Elizabeth Watkin is Professor of Microbiology in the Curtin Medical School, Curtin University. She obtained her PhD from Murdoch University in 1999 and completed Postdoctoral Research Fellowships with CSIRO-Plant Industry and the Centre for Rhizobium Studies, Murdoch University. She commenced her current academic appointment at Curtin University in 2002. The overarching theme of her research is the microbial ecology of environmental systems and covers the fields of mining biotechnology and mineral resource recovery. She has industry contacts with a number of mining companies and has a long-term collaboration with CSIRO-Land and Water and CSIRO-Mineral Resources.