Our people

We are a dedicated team here to drive and inspire your creativity, innovation and passion. The team of our Academy comprises our founder and director, food safety and quality microbiologist Philip Button, along with dietitian, Mayleen Villanueva and administrative assistant, Dencelle Mercines. To e-mail us, add our e-mail username to the e-mail domain @foodmicrobiology.academy.

Dr Philip Button	Ms Mayleen Villanueva	Ms Dencelle Mercines
Founder / Director	Senior Project Officer	Administrative Assistant
Food Safety and Quality Microbiologist	Dietitian and food science postgraduate student	Chemical engineering undergraduate student
Alma mater: The University of Melbourne	Alma mater: University of Santo Tomas	Current university: Adamson University
Hometown: Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Current city: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia	Current city: Metro Manila, Phillipines	Current city: Metro Manila, Phillipines
E-mail = philip.button	E-mail = mayleen.villanueva	E-mail = dencelle.mercines

Current industry experience internship students

Dakota ADKINS

Course: Bachelor of Science

University: Monash University

Internship unit: SCI3920

Internship dates: 2 January 2025 – 14 February 2025

Elyse CHIA

Course: Bachelor of Science / Bachelor of Arts

University: Monash University

Internship unit: SCI3920

Internship dates: 2 January 2025 – 14 February 2025

Vinodi PARANAGAMA

Course: Bachelor of Laws (Honours) / Bachelor of Science

University: Monash University

Internship unit: SCI3920

Internship dates: 2 January 2025 – 14 February 2025

Shreya SUDKE

Course: Bachelor of Science

University: Monash University

Internship unit: SCI3920

Internship dates: 2 January 2025 – 14 February 2025

Former industry experience internship students

We have been fortunate to host these four internship students from Monash University in 2024. They engaged with us in a true employee-employer arrangement in a hybrid working model flexibly combining WFH and on-site work. In addition, we also worked with five RMIT University students over the entire second semester from July to October. They were from the School of Computing Technologies. Our engagement with these students was different, as it was more of a client and external contractor arrangement. They worked 100% remote.