A/Prof Ailie Gallant is a climate and weather scientist at Monash University's School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment. Her past research experiences have been varied, and she's worked on problems related to palaeoclimatology, climate variability, climate change and meteorology. Most of her work these days focuses on weather and climate hazards and resources. Recent work has investigated Australian droughts, identifying how the development and cessation of droughts, including rapid-onset "flash droughts," relates to overlying weather conditions and their associated dynamical weather systems.

Ailie was a DECRA Fellow (2015-2019) and has served as a Chief Investigator for two Australian Research Council Centres of Excellence (CoE), the CoE for Climate Extremes (2017-2024) and the CoE for 21st Century Weather (2024 - present). She also leads the Monash Node of the National Environmental Science Program Climate Systems Hub.

Beyond her research, Ailie is a dedicated science educator and communicator. She teaches undergraduate courses on climate science, weather hazards and hydrology; and she regularly engages with the media and school and community groups. She was a co-host on Melbourne's 3RRR Science Show "Einstein-A-Go Go" for 9 years, has a semi-regular slot as the "Weather Detective" on 774 ABC Melbourne Evenings program, and regularly contributes to radio and print media on weather and climate events of the day.

Her contributions to science have been recognized with several awards and prizes, including the 2024 Dorothy Hill Medal from the Australian Academy of Science, 2015 Victorian Young Tall Poppy Award for excellence in scientific research and communication, and she has recently been named a Fellow of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society.