Prof. Frances Separovic

Frances Separovic is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Chemistry, Deputy Director of the Bio21 Institute and former Head of School at the University of Melbourne. Frances was a Visiting Professor at Harvard Medical School, Honorary Fellow of Birkbeck College UCL, and a Senior Member of St Hugh’s College, Oxford. Frances has a BA (Hons) in Math & Physics from Macquarie University and a PhD (Physics) from University of NSW. Her tertiary training in biology, mathematics and physics, provides a strong foundation for research in biophysical chemistry and NMR spectroscopy.

Her primary research interest is determination of the structure & dynamics of membrane components in situ using solid-state NMR spectroscopy. Frances played a key role in determining the molecular structure of the antibiotic gramicidin A and the bee toxin melittin within phospholipid membranes. Using novel solid-state NMR methods Frances was able to determine the structure & dynamics of membrane polypeptides for biomolecular engineering applications.

She is very active in the area of membrane biophysics and structural biology and is Past President of the Biophysical Society, Foreign Secretary of the Australian Academy of Science, former President of Australian & New Zealand Society for Magnetic Resonance (ANZMAG) and the Australian Society for Biophysics (ASB); a committee member of International Society for Magnetic Resonance (ISMAR); and former treasurer of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute (RACI) and the Lorne Protein Conference.

Frances has organized over 50 major national & international conferences and published over 250 peer reviewed papers. Her contributions to biophysics and NMR have been recognized by award of the 2009 ASB Robertson Medal and 2011 ANZMAG Medal. In 2012 she was elected a Fellow of the Biophysical Society, Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science (FAA) and an ISMAR Fellow; in 2017 Frances was named an IUPAC Distinguished Woman of Chemistry/Chemical Engineering and in 2018 inducted in the Victorian Honour Roll of Women; and appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in 2019.

School of Chemistry Academic Staff list. Contact fs @ unimelb.edu.au

Separovic Career Profile and LinkedIn

Media links and Twitter

The Protein Society newsletter, Under the Microscope Member Spotlight, Nov 2022

Womanthology interview Diversity drives science forward!, Feb 2022

Biophysical Society newsletter, BPS Bulletin Biophysicist in Profile, Feb 2021

New book, ‘Solid-State NMR: Applications in Biomembrane Structure’, Dec 2020

Scientists Without Labels profile, August 2020

Metro Tunnel VIC art work Parkville Storytelling Project, Feb 2020

IUPAC Global Women’s Breakfast 2020 video interview

STEMinists in Antarctica Barrier Daily Truth OpEd, Feb 2020

Frances receives RACI Margaret Sheil Leadership Award