology), the ASA Roche Travel Award (2001 and 2002), and the ASID Pfizer Travel Award (2003).

Dr Munckhof lived in Brisbane from 1999-2021 and whilst there, worked as an infectious diseases physician at the Princess Alexandra, Ipswich, Gold Coast and Wesley Hospitals. She worked as a clinical microbiologist at the Princess Alexandra, Ipswich and Gold Coast Hospitals and at Mater Pathology. Dr Munckhof has also been very active in medical education and has held an Associate Professorship at the University of Queensland since 2006. Among her many national and international achievements, she was Newsletter Editor and then Secretary of the Australian Society for Antimicrobials (2001-9), Councillor for the Australian Society of Infectious Diseases (2002-5), a member of the Expert Writing Group for Therapeutic Guidelines: Antibiotic (versions 14 and 15), Clinical Evaluator for the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) on antimicrobial agents and vaccines (1996-present), a member of the TGA Advisory Committee on Medicines (2018-present). She completed the Gorgas Advanced Course in Tropical Medicine in Peru in 2005 and the TropMedex Tropical Training course in Tanzania in 2016. She has also supervised the training of many registrars in infectious diseases and microbiology and has been an examiner for both the RACP and RCPA.

Dr Munckhof returned to Melbourne for family reasons in April 2021, just in time for a further COVID lockdown. In addition to working part-time as a clinical microbiologist for Dorevitch Pathology, she continues to work 2 days per week remotely for Pathology Queensland, and also works as an infectious diseases physician at several private hospitals and continues her work on several different TGA committees. TB. When not working, she loves to travel and has visited all the continents and 75 countries. She hopes to visit many more countries in the future, COVID-willing.