I'm an agricultural biotechnology researcher speacilising in plant molecular biology and biotechnology.
My research focuses on applying precision gene editing and molecular trait engineering to improve crop nutritional quality and resilience to abiotic stresses such as heat and frost. This involves utilising CRISPR/Cas9 to reduce acrylamide and browning in potato and using RNAi to generate virus-resistant orchids. I also contributed to oats and barley molecular marker-assisted breeding programs, wheat and barley double haploid production and provided groundwork for a wheat editing project aimed at disease resilience. Recently, I conducted a gene-edited frost-resilient wheat project funded by COGGO and in collaboration with an industry partner.
I'm based at Murdoch University, where I teach undergraduate and master students, as well as supervise HDR students.