Principal Scientist & Science Team Leader - Pathogen Biosecure Environments, Plant & Food Research and current President of the Australasian Plant Pathology Society.

Grant is a plant pathologist and published the first RT-PCR diagnostic for a dsRNA plant virus in 1992. He was the inaugural Program Manager of B3 2005-2010 and subsequently led the Effective Detection and Response Program in the Canberra-based CRC for Plant Biosecurity 2012-2018. Since 2015, Grant has been an invited Instructor at the annual Plant Biosecurity in Theory & Practise Course at the Biosecurity Research Institute in the USA. Since 2017, he has lead and contributed to the science response to the incursion of the myrtle rust pathogen, Austropuccinia psidii, into Aotearoa, including understanding pathogen resistance in taonga myrtaceae species, contributing to the pathogen genome assembly, investigating the molecular mechanisms of pathogenicity and the development of targeted control options including dsRNA/ RNAi technology. He currently co-supervises three PhD students, having previously co-supervised ten PhD and three Masters candidates to award of degree at Australian and New Zealand Universities.