Caitlin Wyrwoll

Caitlin Wyrwoll is an Associate Professor in the School of Human Sciences at The University of Western Australia. She holds a Stan Perron People Fellowship and serves as a research theme leader in the NHMRC Healthy Environments and Lives Network. Her work spans multiple interdisciplinary collaborations across environmental health, reproductive biology, and developmental programming.

Dr. Wyrwoll completed her PhD at The University of Western Australia under the supervision of Professor Brendan Waddell and Dr. Peter Mark, followed by postdoctoral research in Edinburgh, UK with Professor Megan Holmes and Professor Jonathan Seckl, focusing on stress hormones and fetal brain development.

Her research program investigates how environmental factors influence maternal and child health outcomes, with particular emphasis on drinking water quality and heatwave exposure during pregnancy. Using multidisciplinary approaches including novel imaging techniques, her group examines placental development and function, tracking how environmental challenges impact maternal health, fetal development, and long-term offspring outcomes. Her work integrates environmental health with developmental origins of health and disease (DOHaD) frameworks, addressing critical public health concerns related to climate change.

Dr. Wyrwoll's recent publications demonstrate a strong focus on environmental contaminants in drinking water, pharmacological interventions during pregnancy, placental vascular development, and the impacts of climate-related stressors on pregnancy outcomes. Her research bridges basic science with clinical and public health applications, often incorporating computational modeling and population-level analyses.

• UWA Grand Challenges Champion (2021)
• UWA Faculty of Science Rising Star (2020)
• UWA Innovation Fellow (2019)
• UWA Faculty of Science Team Teaching Award (2021)
• Student Guild Award for Teaching Excellence (2018)
• UWA Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning Citation (Team) (2023)

As a Chief Investigator, Dr. Wyrwoll has secured over $15 million in research funding, including $4.5 million as lead investigator. Current major projects include a $3.3 million Wellcome Trust grant on extreme heat and pregnancy complications, a Stan Perron Charitable Foundation People Fellowship on drinking water quality, and co-leading the $10 million NHMRC Healthy Environments and Lives (HEAL) Network. She has also developed innovative teaching approaches, notably a birthing kit assembly initiative involving nearly 1,000 students that raised over $20,000 for maternal health in low-income countries. Her community engagement includes work with The Wongutha Birni Aboriginal Corporation on water quality and health, and numerous media appearances to communicate research findings to the public.