I was awarded my PhD in protein biochemistry from Flinders University in April 2010. My doctoral work was carried out in the laboratory of A/Prof Peter Anderson, School of Biological Sciences, and involved the use of protein biochemistry to understand the activation mechanisms of plant innate immune receptors.

After completing my PhD in 2010 I took up a postdoctoral research fellow position at the University of Queensland (UQ) working with Professor of Structural Biology, ARC Laureate Fellow, Bostjan Kobe. In this role, I led the laboratory’s plant-microbe interactions research program for approximately 6.5 years.

In 2015, I was awarded a Discovery Early Career Research Award (DECRA) from the Australian Research Council to join the Research School of Biology (RSB) at ANU. in April 2016 I joined Professor Peter Solomon's group within the RSB to utilise protein biochemistry, structural biology and plant biology techniques to understanding how effector proteins from necrotrophic fungi cause disease in wheat.

In July 2018, I was employed as a lab leader, via a competitive recruitment process, in the Division of Plant Sciences, RSB, ANU. In October 2018, I was awarded an ANU Futures Scheme grant to support the establishment of my own laboratory and research program. In July 2020, I was awarded a prestigious ARC Future Fellowship aimed at understanding the molecular basis of fungal rust diseases in plants.

The Williams Plant Structural Immunology research laboratory is positioned within the Plant Microbe Interaction theme, Division of Plant Science in RSB. We utilise structural biology, protein biochemistry and synthetic biology approaches to study fungal pathogenesis and plant immunity.

Please see the below links for further access to publications. For free-access to our recent publication McCombe, Wegner et al in Science please access via this link https://www.science.org/stoken/author-tokens/ST-2473/full 

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PhD, BBiotech(Hons)

Structural Biology / Synthetic Biology / Plant-Microbe Interactions / Plant Innate Immunity / Fungal Pathogenesis