On Friday, November 14th 2025, SRAP organised a Research Bites event to commemorate the 10th year anniversary of SRAP Research Bites in Victoria at The Spanish Club – Hogar Español Melbourne (57 Johnston St, Fitzroy).
Celebrating 10 years of SRAP Research Bites in Victoria
Hosted by SRAP Victorian Representative, Ivan Martinez Botella, the event consisted of talks by four leading researchers in their fields. The talks invited the audience to learn about research in different topics in Spanish. Dr Rodolfo Garcia Flores spoke about his work in Optimisation and Financial Risk Analytics at CSIRO Data61; Dr Sara Carrillo de Albornoz spoke about her role as Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Health Economics at Monash University; Dr Ana María Salinas Montalvo talked about her PhD research into the papilloma virus; and Distinguished Professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies, Alfredo Martínez Expósito, provided a presentation about new LGBTIQ+ cinema in Latin America. The event was well attended with over 40 people registered. The attendees enjoyed the talks and had the opportunity to network over tapas and drinks.
Opening the event, Ms Margarita Ros, Spanish Club President, talked about the Spanish Club history and presented information related to current activities.
Ivan Martinez Botella provided an Acknowledgement of Country and spoke about SRAP’s purpose and recent activities.
The first speaker was Dr Rodolfo Garcia Flores, Senior Research Scientist working in Optimisation and Financial Risk Analytics at CSIRO Data61. Rodolfo presented a talk about operation’s research including several case studies. See Dr Rodolfo Garcia Flores’ bio below.
Dr Rodolfo García Flores presenting
The second speaker was Dr Sara Carrillo de Albornoz. Sara a SRAP member and Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Health Economics at Monash University. Sara presented a talk related to health economy and public health resources. See Dr Sara Carrillo de Albornoz’s bio below.
Dr Sara Carrillo de Albornoz presenting
The third speaker was Dr Ana María Salinas Montalvo, Griffith University Alumni. Ana María presented a talk entitled “Using genetic tools as a non-invasive therapy for throat cancer”. See Dr Ana María Salinas Montalvo’s bio below.
Dr Ana María Salinas Montalvo presenting
The last speaker was Distinguished Professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies, Alfredo Martínez Expósito, SRAP member who presented a about new LGBTIQ+ cinema in Latin America. See Distinguished Professor Alfredo Martínez Expósito’s bio below.
Distinguished Professor Alfredo Martínez Expósito presenting
From left to right, Distinguished Professor Alfredo Martínez Expósito; Dr Sara Carrillo de Albornoz; Dr Rodolfo García Flores; Dr Ana María Salinas Montalvo and Mr Ivan Martinez Botella
Speakers’ bios:
Dr Rodolfo García Flores is a chemical engineer graduated from the National Autonomous University of Mexico with more than twenty years of experience in research applied to industrial engineering, mathematical optimization and Operations Research. He was a lecturer in Operations Research and statistics at the Faculty of Engineering of the Autonomous University of Nuevo León (Mexico) before joining CSIRO, Australia’s scientific research agency, in 2006. Rodolfo has participated in various research projects with applications in industry, such as the development of a socioeconomic model and technology transfer to help communities of cheese makers in Latin America to improve their processes and reduce waste, the calculation of timetables for trains carrying iron ore (hematite) to ports for export, and improving the productivity of trucks in mines, to name a few.
Dr Sara Carrillo de Albornoz is a researcher in health economics, specialized in the evaluation of health technologies. She currently works as a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Health Economics at Monash University, where she has been part of the Health Technology Assessment (HTA) team for the past 8 years. Her work includes the evaluation of the comparative clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of different medications, diagnostic tests and medical devices for financing within national health systems. Sara’s professional experience also includes pharmacoeconomic consulting and the development of clinical guidelines for the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) in the United Kingdom. Sara has a master’s degree in Public Health (MSc in Public Health) from the University of London and has just submitted her doctoral thesis on the cost-effectiveness of immunoglobulin in blood cancer.
Dr Ana María Salinas Montalvo began her career as a pharmaceutical chemist and during her undergraduate degree she realized that current medicine does not cure diseases but only controls or alleviates them. While working in the pharmaceutical industry as a leader in quality assurance, she pursued a master’s degree in pathogenic microbiology. During her master’s degree, she expanded her knowledge regarding infectious agents. At the end of her studies, she asked herself this question, why doesn’t a microorganism affect all human beings in the same way? This interest took her to Australia, where she studied throat cancer derived from the human papillomavirus and how to eliminate it, a cancer that does not develop in all human beings despite the majority of them being infected. She is a person passionate about the search for knowledge, its dissemination and the development of real alternatives to human diseases of infectious and/or hereditary origin.
Distinguished Professor Alfredo Martínez Expósito completed his PhD in Hispanic Literatures at the University of Oviedo. After completing a postdoctoral degree at Columbia University, he worked in the Spanish programs at the universities of Queensland and Melbourne, where he was also Head of School of languages, linguistics and cultural studies. Alfredo is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities. He was a visiting professor at the universities of Vienna, Durham and Complutense of Madrid, professor of excellence at the Carlos III University and Fellow of the Madrid Institute of Advanced Studies. Alfredo was president of the Australian Association of Iberian and Latin American Studies. Among other awards, he has the Extraordinary Bachelor’s Award, the Medal of Civil Merit and the Malaspina Award. He is one of the pioneers of the study of LGBT literature in Spain, a topic on which he has published several books and more than one hundred academic articles. His research also includes topics related to nation branding and the teaching of Spanish in Australia.