Rate My Professor Murray Badger

Murray Badger is a distinguished plant biologist at the Australian National University (ANU), appointed Professor in 1998. A native Australian, he completed his BSc Agr at the University of Sydney and PhD in Plant Biochemistry at ANU. He conducted postdoctoral research at the Carnegie Institution of Washington Department of Plant Biology at Stanford before returning to Australia as a Queen Elizabeth II Research Fellow. Badger has held significant administrative roles at ANU, including Head of the Departments of Environmental Biology and Molecular Plant Physiology, Research Program Leader in the CRC for Plant Sciences, Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence in Translational Photosynthesis, and leader in developing the new Australian Plant Phenomics Facility node at ANU. He currently serves as Honorary Group Leader of the Badger Group - Photosynthetic functional genomics in the Research School of Biology.

Badger's research focuses on the genetics, evolution, biochemistry, and physiology of efficient photosynthetic CO₂ fixation mechanisms in plants, algae, and cyanobacteria, with emphasis on the CO₂-fixing enzyme Rubisco, photosynthetic CO₂ concentrating mechanisms, and controls on leaf and chloroplast development determining photosynthetic capacity. His early contributions defined Rubisco activation mechanisms and led to the discovery of CO₂ concentrating mechanisms in cyanobacteria and algae, revealing their co-evolution with Rubisco kinetics. Key publications include "Cyanobacterial Carboxysomes: Microcompartments that Facilitate CO₂ Fixation" (Rae et al., 2013), "The cyanobacterial CCM as a source of genes for improving photosynthetic CO₂ fixation in crop species" (Price et al., 2013), "Structural Determinants of the Outer Shell of β-Carboxysomes in Synechococcus elongatus PCC 7942" (Rae et al., 2012), and "Over-expression of the β-carboxysomal CcmM protein in Synechococcus PCC7942" (Long et al., 2011). Badger has received major honors including Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science (2008), Corresponding Member of the American Society of Plant Biologists (2009), Highly Cited Researcher in Plant and Animal Sciences (2000), Peter Goldacre Award (1982), and ARC LIEF grant (2016). His integrated approaches have advanced molecular, genomic, and functional understanding of photosynthesis, influencing crop improvement strategies.