Rate My Professor Sally Catt

Sally Catt serves as an Associate Professor in Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Monash Health and a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences at Monash University. She earned her first degree from Edinburgh University in 1983 and a PhD from the University of Sydney in 1998 on the feasibility and commercial practicality of producing lambs through X and Y sperm separation by flow cytometry, supported by a Meat Research Corporation Junior Fellowship in 1991. Her career commenced as a reproductive toxicologist before becoming an embryologist at Bourn Hall Clinic in Cambridge, UK, training under IVF pioneers Patrick Steptoe and Bob Edwards. She specialized in cattle IVF commercialization at ABC Technologies in Cambridge and DSIR in Palmerston North, New Zealand. In the early 1990s, she established a domestic and laboratory species IVF facility at the University of Sydney. She then worked as embryologist and Scientific Director at Fertility First in Sydney and as inaugural research division member at Sydney IVF, advancing vitrification of embryos and oocytes—now the global standard for cryopreservation, adopted from 2004 at Sydney IVF—along with media development, preimplantation genetic diagnosis, and embryonic stem cell research. In 2004, she was Research Fellow at Leeds University with Professor Helen Picton, studying ovine pre-antral follicle growth, oocyte maturation, and fertilization.

Since 2006, Sally Catt has coordinated the Master of Clinical Embryology course at Monash University, the Assisted Reproduction Technologies unit in the Graduate Diploma in Reproductive Sciences, and industry-led IVF short-courses and observerships. Over 20 years, she has trained Master's and PhD students in IVF techniques including cloning, transgenesis, ICSI, cryopreservation, and embryo transfer. Her research specializes in vitrification, in vitro maturation, ovarian cryopreservation, and embryo manipulation, supervising PhD projects on these using sheep models. Key publications include "DNA repair and response to sperm DNA damage in oocytes and embryos, and the potential consequences in ART: a systematic review" (Molecular Human Reproduction, 2022), "Effects of dietary supplementation of different oils and conjugated linoleic acid on the reproductive and metabolic aspects of male mice" (Andrologia, 2022), "Employer-Sponsored Egg Freezing: Carrot or Stick?" (AJOB Empirical Bioethics, 2022), and "Financing future fertility: Women's views on funding egg freezing" (Reproductive BioMedicine & Society Online, 2022). She serves as SIRT Education Coordinator (Fertility Society of Australia scientist subgroup) since 2009, introducing a nationwide CPD scheme for embryologists in 2012; Victorian Assisted Reproductive Treatment Authority Advisory Panel member; and Fertility Society of Australia board member since 2019.