Stephanie J.dancer BSc, MB.BS, MSc, MD, FRCPath, DTM&H, FRCP(Ed)

Stephanie is a medical microbiologist in NHS Lanarkshire and a Professor of Microbiology at Edinburgh Napier University, in Scotland. She edited the Journal of Hospital Infection for over 20 years, five of them as editor-in-chief. She trained at St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London followed by postgraduate studies at Guy's Hospital, where she gained a thesis on the epidemiology and biochemistry of toxin-producing staphylococci. She has worked and traveled all over the world, including the Canadian High Arctic, where she resuscitated 30,000-year-old organisms from glacial ice. She spent six years as Infection Control Officer for Argyll before moving to Health Protection Scotland as their inaugural microbiologist (2002-5).

she set up MRSA surveillance for Scotland, evaluated real-time PCR for MRSA screening, and helped establish the Scottish Microbiology Forum. She has been a member of several national working groups on antibiotic prescribing, MRSA, and hospital cleaning, and is a current or recent member of NHS Scotland HAI and AMR Committees; UK NICE (infection control); UK HTA (screening and diagnostics); ESCMID groups on infection control, MRSA & multi-resistant Gram-negative bacilli; and 2013 ECCMID conference committee. She has published books, book chapters, and around 150 papers in peer-reviewed journals on hospital cleaning, antimicrobial management, infection control, and MRSA. At present, she balances clinical and editorial duties (International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents & Infection, Disease & Health) with research, specifically the role of antibiotics, screening, and cleaning in the control of MRSA and other hospital pathogens.