Associate ProfessorIryna Zablotska-Manos

Associate Professor Iryna Zablotska, a medical doctor and PhD graduate (Johns Hopkins University), is an Epidemiologist with the Western Sydney Sexual Health, Sydney Medical School – Westmead. She is highly regarded for her extensive skills in the conception, design, execution and analysis of complex longitudinal studies of HIV risk and prevention, including treatment as prevention and pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). Her PhD work (2000-2004) on the Rakai study - the largest population-based HIV observational cohort globally- was focused on behavioural risk factors for HIV transmission in heterosexual populations. During 2006-2009, she worked as a Lecturer at the National Centre in HIV Social Research (now the Centre in for Social Research in Health), the UNSW Sydney, where she led the Australian Gay Community Periodic Surveys (national HIV behavioural surveillance) and was an investigator on other complex studies among gay men in Australia, such as Positive Health and Health in Men cohorts of HIV positive and negative gay men, respectively. Her behavioural surveillance and research on risk factors for HIV transmission among gay men informed HIV prevention strategy in NSW and nationally. During 2009-17, A/Prof Zablotska worked at the Kirby Institute, UNSW Sydney, were she continued her research into behavioural risk factors for HIV and methods for biomedical HIV prevention. As a leading Australian researcher on PrEP, she led the first community survey about PrEP use in NSW and a demonstration study of PrEP users in Sydney (PrELUDE), and was responsible for establishing the NSW implementation trial of Expanded PrEP implementation in communities in NSW (EPIC-NSW), the first study to evaluate the population impact of PrEP. A/Prof Zablotska has expertise in policy development as a member of the expert Australian Society of HIV Medicine group which developed the first national PrEP guidelines and was a member of the WHO/UNAIDS technical expert group on developing PrEP implementation guidelines. Her work is based on longstanding engagement with HIV affected communities in Australia. She also has strong research ties with HIV researchers and community leaders, and collaborations with leading international research groups on HIV prevention.