Professor Matthew Gilliham’s discoveries in plant drought and salinity tolerance have contributed directly to improving wheat, barley, and wine grape yields and quality, locally and globally.
As Director of the Waite Research Institute, he transformed the University of Adelaide’s agricultural research flagship into a more ambitious enterprise, integrating synthetic biology and machine learning with established strengths in wine and plant breeding. His leadership oversaw major investments with government and industry partners, while fostering the next generation of research leaders, cementing Adelaide’s status as a world-class centre for agricultural innovation.
As founder and leader of the $150M ARC Centre of Excellence in Plants for Space (P4S), and Plant SynBio Australia, he has helped establish South Australia as an international hub for space plant sciences and synthetic biology. These technologies are used on the International Space Station and are supporting solutions in agricultural sustainability, biomanufacturing, and green bioeconomy, here on Earth.
His programs are communicated to the wider community through public events, with the P4S programs alone delivering outreach to more than 150,000 Australian primary and secondary students, and training for more than 2,000 teachers.
