Matthew Gilliham

Matthew is Director of the Waite Research Institute, the University of Adelaide’s flagship for agriculture, food and wine innovation. As Director his role is to stimulate and support new research initiatives across the spectrum of agricultural research (from policy and economics, to animal, soil and crop sciences).

He is also Professor of Crop Molecular Physiology in the School of Agriculture, Food and Wine, program leader in the ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology, Chief Investigator on the ARC Training Centre for Innovative Wine Production, convenor for the Adapting to abiotic stress and climate change special interest group of the Society for Experimental Biology, UK, and member of the South Australian Government's Science and Innovation Council. He is a current Web of Science Highly Cited Author.

Matthew’s group studies the transport and signalling processes that underpin improvements in crop nutrition and stress tolerance. His research scales from genetics, through cell biology and whole plant physiology. Where applicable, his lab's fundamental research is then applied through plant breeding to modify signalling and transport processes in plants to improve crop yield and quality in the field. His main areas of study include salinity and drought tolerance, anionic nutrition (particularly chloride) and GABA signalling.

Matthew gained a BSc in Ecology from Lancaster University and a PhD in Plant Physiology from the University of Cambridge, UK. After a postdoc at Cambridge, he immigrated to Australia to run the Plant Transport and Signalling Laboratory at the Waite Campus, University of Adelaide.