EMPLOYMENT
From August 2009
Scientist
Plant Functional Genomics, Department of Primary Industries, Victoria, Australia.
From March 2007
Post-Doctoral Research Fellow
University of Melbourne, Australia
July 2003 – March 2007
Post-Doctoral Research Fellow
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
(including 1.5 years as a Visiting Fellow at University of Melbourne, Australia)
Sept 1999 – July 2003
Project Scientist
John Innes Centre, Norwich, UK
HIGHER EDUCATION
1996-2000 University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK
Ph.D. Molecular Virology
1993-1996 University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK
BSc (Hons) Molecular Biology and Genetics
HONOURS, AWARDS & PROFESSIONAL SERVICE
• Invitation to attend ‘New frontiers in cellular interaction in Cniderian-dinoflagellate symbioses’ workshop at the Centre for Marine Studies, University of Queensland, (funds from James Cook University, Australia) 2007
• Invitation from Prof. Ken Ishida (University of Tsukuba, Japan) to visit and address the Institute of Biological Sciences, Tsukuba, Japan, (¥40,000 Funds from the Institute of Biological Sciences, Tsukuba, Japan) October 2006
• Invitation to speak at the ‘The birth and lateral transfers of algal plastids’ symposium in ‘Marine algae and global warming’ Seoul, Korea (W1,300,000 Funds from the Korean Institute of Phycology) October 2006
• Invitation (by competitive selection) to speak at the ‘Arthur M Sacker Colloquium of the National Academy of Sciences: The Tapestry of Life – Lateral Transfers of Heritable Elements’ December 12-13, 2005, Irvine, California, USA December 2006
• The Luigi Provasoli Award US$1000 presented biennially to the first author(s) of the three, or fewer, outstanding papers published in the Journal of Phycology during the past two fiscal years. Awarded for ‘Patron NJ & Keeling PJ (2005) Common evolutionary origin of starch biosynthetic enzymes in green and red algae. Journal of Phycology 41, 1131-1141 Presented Juneau, Alaska, July 2006
• BMC Evolutionary Biology ‘Research Highlight’ and ‘Highly Accessed Article’ for Patron NJ, Rogers MB & Keeling PJ Comparative rates of evolution in endosymbiotic nuclear genomes BMC Evolutionary Biology 6: 46 2006
• Journal of Phycology ‘Issue Highlight’: Patron NJ & Keeling PK Common evolutionary origin of starch biosynthetic enzymes in green and red algae. Journal of Phycology 41, 1131-1141. Editorial by Raven JA Cellular location of starch synthesis and evolutionary origin of starch genes. Journal of Phycology 41, 1070-1072 2005
• Speaker and Travel Awards for the ‘Arthur M Sacker Colloquium of the National Academy of Sciences: The Tapestry of Life – Lateral Transfers of Heritable Elements’ Irvine, California, USA (US$400 Speaker and Travel Awards from the National Academy of Sciences, USA) 2005
• Member of the taxonomically broad EST Program (tbESTdb), a North American inter-disciplinary research consortium funded by Genome Atlantic and Genome Canada July 2003 – March 2005
• Member of the SMBE (Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution) 2004-2007
• Scientist with the UK Teacher-Scientist Network (John Innes Centre & Long Stratton High School) (funded by ‘Public Understanding of Science’ grant to John Innes Centre) 2002-2003
• Science Communicator at the Chelsea Flower Show, London, U.K. (Science Exhibition) ‘The invisible Colours of Flowers’ by the John Innes Centre (funded by ‘Public Understanding of Science’ grant to John Innes Centre) May 2000
• Institute of Arable Crops Research (UK) student travel award (£1500) to attend The XIth International Congress of Virology, Sydney, Australia August 1999
• Science Communicator at the Royal Agricultural Show (UK). Exhibition ‘Viruses of Arable Plants and Weeds’ by the Institute of Arable Crops Research July 1997
• Reviewer
Grant Agencies: Australian Research Council (ARC), National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Journals: Biochemical Genetics, Current Biology, Eukaryotic Cell, Eukaryotic Microbiology, Genome Biology, Journal of Molecular Evolution, Molecular Biology and Evolution, Molecular Microbiology, Phycologica, Protist, Science