We can't see them but millions of different microbes live around us - even on our skin and in our gut.
New technologies have allowed us to look into the diversity of our microbial friends and the vital roles they have in maintaining our health and the environment.

As a computational biologist, Dr Simone Li pieces together large amounts of DNA data to study these communities of microbes (known as the microbiome), what they are doing and how they are affected by our lifestyle or medicines we take.
By unravelling these mysteries of the microbiome, she hopes to design new medical treatments and sustainable strategies that minimise harm to our microbes.

Supported by prestigious Fellowships, Simone has worked at high-profile life sciences and biotechnology institutes across Europe and returned to Australia in 2023, where she currently leads a team of budding scientists at the Monash University Biomedicine Discovery Institute in Melbourne. Simone enjoys sharing her passion for STEM research and is an advocate for inclusivity and effective communication in science.