Welcome to our new recruit, Dr Joseph Kong!

Dr Joseph Kong

Welcome to Dr Joseph Kong! 

Professor Terry O'Brien, Head of Central Clinical School, writes:

It is with great pleasure that I can announce the recruitment of Dr Joe Kong, MBChB, MS, PhD, FRACS to an 0.5 FTE academic appointment as a Senior Research Fellow (Level C) in the Department of Surgery, Central Clinical School, Monash University. 

Joe is an outstanding academic colorectal surgeon who is currently a consultant colorectal and general surgeon at Alfred Health and The Peter McCallum Cancer Centre, as well as a Discovery Partner Research Fellow at Peter Mac. He undertook his basic medical training (MBChB) at the University of Auckland, New Zealand (graduating in 2006), his Master of Surgery at the University of Melbourne (Graduating in 2011) and then his PhD at the University of Melbourne and Peter Mac in “Immune Markers to Predict Response and Developing Methods to Enhance Immunotherapy in the Neoadjuvant Treatment of Locally Advanced Rectal Cancer”, graduating in 2018. 

He did his general surgical training at a number of hospitals in Melbourne (FRACS 2015) and then Fellowships in Colorectal Surgery at Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane (2018) and at Alfred Health (2019). 

Joe will establish his translational gastroenterological cancer laboratory, in close collaboration with Professors Alex Boussioutous, Mark Shackleton and Wendy Brown, and will further enhance the A+ Precinct’s growing strength in academic GI Oncology.  

In addition to his translational/molecular colorectal cancer interests, Joe also has a strong research interest in the development and translation into practice of machine learning (artificial intelligence) and robotics, which will interface well with a building strength in the Predict in this area, including the groups of Prof. Meng Law in Radiology and Prof. Patrick Kwan in Neuroscience, and others. In recognition of Dr. Kong’s potential to be a national and international leader in academic surgery, he was awarded the prestigious Foundation for Surgery Research Fellowship from the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (2022-2025). 

We are delighted by Joe’s recruitment to Monash, which will further boast the growing research strength of the academic Department of Surgery in the Central Clinical School under Professor Wendy Brown’s leadership. Joe will start at Monash in January 2022. Please join with me in congratulating him on his appointment, and welcoming him to the school.