Professor Emerita Jennifer Martin AC

Professor Emerita Jennifer Martin AC is an internationally acclaimed scientist who has made pioneering discoveries which have shaped our understanding of protein function, redox biology and bacterial virulence.

She trained as a pharmacist (Gold Medallist) at the Victorian College of Pharmacy, now Monash Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences. After completing a Master of Pharmacy, she was awarded a prestigious 1851 Science Research Scholarship to undertake a Doctor of Philosophy degree at the University of Oxford. Following this, she undertook post-doctoral research at Bond University and Rockefeller University and then established her independent laboratory at the University of Queensland. She has authored more than 150 publications and has solved more than 140 protein crystal structures. She has been the recipient of four nationally competitive Fellowships including an inaugural Australian Research Council Laureate Fellowship. She has directly fostered the careers of more than 100 scientists.

Professor Martin was President of the Asian Crystallographic Association for three years; member of the Executive Committee of the International Union of Crystallography for six years. She has contributed to the Australian Synchrotron for nine years through roles on its National and International Scientific Advisory Committees, Beamline Advisory Panels and Science Consultative Group. Professor Martin was also a Foundation member of the steering committee which established the Science in Australia Gender Equity (SAGE) program.

In 2016 Professor Martin was recruited as Director of the Griffith Institute for Drug Discovery and, in 2019, as Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Innovation) at the University of Wollongong, where she implemented a strategy underpinned by a triple bottom line of performance, people and planet. In retirement, she contributes to her discipline through roles on the Advisory Committee for the worldwide Protein Data Bank; the Board of Trustees for the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre; and the Council of the Australian Academy of Science.

In 2012, she lobbied Australia Post to release a stamp to commemorate Australia’s first Nobel Laureate Lawrence Bragg, in the centenary of Bragg’s Law. In 2014, she lobbied the Royal Australian Mint to issue a coin featuring crystallography during the International Year of Crystallography. She was a member of Questacon Council for six years and wrote the children’s book “My Aunt is a Protein Crystal Scientist. That’s Rad!”. At the 2023 International Union of Crystallography Congress, she gave a public lecture entitled “How I Fell in Love with Crystallography and Why You Should Too”.

Professor Martin is the recipient of many prizes and awards, including the nation’s highest honour in 2018, the Companion of the Order of Australia (AC), for eminent service to science, and scientific research, particularly biochemistry and protein crystallography, as a role model, and an advocate for gender equality in science.