Christie Seah

St. Joseph’s Catholic High School

Graduated 1997

Infectious disease researcher, studying antibiotic resistance in infections

After graduating from high school in Barrie in 1997, Christine went to the University of Guelph and studied biological sciences. After graduating with her Bachelor of Sciences degree, she went to the Michener Institute for Health Sciences where she became certified to work as a medical laboratory technologist in healthcare.

She worked in microbiology at a private laboratory for a few years and then moved on to Public Health Ontario. In her role as a research technician, she has participated in a variety of research projects in areas such as antimicrobial resistance in Streptococcus pneumoniae, molecular mycology, Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus typing/antibiotic resistance.

She is currently working in sexually transmitted infections (STI) research, where she is studying antibiotic resistancein infections and developing molecular methods to detect other STI pathogens.

Her accomplishments in the field of medical research are amazing, but they are also inspirational. Christine has worked extremely hard to overcome severe hearing loss and mild cerebral palsy. One of her teachers from high school recalls that, “she was a brilliant student who worked incredibly hard to overcome her disadvantages.”

Christine recently had a cochlear implant, which is a surgically implanted electronic device that provides a sense of sound to a person who is profoundly deaf or severely hard of hearing.