Rate My Professor Vilija Jokubaitis

Vilija Jokubaitis, B.Com/B.Sci (Hons), PhD (Neuroscience) from the University of Melbourne, serves as Associate Professor (Research) and Deputy Head of the Department of Neuroscience in the School of Translational Medicine at Monash University. She leads the Neuroimmunology Genomics, Prognostics and Women's Health Group, concentrating on the integration of biological and clinical outcomes research to predict neuroinflammatory disease trajectories, with a primary focus on multiple sclerosis (MS). Her investigations cover women's health and pregnancy research, leading the international MSBase Women's Health, Pregnancy and Neonatal Outcomes Registry; outcomes in underserved MS populations such as transgender individuals, victims of violence, and those with comorbidities; genetic and epigenetic signals linked to disease outcomes and treatment responses; and prognostic models combining biomarkers, genetics, environmental factors, and clinical data. Jokubaitis holds honorary senior research fellow positions at the Alfred Hospital (since 2018), University of Melbourne (since 2018), and Royal Melbourne Hospital (since 2011).

Jokubaitis has earned the NHMRC Investigator Grant (L1, 2024-2028) for "What’s pregnancy got to do with it? Prevention of disability in people with Multiple Sclerosis," alongside earlier honors like the MS Research Australia Young Investigator Award (best oral presentation, 2009) and Melbourne Health Research Week Best Oral Presentation – Neuroscience Research (2016). She chairs the Australia and New Zealand MS Genetics Consortium (ANZGene, since 2023) and MSBase Scientific Leadership Group (since 2022), serves as scientific lead for the MSBase Pregnancy Registry, and was a member of the ECTRIMS Scientific Communications Committee (2022-2024) and Vice-Chair of the Stop and Reverse MS steering committee (2019-2022). Previously, she managed digital content for the International Women in MS network (2018-2023). Key publications encompass "COVID-19 Vaccine Boosters in People With Multiple Sclerosis Improved SARS-CoV-2 Cross-Variant Antibody Response and Prediction of Protection" (2025), "Disease course after pregnancy in women with progressive multiple sclerosis symptoms" (2025), "Exploring the role of sex hormones and gender diversity in multiple sclerosis" (2025), and "The genetic basis of multiple sclerosis severity" (Brain, 2023). She has engaged in public outreach with lectures like "Our Amazing Brain" (2010) and science sessions for primary school students (2016-2017).