Thursday 25th September, 2025
Professor Bronwyn Gillanders is a marine scientist with an outstanding and distinguished history of achievement and an international reputation for innovative and high quality science. She has made important contributions in a number of fields, which has included using otoliths to address a range of questions related to environmental history of organisms, population structure, connectivity of organisms between estuaries and open coastal regions. Recently, Bronwyn has been using ancient otoliths to overcome the shifting baseline syndrome in freshwater and estuarine environments; developing long-term otolith growth and chemical chronologies and linking these to environmental conditions and investigating the effect of hypoxia on fish species. She has also undertaken research on cephalopods, especially the giant Australian cuttlefish.
Thursday 9th October, 2025
Professor Tara Pukala obtained a PhD from the University of Adelaide in 2006, under the supervision of Prof John Bowie. This was followed by a postdoctoral position at the University of Cambridge, UK, working with Prof Dame Carol Robinson in the field of native mass spectrometry.
Tara returned to Australia to her current role as lecturer in the Discipline of Chemistry at the University of Adelaide in 2008. Here she leads a multidisciplinary research group focused on developing new approaches, primarily utilising mass spectrometry, to investigate the structure, function and interactions of macromolecules important in biology.
Since 2017 Tara has served as the Scientific director of the Adelaide Proteomics Centre, a core facility enabling the provision of proteomics services to academia and industry. She is Past President of the Australian and New Zealand Society for Mass Spectrometry (ANZSMS), the leading national society of her field, and is the recipient of the ANZSMS 2017 Bowie Medal. Tara contributes to organisational leadership through her role as Deputy Dean of Research for the Faculty of Sciences, Engineering and Technology. Most recently she has been recognised as a 2023 Superstar of STEM by Science and Technology Australia.
