I am a plant and soil biologist who studies how crops and the microbes around them affect one another. My goal is to turn that knowledge into practical ways for farmers to grow healthier plants with fewer chemicals and less fertiliser.

I earned my PhD at the University of Adelaide, where I looked closely at how barley changes its cell walls to slow down powdery mildew. After that I moved to the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences to explore how forest trees and friendly fungi exchange signals and nutrients. A second post-doctoral project at Umeå University in Sweden followed, this time focusing on how the bacterium Pseudomonas syringae taps into plant genes to draw out food—and how small changes in the plant’s own DNA can block that process.

I now work at the Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment at Western Sydney University. Here I study pine nurseries across Australia, testing ways to rebuild healthy root microbiomes so growers can cut back on fertiliser and fungicide. I also run a broccolini project that combines tailored microbial products and smart nutrition to keep clubroot in check while protecting yield and floret quality.