National Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) Healthcare Conference 2026

Director, Centre for Infectious Disease Emergency Response 

Professor, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS 

Professor Dale Fisher is an Australian infectious diseases physician who first moved to the National University Hospital, Singapore in March 2003 during the SARS outbreak. He has had many leadership roles in international outbreak missions and outbreak response trainings in African and Asian countries. He was chair of the steering committee of WHO’s Global Outbreak Alert & Response Network (2018 - 2022). Additionally, he has supported many WHO guideline efforts and advisory panels in infection prevention and control. He was one of 12 international technical experts on the WHO mission to China in February 2020 to investigate the COVID-19 outbreak. 

In Singapore, he is the Group Chief of Medicine at National University Health System and leads many efforts for the Ministry of Health including being the foundation chair of the National Infection Prevention and Control Committee (2014 - 2024). At NUH, he chaired the hospital-level IPC committee from 2006 until recently, implementing many programmes, most notably MRSA active surveillance. He has authored over 250 peer-reviewed publications and given around 200 invited and plenary presentations at medical conferences. He has many awards including the Minister for Health Award in 2018, National Medical Excellence Awards in 2013 and 2021 and in 2022 a certificate for outstanding leadership from the Director General, WHO. He chief edited a recently published text called Infectious Disease Emergencies; Preparedness and Response and is the Programme Director of a co-related Master’s course at NUS, now in its second year.

Chair, Department medical Microbiology and IPC, University Medical Center Groningen, The Netherlands 

Adjunct Professor, University of Lagos, Nigeria 

Professor Joost Hopman, MD, PhD, DTM&H is Chair of the Department of Medical Microbiology and Infection Prevention and Control at the University Medical Center Groningen, the Netherlands, and Adjunct Professor at the University of Lagos, Nigeria. Trained at the University of Utrecht, Radboud University Medical Center, Liverpool University, and Harvard Business School, his expertise spans medical microbiology, tropical medicine, infection prevention and control (IPC), and healthcare management. 

His work focuses on redesigning healthcare delivery, patient safety, the built environment, and IPC across high- and low-resource settings. He consulted for the WHO during the 2014 – 2015 Ebola outbreak and served on multiple WHO expert panels during COVID-19. He is a consultant for Médecins Sans Frontières and an advisory board member of the Infection Control African Network (ICAN). 

A recipient of the Kelsey (2023) and Lowbury (2025) lectures, Professor Hopman co-authored over 50 peer-reviewed publications, including in the NEJM, JAMA, and The Lancet.

Avondale University and Central Coast Local Health District 

Professor Brett Mitchell (AM) is Professor of Nursing at Avondale University, works with the Central Coast Local Health District in New South Wales, and is Editor-in-Chief of Infection, Disease in Health. 

Professor Mitchell is an internationally renowned clinician researcher in the field of infection prevention and control. His research provides high-quality evidence to inform infection control practice, leading many clinical trials. He has over 180 peer-reviewed publications and has led local, state and national guideline development. 

Professor Mitchell has received several prestigious national awards for his contributions, including an Order of Australia. His particular research interests include environmental cleaning, pneumonia, surveillance, and urinary tract infections. Professor Mitchell established the Infection Control Matters podcast, a free podcast with listeners in over 100 countries.

Director, National Infection Control and Healthcare Epidemiology (NICHE) Division, Communicable Diseases Agency

Dr Adelina Young is Director of the National Infection Control and Healthcare Epidemiology (NICHE) programme at Singapore’s Communicable Diseases Agency (CDA), where she leads national IPC surveillance. A public health physician with a deep interest in improvement science and performance management, she has been a member of the National Infection Prevention and Control Committee through much of its journey since 2018, including across the COVID-19 pandemic.

Prior to CDA, Dr Young held roles across Singapore’s healthcare system at polyclinics, hospitals, clusters, MOH, and Synapxe - where she contributed to clinical care, clinical services planning, health policy, clinical quality and informatics, and development of community health programmes.