Dr Louise Rowntree is an early-mid career scientist with extensive expertise in viral immunology in vulnerable populations. Louise completed her PhD in 2016 at Monash University investigating human cross-reactive CD8+ T-cells in viral infections.
She joined Professor Tony Purcell's Laboratory (Monash) between 2016-2018 to further explore T-cell cross-reactivity between viral and self-antigens and identify allopeptides. Louise joined Prof Katherine Kedzierska’s Laboratory (UoM) in 2019, where her work focuses on dissecting anti-viral responses in high-risk groups, including First Nations peoples, patients with co-morbidities, children and pregnant women, with an emphasis on T-cell epitope identification and T-cell responses associated with severe disease.
Louise has worked in viral T-cell immunity since 2011, most recently on influenza and SARS-CoV-2. She has published a number of peer-reviewed research articles, exemplified by a world-first report of a SARS-CoV-2 CD8+ T-cell specificity early in the pandemic (PNAS-2020) and publications detailing the establishment of SARS-CoV-2-specific T-cells following COVID-19 infection in adults (Immunity-2021) and children (Immunity-2022). She is the recipient of an Australian Postgraduate Award (2012), Rutherford Fellowship (2018), Best Oral European Federation for Immunogenetics (2015) and Keystone Symposia Scholarship (2022). Her emerging international profile is recognized by internationally invited talks and selected inter/national abstract presentations with travel grants and speaker prizes.
