Elizabeth Finkel holds a PhD in biochemistry and gained postdoctoral experience at University of California in San Francisco, where her work on fruit fly genetics was published in Nature magazine.

Returning to Melbourne in 1988, she left research for journalism, making regular contributions to American magazine Science, The Monthly  and The Age, and authored two books, one of which, Stem Cells: Controversy at the Frontiers of Science, won the Queensland premier’s literary award in 2005. From 2013-2018, she was editor-in-chief of Cosmos Magazine, a science publication she co-founded in 2005.

She’s won numerous awards for journalism, including the 2015 Eureka Award for Science Journalism from the Department of Industry and Science, and a medal from the Australian Society for Medical Research for communicating science

She’s now returned to focus on writing, as well as serving on advisory boards for The Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute ( ARMI) and Latrobe University Press.