With a background in statistical and computational genomics, Gerry has developed highly used algorithms for analysing microbial genomics data. These algorithms have been applied to a wide range of microbes, including parasites, viruses, and bacteria. Prior to starting at Peter Mac, Gerry completed a PhD in Mathematical Genomics and Medicine at the University of Cambridge and the Wellcome Sanger Institute, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at the Oslo Centre for Biostatistics and Epidemiology.

Sudaraka received his B.Sc. (Eng.) from University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka and worked as a Lecturer at the same institute for two years. He received his Ph.D (Eng.) from Monash University and started working as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in statistical genetics at Melbourne Integrative Genomics (MIG), University of Melbourne. In 2022, he received a Marie Curie Fellowship to conduct research in computational pathogen genomics at the University of Oslo. His research interests are in genomics, data science, machine learning, computational physics and biomedical engineering.

Qing is currently a Master of Science (Bioinformatics) student at the University of Melbourne. In 2023, she completed her BSc (Hons) in Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the International Medical University, Malaysia, and then worked as a research assistant at Monash University, Malaysia, with Dr. Yeong Keng Yoon’s medicinal chemistry group, primarily focusing on Alzheimer’s disease and cancer. With a strong passion for medical research, she hopes to use bioinformatics and machine learning to aid in the development of medical technology for global health.

Zunair is a current PhD student in the Tonkin-Hill Lab investigating longitudinal metagenomics. He completed a BBmed, majoring in Human Structure and Function, in 2022 and a Master of Public Health, specialising in Epidemiology and Biostatistics, in 2024, both at the University of Melbourne. During his PhD he has been investigating methods of estimating within-host mutation rates of commensal bacteria from longitudinal metagenomic data. He is interested in the intersection between bioinformatics, biostatistics, and public health.

Hiruni completed her B.Sc. (Eng.) degree at the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka, in 2024. During her undergraduate studies, she worked for six months as a Research Assistant at the University of Sydney, contributing to research in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Machine Learning. In 2025, she began her PhD at the University of Melbourne, where her initial research focuses on identifying mutational signatures associated with bacteria.

Nikhil is completing his B.S. at the University of Texas at Austin. In the past, he worked at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Centre in Houston, Texas with a focus on translational research related to miRNA expression in breast cancer. In 2025, he joined the Tonkin-Hill Lab as an honorary research student, where his research focuses on differential identity methods to uncover disease associations with microbiome profiles.