Brooke Farrugia

Associate Professor Brooke Farrugia serves in the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology at the University of Melbourne as Associate Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Assistant Dean (Graduate Research – Quality) since October 2023. She leads the Matrix-Guided Tissue Repair (MaTR) Lab, focusing on biomaterials, tissue engineering, and matrix biology. Farrugia obtained her Bachelor of Engineering in Chemical Engineering, Master of Biomedical Engineering, and PhD in Biomedical Engineering from the University of New South Wales Sydney in 2006 and 2010. Her career commenced with a Research Assistant role at UNSW in 2005–2006. She then held a post-doctoral Research Associate position at the Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation, Queensland University of Technology from 2010 to 2013, contributing to the Tissue Repair and Regeneration group on scaffolds for in vitro skin models. Returning to UNSW's Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering, she advanced through positions as Research Associate (2013), Senior Research Associate (2014–2016 and 2017–2018), and Senior Research Associate/Lecturer (2017–2018), specializing in biomimetic materials for growth factor delivery.

Since joining the University of Melbourne in January 2019 as Senior Lecturer, promoted to Associate Professor in January 2023, Brooke Farrugia has advanced biomimetic material technologies for tissue regeneration and explored extracellular matrix interactions. Her multifaceted research background encompasses biomaterial development and characterization, wound healing, molecular biology, glycobiology, and biochemistry, investigating molecular mechanisms of wound healing and tissue regeneration, particularly biomaterial-biological environment interactions for regenerative medicine therapeutics. Internationally renowned for work on proteoglycans and glycosaminoglycans, she has been invited to speak at the International Proteoglycan and Gordon Research Conferences for Proteoglycans. Farrugia received the 2018 Bob Fraser New Investigator Award from the Matrix Biology Society of Australia and New Zealand and the 2007 Student Oral Presentation Award from the Australasian Society for Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering.

Professional Email: brooke.farrugia@unimelb.edu.au