Dr Paola Villanueva is a consultant paediatrician and post-doctoral researcher in the Infectious Diseases Research Group at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. She is also a lecturer in medical education and paediatric teaching fellow at the University of Melbourne, and has completed a Simulation Education Fellowship at The Royal Children’s Hospital.

Her PhD research focuses on evaluating the safety of BCG vaccination and how to prevent adverse events. Her work involves vaccine safety surveillance within a large international clinical trial, collaborating with research centres in Australia, Brazil, the UK, the Netherlands and Spain.