Dr Alanna Spiteri
PhD
Biography
Dr Spiteri completed her PhD at the University of Sydney in 2022 where she was supported by a Research Training Program stipend and a Supplementary Merit Award Scholarship upon award of Honour Class I and the University Medal.
During her honours and PhD, she gained expertise in flow and spectral cytometry, single-cell RNA sequencing, high-dimensional data analysis using dimensionality reduction and hierarchal clustering, coding and analysis in R, immunohistochemistry, imaging mass cytometry, virus plaque assay and qPCR.
As part of her PhD she investigated the role of microglia and peripheral myeloid cells in the central nervous system to acute and severe neuroinflammation, as seen in West Nile virus encephalitis, under Hononary Professor Nicholas King.
Dr Spiteri is currently working as a postdoctoral research fellow under Dr Nicholas Pan and Dr Liang Jin in the Neurodegeneration and Neuropathology Group. She uses bioinformatic approaches to unravel the proteomic, transcriptomic and metabolomics signatures in individuals with dementia for the identification of biomarkers and therapeutic targets.
Career highlights
Past roles
- Postdoctoral research associate, University of Sydney
- Organiser and host of the Spectral and High-dimensional Analysis User Group meeting, University of Sydney
- Mass Cytometry Expert Sub-Committee member, University of Sydney
Awards and achievements
2019 – International Society for Advancement of Cytometry (ISAC) Exceptional Student Award Finalist
2019 – Research Training Program (RTP) Stipend and Merit Award Supplementary Scholarship recipient
2019 – University Medal, University of Sydney
2019 – University of Sydney Academic Merit Prize, University of Sydney
2018 – Gabriella Wittman Prize for Genetics, University of Sydney