Professor Matthew Gilliham leads the international team that secured the ARC Centre of Excellence in Plants for Space. As Director of this 7-year, $100M enterprise, he is redefining Australia’s roles in space and on-Earth biomanufacturing, and spotlighting SA as a global centre for space-inspired food innovation.

Known internationally for translating his fundamental research into real-world agricultural impact, Matthew has pioneered improvements in salinity tolerance of wheat, barley, tomato, soybean, and grapevine, leading to yield improvements of more than 25% in the field. As a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher since 2019, his research is recognised in the top 1% globally.

Under Matthew’s leadership as Director, the Waite Research (WRI) Institute secured major investments such as the SA Drought Hub and two ARC Training Centres, and partnership with the SA Government. By mentoring and recruiting a new generation of agricultural research leaders, he expanded WRI’s multidisciplinary capabilities, integrating new gene editing, synthetic biology, and machine learning technologies with existing strengths in wine, plant breeding, and agronomy.

-From the SASEIA website