Director and CEO
Professor Elizabeth Hartland AM
Hudson Institute’s Director and CEO, Professor Hartland is a national and international leader in the field of microbiology and immunology. Trained as a microbiologist, her work is focussed on the cell intrinsic innate immune response to bacterial infection. Her work aims to combat microbial drug resistance through the development of anti-infective agents and immune-enhancing therapies that target the infection process rather than kill the bacterial cell directly.
In June 2024, Professor Hartland was awarded a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for services to medical research, particularly microbiology, and tertiary research.
Professor Hartland has held a Royal Society/NHMRC Howard Florey Fellowship in the Department of Biochemistry, Imperial College London and Lecturer/Senior Lecturer positions at Monash University, Australia. She was an inaugural Australian Research Council Future Fellowship at the University of Melbourne and subsequently held the positions of Head of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Melbourne and Deputy Director of the Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity. In 2017, she become Director and CEO of the Hudson Institute of Medical Research and Head of the Department of Molecular and Translational Science at Monash University.
Professor Hartland is the author of more than 150 research publications and has received a number of awards for her research, including the Australian Society for Microbiology Fenner Research Award, Fellow of the Australian Society for Microbiology (FASM) and Finalist for the Australian Museum Eureka Prize for Infectious Diseases. She is the recipient of an NHMRC Investigator grant (2020-2024) to discover new targets for anti-infective therapies and NHMRC Synergy grant (2020-2024) to study the innate immune response to the human microbiome.
Professor Hartland jointly established the highly successful Victorian Infection and Immunity Network (VIIN), which has a membership of more than 1,000 researchers representing all major research universities and organisations in Victoria.
Professor Hartland is an accomplished research supervisor and mentor and has supervised 20 PhD students to completion as primary supervisor. Three of her former students have won NHMRC Early Career Fellowships and one former student, Dr Jaclyn Pearson, was awarded the 2014 University of Melbourne Chancellor’s Prize for Excellence in a PhD Thesis, the 2014 Deans Award for Excellence in a PhD Thesis and the 2014 Premier’s Award for Health and Medical Research.
