31 Facts About Marilyn Renfree

Marilyn Renfree completed her PhD at the Australian National University, was a post-doctoral fellow in Tennessee and then Edinburgh before returning to Australia.

Since 1991, Renfree has been Professor of Zoology at the University of Melbourne.

Marilyn Renfree was born in Brisbane, Queensland but moved to Canberra where her father was appointed Commonwealth Crown Solicitor.

Marilyn Renfree chose to do her Honours degree to be involved in both biochemistry and fieldwork which, in those days, was seen as unusual.

Marilyn Renfree started her PhD project by studying all aspects of maternal-foetal interactions in marsupials.

Marilyn Renfree showed that marsupials have a functional placenta which produces hormones.

Marilyn Renfree proved that, during pregnancy, the two uteri of kangaroos and wallabies behave differently, the gravid one becoming larger than the non-pregnant one due to the presence or absence of the embryo.

In March 1972, Marilyn Renfree finished her PhD, worked for six months in Zoology at ANU and then moved to the University of Tennessee to work with Joe Daniel.

Marilyn Renfree then moved to the University of Edinburgh, to learn about genetics in Anne McLaren's lab.

Marilyn Renfree moved back to Australia to take up a lecturer position in vertebrate biology at Murdoch University, Perth, WA in 1973.

Marilyn Renfree established a colony of tammars at Murdoch University and started working on agile wallabies, studying them to understand how lactation is controlled in marsupials.

Marilyn Renfree started working on honey possums, in collaboration with Ron Wooller.

In January 1982, Marilyn Renfree married Roger Short and they both moved to Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria where she started her third tammar colony.

Marilyn Renfree received a National Health and Medical Research Council fellowship and was a Principal Research Fellow for ten years at Monash, working full-time on research.

Marilyn Renfree's two daughters, Tamsin and Kirsten were born in 1983 and 1986.

In collaboration with her husband, Marilyn Renfree studied the contraceptive effects of breastfeeding, showing that breastfeeding on demand had a very effective contraceptive effect.

Marilyn Renfree showed that, as for other mammals, prostaglandin is involved in birth and that, as well as for other mammals, the marsupial baby is capable of modifying maternal physiology at birth.

In 1991, Marilyn Renfree was appointed Chair of Zoology and Head of Department at Melbourne University, a position she held until 2003.

Marilyn Renfree became a Laureate Professor of the University in 2002, and in 2003 was awarded a Federation Fellowship.

In 2011, Marilyn Renfree was one of the lead researchers on the first kangaroo genome sequencing project Marilyn Renfree currently serves on the Prime Minister's Science Prizes Committee for Australia.

Marilyn Renfree was awarded the Gottschalk Medal in 1980, and the Mueller Medal in 1997.

Marilyn Renfree was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in 1997.

Marilyn Renfree was awarded the Gold Conservation Medal of the Zoological Society of San Diego for 2000, the Commonwealth of Australia's Centenary Medal in 2003, and was made an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2013 "for distinguished service to biology, particularly through leadership in the research into marsupial reproduction, and to the scientific community".

In March 2019 Renfree was awarded the Carl G Hartmann Award by the Society for the Study of Reproduction and in 2020 the Macfarlane Burnet Medal and Lecture by the Australian Academy of Science.

Marilyn Renfree was made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2021.

Marilyn Renfree has had several mentors during her study years and career.

Mrs Nicholson was a very important link to science for Marilyn Renfree, being one of very few Australian female Doctors in Science at that time.

Bev worked at the John Curtin School of Medical Research when Marilyn Renfree worked there for a short time between school and university.

Marilyn Renfree co-authored a paper "Hormones and the evolution of viviparity" with Amoroso in 1979.

When Marilyn Renfree told her father that she wanted to start studying at university, he told her that she had one year to prove what she could do.

Marilyn Renfree's father was very pleased and got both very enthusiastic and supportive.