Siouxsie Wiles is the head of University of Auckland's Bioluminescent Superbugs Lab.
34 Facts About Siouxsie Wiles
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Siouxsie Wiles's mother is a retired social worker and her father is a business owner.
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Ebola was the microbe that started Siouxsie Wiles' interest in microbiology when she was a teenager.
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The book The Hot Zone by Richard Preston, which focuses on Ebola, was what made Siouxsie Wiles focus her education on medical microbiology.
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Siouxsie Wiles studied at the University of Edinburgh and graduated in 1997 with a BSc in Medical Microbiology.
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Siouxsie Wiles received her PhD from Edinburgh Napier University, conducting research at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, which is located in Oxford.
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Siouxsie Wiles is the head of the university's Bioluminescent Superbugs Lab.
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Siouxsie Wiles started the company Brightenz that sells kits with which one can create bioluminescent art at home.
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In 2018 Siouxsie Wiles became science ambassador for House of Science, a non-for-profit venture for raising science literacy in local communities.
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Siouxsie Wiles was reelected as general Councillor of the Royal Society Te Aparangi in 2018.
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Siouxsie Wiles is working on finding new antibiotics by screening 10,000 New Zealand fungi for possible medical use.
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Siouxsie Wiles leads the Bioluminescent Superbugs Lab at the University of Auckland which focuses on how glowing bacteria can advance the understanding of microbial infections such as food poisoning, tuberculosis and hospital superbugs.
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About her work Siouxsie Wiles says "My career has been built on making nasty bacteria bioluminescent and using them for all sorts of things, including finding new medicines".
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Siouxsie Wiles is passionate about demystifying science for the general public.
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Siouxsie Wiles was one of the eight scientists who fronted the "Great New Zealand Science Project", the New Zealand government's public engagement programme leading to the National Science Challenges in 2012.
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Siouxsie Wiles has used art and film to communicate scientific ideas: in 2011 she collaborated with Australian graphic artist Luke Harris to produce a series of animated films featuring bioluminescent creatures and their uses in science.
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Siouxsie Wiles collaborated with artist Rebecca Klee on an installation at the Auckland Art in the Dark Festival in 2013, which featured Hawaiian bobtail squid and Aliivibrio fischeri.
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Siouxsie Wiles thinks that relevant science education should start in primary school, for increasing science literacy and interest in the field more generally.
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Siouxsie Wiles is active in the skeptical movement having received the Skeptic of the Year Award from the New Zealand Skeptics in 2016 and attended several NZ Skeptic Conferences.
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Siouxsie Wiles has spoken out against anti-vaxxers and other public health related issues.
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In 2018, Siouxsie Wiles was named as a finalist for New Zealander of the Year Awards for her work on antibiotic-resistant superbugs and infectious diseases.
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Siouxsie Wiles won the award in 2021 for her leadership in the public communication of New Zealand's COVID-19 response.
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Siouxsie Wiles has been at the forefront of science communication in New Zealand during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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In 2020 Wiles was the subject of a documentary short entitled "Siouxsie and the Virus".
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In mid-September 2021, Siouxsie Wiles criticised the New Zealand Government's decision to abandon its COVID-19 elimination strategy, asserting that this would put the unvaccinated and vulnerable at risk.
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Siouxsie Wiles argued that facemasks and RAT tests were still needed to curb the spread of COVID-19 within the community.
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In March 2022 the New Zealand Media Council upheld a complaint that a column by Siouxsie Wiles published by Stuff on 20 December 2021 about the Listener Seven had breached press standards.
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Siouxsie Wiles is married to Steven Galbraith, a professor of mathematics at the University of Auckland, and together they have a daughter.
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Siouxsie Wiles met her husband, a New Zealander, in London and left her position at Imperial College London to move to New Zealand in 2009.
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Siouxsie Wiles is a fan of Lego and likes to play with it while being a critic of what she describes as gender bias in the Lego minifigures.
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Siouxsie Wiles has dyed her hair since she was a teenager, and is known as the "pink-haired science lady".
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On 10 September 2021, Siouxsie Wiles attracted media attention after right-wing blogger Cameron Slater posted a video of her socialising with a friend at an Auckland beach during an Alert Level 4 lockdown in the Auckland Region in response to the August 2021 Delta variant community outbreak.
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Siouxsie Wiles accused Slater of spreading disinformation in order to discredit her and the country's collective response to COVID-19.
34.
Siouxsie Wiles agreed her friend broke the Level 4 "do not go swimming" rule, and said she should have stopped her.