People

Dr Mike Haydon – Associate Professor, Group Leader

Mike completed his BSc (Hons) and PhD at the University of Melbourne. He spent nearly ten years in Europe for post-doctoral work at the University of Heidelberg as a Marie Curie Fellow and the University of Cambridge, then a lecturer and group leader at the University of York. In March 2016, he moved to the School of BioSciences at The University of Melbourne.

Xiang Li – PhD candidate

Xiang completed her Masters at the Institute for Genetics and Developmental Biology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing working on thermotolerance in rice. She joined the lab at The University of Melbourne to commence her PhD in June 2017. Her project uses genetics and chemical genetics to investigate roles of calcium channels in sugar signalling in Arabidopsis.

Dr Chris Buckley – Research Associate

Chris completed his BSc and MSc at the University of Sheffield in the UK. He joined the lab in 2020 for his PhD, which he completed in 2023. In 2024, Chris started as a post-doc, working on a GRDC-funded project investigating the role of the clock in heat tolerance of wheat.

Anna Philippova – PhD candidate

Anna completed a Master of Biotechnology at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. She started a PhD in the MelPoPP in November 2020, jointly supervised with Dr Reimo Zoschke at the MPI-MP in Potsdam. Her project investigates circadian regulation of translation in Arabidopsis

Francis Kuang – PhD candidate

Francis completed his Bachelor and Masters degrees at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. He is cosupervised with Dr Ivanhoe Leung (Chemistry/Bio21) to investigate function and regulation of ethylene biosynthesis enzymes.

Josh Boyte – PhD candidate

Josh completed his MSc (BioSciences) in the lab from March 2020 to November 2021, looking at the role of ethylene in the circadian clock in Arabidopsis. He returned to the lab as a Research Assistant in August 2022 working on sugar-regulated WRKY transcription factors. In July 2023, he started his PhD to study circadian rhythms in wheat.

Yalin Liu – PhD candidate

Yalin completed her BSc at Beijing Forestry University and MSc at University of Victoria, Canada. She joined the lab in March 2024 to investigate circadian clock function in wheat.

Callum Hayes – Honours student

Callum did his BSc at the University of Melbourne and started his Honours project in the lab in 2024. He is investigating whether a group of transcription factors are involved in sugar signalling affecting circadian gene expression and growth in Arabidopsis.

Opportunities

We are always keen for enthusiastic researchers to join the team. Prospective Masters, Honours and PhD students or post-docs thinking of applying for fellowships can contact Mike by email.