Dr Katja Shimko

Dr Katja Shimko has a background in Forensic Science (MRes) as well as environmental and analytical chemistry (PhD). She works as a Research Scientist at Biobot Analytics, developing analytical methods for the quantification of licit and illicit drugs in raw wastewater.

In collaboration with Sport Integrity Australia, Katja’s PhD project at QAEHS focused on assessing the suitability of performance and image enhancing drugs, as potential biomarkers for their use, in wastewater. During her time as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Katja continued the analysis of wastewater for performance enhancing drugs across Australia and the US. In addition, she also worked with the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission on the creation of liquid chromatography and gas chromatography high-resolution mass spectrometry libraries for by-products and contaminants of chemical manufacture.
Katja’s areas of interest and expertise include understanding and improving public health through wastewater-based epidemiology and analytical method development and validation for small molecules.