Dr. Marnie Blewitt

Dr. Marnie Blewitt completed her PhD at the University of Sydney, focusing on mammalian epigenetics under the supervision of Prof. Emma Whitelaw, earning the Genetics Society of Australia DG Catcheside prize. She then took a Peter Doherty Post-doctoral fellowship with Prof. Douglas Hilton at The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, where she identified a critical role for a gene related to X inactivation. Her work earned her the Australian Academy of Science Ruth Stephens Gani medal in 2009 and the L’Oréal Australia Women in Science fellowship the same year. In 2010, she established her own research group at the institute as an Australian Research Council Queen Elizabeth II fellow, studying the molecular mechanisms of epigenetic control of gene expression. Dr. Blewitt lectures on epigenetics to undergraduates and on X inactivation to post-graduate students at the University of Melbourne's Department of Genetics.