All speakers are listed in alphabetical order.
HIV&AIDS Keynote | Macquarie University
Critical care in the future HIV response: what can we learn from the history of nurses on the frontline of Australia’s AIDS crisis?
Dr Geraldine Fela is an award-winning historian and Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the School of Humanities at Macquarie University.
The story of how nurses and their unions worked in partnership with the gay community to respond to HIV and AIDS in Australia is an inspiring example of care and solidarity, and can help us think critically about how we respond to HIV today and into the future.
Her research traverses histories of gender and sexuality, labour, social movements and medicine. Her first book, Critical Care: Nurses on the frontline of Australia’s AIDS crisis was published by UNSW Press in July 2024. In 2025, Critical Care was awarded the Prime Minister’s Literary Award in the category of Australian history, and was shortlisted in the NSW History Awards.
“The story of how nurses and their unions worked in partnership with the gay community to respond to HIV and AIDS in Australia is an inspiring example of care and solidarity, and can help us think critically about how we respond to HIV today and into the future.”
HIV&AIDS Keynote | Faculty of Medicine, University Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
PrEP implementation in Malaysia: Lessons for the region
Dr. Iskandar Azwa is an Associate Professor of Infectious Diseases and the Clinical Lead for the HIV service in the Infectious Diseases Unit, Faculty of Medicine, University Malaya, Kuala Lumpur.
Malaysia’s implementation of PrEP offers a distinctive case study in advancing evidence-based HIV prevention into real world practice. This presentation explores how cultural, religious, and health system considerations shape programme design and delivery, highlighting contextually grounded, scalable strategies and transferable lessons for the region.
He is also the Director of the Centre of Excellence for Research in Infectious Diseases & AIDS (CERIA), Faculty of Medicine, University Malaya.
His research interests include HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) implementation research, HIV resistance and evaluation of novel HIV treatment strategies in resource-limited settings.
He is the site Principal Investigator (PI) for several international collaborative HIV clinical trials that have shaped HIV guidelines both locally and globally. Much of his recent work has focused on increasing community access to HIV prevention biomedical interventions and implementation differentiated service delivery models of HIV care and prevention, including m-health and pharmacy-led service delivery models. He has been a member of several WHO guidelines development groups on HIV treatment and prevention since 2020.
HIV&AIDS Keynote | University of California, San Francisco
Clinical trial data characterising a promising combination immunotherapy strategy for functional HIV Cure
Rachel Rutishauser, MD, PhD is an Infectious Disease physician-scientist and Associate Professor in the Division of Experimental Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. The Rutishauser laboratory studies immunologic mechanisms of HIV control.
More speakers will be announced soon...