Kate Michie

Dr. Kate Michie is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Biotechnology & Biomolecular Sciences (BABS) at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and Chief Scientist of the Structural Biology Facility (SBF) under the Microbial and Wine Applied Cluster (MWAC) since 2019. She holds a BSc Hons (1st Class) and a PhD from the University of Sydney (2004), where she studied bacterial cell division under Dr. Liz Harry and Professor Gerry Wake. Her research focuses on structural biology, molecular biology, and biochemistry, with specific interests in bacterial cell division, SMC complexes, light harvesting proteins, and the application of AI/deep learning in structural biology.

Selected for her expertise in structural biology, Kate has received prestigious awards including the UNESCO L'Oréal International Fellowship for Young Women in Science (2005) and the Marie Curie Incoming Fellowship (2006). Her recent publications span topics such as cryptophyte light harvesting, algal scaffolding proteins, and Ezrin family proteins, reflecting her interdisciplinary research. She has also contributed to the establishment of the SBF at UNSW and leads a specialist compute team supporting AI/deep learning methods for structural biology.

Her research projects include studying dynamin-like proteins in bacteria, tubulin-like proteins in bacteria and archaea (in collaboration with Dr. Brendan Burns), Ezrin/Moesin and Merlin in human membrane dynamics, and the implementation of AlphaFold2 in integrative structural biology. She has supervised PhD and Honours students in BABS and Physics at UNSW and the University of Sydney.

Scientific Awards:

• UNESCO L'Oreal International Fellowship for Young Women in Life Sciences (2005)
• Marie Curie International Fellowship (2006)
• Named 'Rising Talent' by Women’s Forum (2007)

Kate has also secured grants from the Medical Research Future Fund (2022) and the Asian Office of Aerospace R&D (2021-2023). She contributes to professional leadership as Chairman of the Sydney Protein Group and Greater Sydney CAP Leader for Synchrotron beam time at the Australian Synchrotron.