About me

With over 35 years’ experience as an author, biomedical researcher, writer and publisher, and a life-long interest in photography, I founded my own business, A Vet Lens: Publishing and Photography. I am driven by my passion for the highest standards in both.

Beginning my veterinary career in general practice in the UK, New Zealand and then Australia, I moved into medical research, completing a PhD in Medicine at Monash University, Melbourne in 1984. From there, I worked in several different fields of biomedical research. I have been a passionate photographer for as long as I can remember, and all my research involved photography using either light or electron microscopy.

I qualified as a vet from Girton College Cambridge, and the welfare of animals has always been a priority. I was appointed as Australia’s first official Animal Welfare Officer at Monash University in 1994. My other roles were as government veterinarian and a freelance medical and technical writer and editor.

With this eclectic experience, I was selected to be Scientific Editor and then Editor in Chief of the Australian Veterinary Journal (AVJ) from 2005 to 2019, and I was a passionate advocate for the quality and integrity of the Journal for 14 years. I was then Editor of the Australian Veterinary Practitioner (AVP) from 2015. I was responsible for all the peer review content of the journals, including ensuring that all research in published articles adhered to the NHMRC Code of Practice and other international animal welfare guidelines.

I love being able to mentor authors to translate their complicated biomedical drafts into streamlined and focussed articles that give the key messages for their target audiences.

If you really want some more info, then you can look at my academic CV.