Associate Professor Renee M Whan

Renee is the Executive Director of the Mark Wainwright Analytical Centre (MWAC), the core platform for accessing major scientific instrumentation and infrastructure for the evaluation and analysis of the structure and composition of medical, biological, chemical and physical materials research at UNSW. Her main role is to provide strategic leadership, governance and development of the centre, working with the PVC(RI) and the senior MWAC facility directors team to support the University’s research excellence and research translation priorities. She leads a team of expert scientists to provision service, research support and training and collaboration for experimental design, specimen preparation, data acquisition and analysis on infrastructure in MWAC.  

Renee has more than 18 years experience leading and managing core facilities and was the previous Head of the Katharina Gaus Light Microscopy Facility at UNSW.  Her interests are in transformational technology that permit new innovations and impactful scientific discovery, and she collaborates with several commercial partners to bring new developmental imaging technology into facilities for wider roll out to the research community. She has extensive experience in the utilisation of 2 and 3D cellular models and advanced light microscopy methodologies for evaluating drug delivery and mechanisms of action and disease aetiology.  Recent publications include; Cell Stem cells, Nature Communications, Journal of Cell Biology, Cells and Journal of Controlled Release. She is particularly passionate about data reliability and reproducibility, large imaging data infrastructure, lightsheet and fluorescence lifetime microscopies and spatial proteomic and transcriptomic methodologies.