Simon Williams

Simon Williams is an Associate Professor and ARC Future Fellow at The Australian National University (ANU), leading the Plant Structural Immunology research laboratory within the Division of Plant Sciences, Research School of Biology. His work focuses on understanding fungal pathogenesis and plant immunity using structural biology, protein biochemistry, and synthetic biology approaches. Williams holds a PhD in protein biochemistry from Flinders University (2010) and completed postdoctoral research at the University of Queensland before joining ANU in 2016.

Research interests include plant immunity receptors, pathogen effector proteins, and structural studies of fungal virulence factors. Notable achievements include the discovery of how fungal Nudix hydrolase effectors manipulate plant phosphate signaling to enhance disease. His lab has secured grants such as the ARC Future Fellowship (2020) and ANU Futures Scheme (2018). Supervised students include Zhao Li, Nuren Tasneem Natasha, Benjamin Silke, and others.

Key awards: ARC Future Fellowship (2020), ASPS Peter Goldacre Award (2019), and Crystal Lite Best Poster Prize (2022). The lab collaborates on projects like understanding wheat stem rust and Fusarium wilt, with ongoing efforts to engineer disease-resistant plants through structural insights.