Associate Professor Lee Berger serves as Principal Research Fellow in Wildlife Health and Conservation at the Melbourne Veterinary School, University of Melbourne, leading the One Health Research Group. She earned her Bachelor of Veterinary Science from the University of Melbourne in 1993 and her PhD from James Cook University in 2001, with a thesis titled "Diseases in Australian Frogs." During her PhD, conducted primarily at CSIRO's Australian Animal Health Laboratory, Berger discovered the amphibian chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis as the causative agent of chytridiomycosis, a novel pandemic pathogen responsible for catastrophic global declines and extinctions of amphibian populations, including 90 frog species. Her landmark publication, "Chytridiomycosis causes amphibian mortality associated with population declines in the rain forests of Australia and Central America" (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 1998), provided the first identification of an infectious cause for these declines, representing a paradigm shift in amphibian disease research and conservation.

Berger's research focuses on wildlife health, particularly infectious diseases threatening biodiversity, with extensive work on chytridiomycosis encompassing its pathogenesis, treatment, global distribution, disease ecology, diagnosis, conservation management, and host immunity. Following her PhD and a postdoctoral year at the U.S. National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wisconsin, she held positions at James Cook University, including as Associate Dean of Research in the College of Public Health, Medical and Veterinary Sciences, before relocating her One Health Research Group to the University of Melbourne. She has conducted outbreak investigations, provided epidemiological advice to conservation agencies worldwide, and supported chytridiomycosis surveys across Asia, Europe, and South America. Her contributions influenced the World Organisation for Animal Health to list chytridiomycosis as a notifiable disease and the Australian Government to recognize it as a key threatening process. Berger received the Frank Fenner Prize for Life Scientist of the Year in 2018 as part of the Prime Minister's Prizes for Science and was elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in 2020. Her expertise spans biology, epidemiology, conservation biology, fungal pathogenesis, and veterinary pathology, advancing holistic One Health solutions for wildlife health challenges.

Professional Email: lee.berger@unimelb.edu.au