Rate My Professor Kathryn Hally

Dr. Kathryn Hally is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Surgery and Critical Care at the University of Otago, Wellington campus, within the Faculty of Medicine, Health Sciences Division. She earned her PhD in 2018 and BBMedSc (Hons) from Victoria University of Wellington, where she conducted her undergraduate and postgraduate studies in Biomedical Science. Upon completing her doctorate, Hally joined the University of Otago as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Surgery, advancing to her current senior lecturing role. She holds additional positions as an Adjunct Research Fellow at Victoria University of Wellington, Scientist in the Wellington Cardiovascular Research Group—a collaboration between the University of Otago, Victoria University, and Capital & Coast DHB—and previously as a Heart Foundation Research Fellow. Her career focuses on bridging basic science and clinical practice through translational research.

Hally's research centers on translational cardiovascular medicine, innate immunology, platelet biology, and flow cytometry. She employs full-spectrum flow cytometry to analyze circulating immune cell phenotypes for biomarker discovery, particularly developing inflammation-based risk scores to predict myocardial repair after infarction. This enables personalized therapy and rehabilitation for patients at risk of poor cardiac outcomes. Her investigations extend to the immunology of human disease in cardiovascular conditions, surgery, and surgical cancers, examining how acute immune responses shape long-term recovery. Key publications include "Revisiting platelets and toll-like receptors (TLRs): at the interface of vascular immunity and thrombosis" (2020, International Journal of Molecular Sciences), "Platelet Toll-like receptor (TLR) expression and TLR-mediated platelet activation in acute myocardial infarction" (2017, Thrombosis Research), "Linking neutrophil extracellular traps and platelet activation: a composite biomarker score for predicting outcomes after acute myocardial infarction" (2021, Thrombosis and Haemostasis), and "CPHEN-017: Comprehensive phenotyping of neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) on peripheral human neutrophils" (2024, Cytometry Part A). Hally has secured Health Research Council funding for projects predicting surgical recovery via immune responses and supervises postgraduate students in immunology and cytometry techniques.