Rate My Professor Siobhon Egan

Siobhon Egan is a Lecturer in Systems Biology and Research Fellow at Murdoch University in the School of Medical, Molecular and Forensic Sciences. She completed her Doctor of Philosophy in Ecology of Ticks and Microbes in Australian Wildlife at Murdoch University in 2022, supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program scholarship with supervisors Dr. Charlotte Oskam, Prof. Peter Irwin, Prof. Una Ryan, and Prof. Peter Banks. Earlier, she obtained a Bachelor of Science with First Class Honours in Molecular Biology in 2017, funded by the Myrtle AB Lamb Honours Scholarship, and a Bachelor of Science with Distinction, double majoring in Animal Health and Conservation and Wildlife Biology, in 2016, both from Murdoch University. Since 2021, Egan has served as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Centre for Computational and Systems Medicine on Prof. Elaine Holmes' ARC Laureate project, applying metabolic profiling and genomic sequencing to study age-associated changes in the gut microbiome. She has held research assistant roles including molecular forensic DNA analysis with the Western Australian Police in 2020, dietary analysis of feral pigs using high-throughput sequencing in 2018, and a Pawsey Supercomputing Centre internship on Australian tick microbiomes in 2017-2018. Additionally, she demonstrated undergraduate units in Veterinary Parasitology, Veterinary Microbiology, and Forensic DNA Analysis from 2017 to 2020.

Egan's academic interests include systems biology, microbial ecology, veterinary parasitology, bioinformatics and computational biology, genomics, microbiomes, ticks, and infectious diseases across human and animal health. She has received awards such as the Sinnecker-Kunz Award for early career researchers (1st place) at the 14th International Symposium on Ticks and Tick-borne Diseases in 2021, Flash talk presentation winner at Global Microbiome Perth in 2021, multiple Holsworth Wildlife Research Endowment grants in 2018, 2019, and 2020, Australian Society for Parasitology Conference Travel Grants in 2018 and 2019, and Seed Grants from Murdoch University and Spinnaker Health Research Foundation in 2021. Key publications comprise 'The bacterial biome of ticks and their wildlife hosts at the urban-wildland interface' (Microbial Genomics, 2021), 'Haemoprotozoan surveillance in peri-urban native and introduced wildlife from Australia' (Current Research in Parasitology & Vector-Borne Diseases, 2021), 'Blood parasites in endangered wildlife: trypanosomes discovered during a survey of haemoprotozoa from the Tasmanian devil' (Pathogens, 2020), 'Molecular identification of the Trypanosoma (Herpetosoma) lewisi clade in black rats (Rattus rattus) from Australia' (Parasitology Research, 2020), and 'Bacterial community profiling highlights complex diversity and novel organisms in wildlife ticks' (Ticks and Tick-Borne Diseases, 2020). Her research elucidates host-microbe interactions and vector-borne pathogens.