Rate My Professor Robyn Warner

Robyn Dorothy Warner is a Professor of Meat Science in the School of Agriculture, Food and Ecosystem Sciences within the Faculty of Science at the University of Melbourne. She holds a Bachelor of Agricultural Science from La Trobe University, a Master of Agricultural Science from the University of Melbourne, and a PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Warner began her career tutoring at the University of Melbourne and conducting research at the Victorian Department of Agriculture on dark-cutting in beef carcasses, advancing to Section Leader and Principal Research Scientist. From 2010 to 2014, she served as Principal Research Scientist and Team Leader at CSIRO's Division of Animal, Food and Health Sciences. In 2014, she joined the University of Melbourne as Professor of Meat Science and currently chairs the multidisciplinary Future Food Hallmark Research Initiative, building meat science research groups and securing industry funding at each institution.

Warner's research specializes in meat quality, utilizing biophysical knowledge of muscle to address industry issues including tenderness, colour, water-holding capacity, and eating quality of beef, pork, lamb, and other meats. She has produced over 200 peer-reviewed publications, with expertise in pre-harvest management, post-mortem processing, and packaging effects, such as the negative impact of high oxygen modified atmosphere packaging on protein degradation. Her contributions include developing the Meat Standards Australia model for predicting eating quality with Drewe Ferguson, guidelines for preventing dark-cutting, and influencing global meat quality standards. Warner serves as Australia's contact person for the International Congress of Meat Science and Technology, co-chaired the Melbourne congress, and was an inaugural member of the Meat Standards Australia scientific committee. She is an associate or section editor for Animal Production Science, Encyclopedia of Meat Science, Meat and Muscle Biology, and MDPI Foods. Major awards encompass the 2025 American Meat Science Association Distinguished Research Award, AMSA International Lectureship Award, National Eureka Science Prize, International Meat Secretariat Millennium Prize (2000), and Fellowship of the Australian Academy of Animal Sciences.