Charlene is a clinical academic, with her research based at LSHTM in microbial genomics and working as a paediatric consultant specialising in infectious diseases at St Mary’s Hospital, London. Charlene is also a consultant in the pathogen genomics programme at UKHSA (UK Health Security Agency).

Charlene’s research focuses on the use of microbial genomics and its application to clinical and public health practice and policy. She is working to better integrate genomics and bioinformatic analyses into healthcare settings to ensure they are more accessible to clinicians, microbiologists and epidemiologists to improve patient care. Charlene’s work with UKHSA is to help develop an integrated agency wide Pathogen Genomics programme, identifying and establishing robust and accredited services for priority pathogens.

Charlene graduated from medical school (Leicester University) in 2007 and subsequently trained as an NIHR Academic Clinical Fellow (Imperial College London). She completed Paediatric Infectious Diseases/Immunology GRID training (Great North Children’s Hospital, Newcastle) with Microbiology (St George’s Hospital, London). She has long been interested in genomics, in the context of host and pathogen variation, and undertook a Wellcome Trust funded DPhil in genomic epidemiology (University of Oxford), studying meningococcal vaccine antigens.