Rate My Professor Eldon Ball

Eldon Ball is a Visiting Fellow and Honorary Group Leader of the Ball (Eldon) Group in the Research School of Biology at the Australian National University (ANU), within the Division of Ecology and Evolution. He earned his undergraduate degree from Stanford University and a PhD in Marine Biology from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Ball joined ANU in 1971 as a Research Fellow in the Department of Neurobiology and has remained affiliated with various departments and research groups over the decades, adapting to shifts in his research interests and the school's organizational structure. His early career emphasized arthropod sensory systems and development, reflecting his foundational training in marine biology and neurobiology.

Ball's primary current research focus is the molecular basis of coral biology, including comparative genomics, larval development, stress responses, and calcification processes. As leader of his namesake group, he collaborates extensively with Professor David J. Miller and Dr. Sylvain Forêt from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies on projects utilizing molecular tools to explore coral health, disease, and symbiosis. He has co-authored over 230 publications, accumulating more than 12,000 citations according to Google Scholar. Notable works include 'Conservation of the sequence and temporal expression of let-7 heterochronic regulatory RNA' (Nature, 2000), 'The innate immune repertoire in Cnidaria-ancestral complexity and stochastic gene loss' (Genome Biology, 2007), 'Whole Transcriptome Analysis of the Coral Acropora millepora Reveals Complex Responses to CO2-driven Acidification' (Molecular Ecology, 2012), and recent contributions such as 'Microbiome manipulation by corals and other Cnidaria via quorum quenching' (Current Biology, 2024) and 'Major transitions in early coral development: novel insights enabled by visualisation of a comprehensive transcriptomic dataset for Acropora millepora' (2024). Ball has also secured competitive funding, including an ARC Discovery Grant (DP1095343, 2010-2012) for transcriptome, genome, and metagenome studies of Acropora millepora. His contributions have advanced understanding of cnidarian genomics and developmental biology, influencing research on coral reef ecosystems.