Rate My Professor Laura Mackay

Professor Laura Mackay is a distinguished immunologist at the University of Melbourne, where she serves as Laboratory Head in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, School of Biomedical Sciences, and Theme Leader in Immunology at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity. She earned her PhD from the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom, in 2009, followed by a postdoctoral position with Professor Francis Carbone at the University of Melbourne starting in 2009. In 2016, she established her independent laboratory at the Doherty Institute. Recently, in 2026, she was appointed the Inaugural Sir Gustav Nossal Professor of Immunology at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, while retaining a strong presence at the University of Melbourne. Mackay holds prestigious fellowships including NHMRC Leadership Fellow, Dame Kate Campbell Fellow, Sylvia and Charles Viertel Charitable Foundation Senior Medical Research Fellow, and Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Bill & Melinda Gates International Research Scholar. She also lectures to undergraduates and presents her research findings internationally.

Mackay's research centers on memory T cell responses, with a particular emphasis on the signals controlling tissue-resident memory T cell differentiation and their roles in barrier immunity, cancer, and autoimmune diseases. Over a decade ago, she pioneered the discovery of tissue-resident memory T cells in skin, gut, and other barrier tissues, demonstrating their role as rapid first responders superior to circulating T cells in providing protection against infections and tumors. Key publications include "The developmental pathway for CD103+ CD8 tissue-resident memory T cells of skin" (Nature Immunology, 2013), "Long-lived epithelial immunity by tissue-resident memory T (TRM) cells in the absence of persisting local antigen presentation" (PNAS, 2012), and "Stem-like tissue-resident memory T cells control functional heterogeneity and reactivation of T cell memory in the intestine" (Science Immunology, 2025). Her contributions have earned her major awards such as the 2022 election as the youngest Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences (FAHMS), the 2019 Gottschalk Medal from the Australian Academy of Science, the 2019 Frank Fenner Life Scientist of the Year Award in the Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science, the 2018 Michelson Prize for Human Immunology and Vaccine Research, the 2023 Jian Zhou Medal, the 2023 LEO Foundation Award for the Asia-Pacific Region, and the inaugural AAMRI Rising Star award.