Prof Sarah Vreugde is Research Director of the Department of ENT at The University of Adelaide working together with Professors Wormald and Psaltis since 2011. Prof Vreugde graduated as a Medical Doctor from the Brussels University (VUB) in Belgium (1994). She subsequently specialized in ENT surgery at the same university. She then did a PhD in molecular biology (Tel Aviv University, Israel) studying the genetics of hearing loss, followed by a post-doc at the DIBIT research center in Milan (Italy). After working as patent examiner at the European Patent Office (The Netherlands) for 3 years, she moved to Australia to work at the University of Adelaide. In 2023 she was awarded the Passe and Williams Foundation Principal Scientist award. Her research focuses mainly on host-pathogen interactions in the context of chronic rhinosinusitis, aimed at understanding the pathophysiology of this disease and at the identification and development of better treatments for this condition.