Dr Eleanor Campbell

ANSTO’s Australian Synchrotron produces light a million times brighter than the sun, which is harnessed by researchers from all over the country to carry out cutting edge research. The macromolecular crystallography beamlines allow researchers to look inside the complex structures of proteins and construct detailed models of how these vital biological molecules work.

These were the beamlines that Dr Eleanor Campbell used during her PhD research to investigate enzymes that can break down environmental toxins quickly and safely. Now, she is a beamline scientist at those very beamlines, providing expert support to a diverse user community. She holds a Bachelor of Science (Honours) (2013) and a PhD in Chemistry from the Australian National University (2018), and spent two years as a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Cambridge.

Eleanor has always been a passionate science communicator. She has written for CSIRO’s The Helix, edited the science pages of ANU’s student newspaper, Woroni, and produced and presented episodes of 2xx’s ‘Fuzzy Logic’ and popular podcast ‘The Science Shed’. She has also coordinated large outreach events like the chemistry modules of SciScouts, the National Indigenous Summer School, and the Biochemistry Open Day for Cambridge Science Week.

Dr Eleanor Campbell is a Superstar of STEM.