Dr. Mertz attended medical school at the University Basel, Switzerland (1996-2002). He completed his training in Internal Medicine (2006) and Infectious Diseases (2009) in Switzerland and is board certified in both disciplines. He moved to Hamilton in August 2009 to complete a Master Degree in Health Research Methodology at McMaster University (2009-2011). In June 2011, Dr. Mertz started as an Assistant Professor at McMaster University (Division of Infectious Diseases in the Department of Medicine and affiliated with the Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics and the Department of Pathology and Molecular Medicine) and acting as the Medical Director Infection Prevention and Control at Hamilton Health Sciences since. He was promoted to Associate Professor by July 2016. His particular research interest is the epidemiology of hospital-acquired infections and of antibiotic-resistant pathogens, and antimicrobial stewardship. He published >70 peer reviewed articles to date. He is an associate editor for BMC Infectious Diseases and serves as the first-named editor for the 3rd edition of the book ‘Evidence-based Infectious Diseases’. He is teaching at the undergraduate (MD program), graduate (Health Research Methodology) and postgraduate level at McMaster University. He is also serving as a committee member of the Hamilton Integrated Research Ethics Board.