Rate My Professor Heather Hendrickson

Heather Hendrickson is an Associate Professor in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Canterbury, with a focus on microbiology and evolution. She obtained her BSc from the University of Utah and PhD in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology from the University of Pittsburgh in 2008, where her thesis, supervised by Professor Jeffrey G. Lawrence, examined chromosome architecture and evolution in bacteria. Hendrickson then conducted postdoctoral research as a Human Frontier Science Program Long-Term Fellow at the University of Oxford's Department of Biochemistry, studying variability in DNA replication in Escherichia coli. Her academic career progressed at Massey University, where she served as Lecturer in evolutionary genetics and was promoted to Senior Lecturer in Molecular Bioscience in 2015. In 2022, she joined the University of Canterbury as Senior Lecturer and advanced to Associate Professor.

Hendrickson's research centers on microbial evolution, encompassing bacteriophage isolation and genomics, bacterial cell shape transitions, horizontal gene transfer, and chromosome architecture. Her laboratory integrates experimental evolution, cell biology, genetics, and genomics to develop bacteriophage-based biocontrols for pathogens threatening New Zealand's primary industries, such as Paenibacillus larvae causing American foulbrood in honeybees and bacteria affecting salmon. She has secured major funding, including a 2025 Marsden Fund grant of $941,000 for genetic tools to protect honeybees and biotechnology advancement, and serves as Co-Science Lead on the $8.9 million MBIE Endeavour Programme, Adaptable Phage Solutions. Key publications include 'The Lion and the Mouse: How Bacteriophages Create, Liberate and Decimate Pathogens' (2012), 'In Vitro Evolution to Increase the Titers of Difficult-to-Propagate Bacteriophages' (2023), 'Paenibacillus larvae and their phages' (2023), 'Co-evolution and Gene Transfers Drive Speciation Patterns' (2024), and 'Evolutionary rescue of spherical mreB deletion mutants' (2025). With over 1,560 citations on Google Scholar, her contributions advance phage therapy against antibiotic resistance. She holds leadership positions as President of the New Zealand Microbiological Society and Co-Convenor of the 2027 Gordon Research Conference on Microbial Population Biology, and engages in public outreach through lectures and media.