Dr Vera Sistenich is an emergency medicine specialist in Australia, where her areas of interest include Aboriginal health, medical education and the development of physician training in the field of international emergency medicine. She gained her medical degree at the University of Oxford, and a masters of public health at Harvard University. Outside Australia, she has clinical experience in China, DRCongo, Nepal, Peru, South Africa, Vietnam and the UK. She has also worked with asylum seekers both at the Christmas Island Immigration Detention Centre in the Australian Indian Ocean territories, and on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea. In 2013-2014, she was Health Policy Advisor to the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva, Switzerland. She is currently the project leader for HandUp Congo's Emergency Medicine Project, in collaboration with Rotary International. 

Vera lives in Sydney with her husband and baby son. When not in the local hospitals, she enjoys ocean swimming and is also a hobby apiarist and candlemaker. Honey sold from her hives has raised nearly $10,000 dollars in support of the work of HandUp Congo