About

Professor Michelle Colgrave FTSE – Agriculture & Food Innovator  

Based at the Queensland Bioscience Precinct in Brisbane Australia, Professor Michelle Colgrave is internationally renowned for her cutting-edge work in proteomics - the study of proteins. Her motivation is to deliver science outcomes for the benefit of human and planetary health with a focus on providing optimum nutrition more sustainably. 
 
As CSIRO’s lead on the Future Protein Mission, Michelle guided innovation for all types of food proteins – animal, plant and complementary sources such as insects and fungi. She was part of a team that developed a canola variety producing omega-3 oils and was involved in the ideation and initiation of plant-based meat to commercial production. She has been instrumental in identifying key proteins to benefit Australia's livestock and plant industries and is internationally recognised for her work identifying and quantifying protein markers associated with important agricultural traits, beneficial proteins in food and proteins associated with allergy or intolerance, including the development of the world’s first gluten-free barley to commercial phase. Michelle focuses on the whole value chain from production to customer, delivering premium protein ingredients and products, addressing the rapid growth of the protein-based sector.

Michelle’s experience extends beyond research into strategy development for policymaking and as the Deputy Director (Impact) in CSIRO’s Agriculture and Food unit, she is now focussed on supporting a sustainable future for the Australian agrifood sector, through the translation and commercialisation of sustainable food systems research.

She is the Chief Investigator on the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Innovations in Peptide and Protein Science and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences & Engineering (ATSE) and Professor of Food and Agricultural Proteomics at Edith Cowan University (WA). Michelle is active in encouraging more women into science.

Michelle Colgrave has a Bachelor of Advanced Science with Honours (Analytical Chemistry) and a PhD (Bioanalytical Mass Spectrometry) from the University of Wollongong.