Associate Professor Sheena McGowan is formally trained as a microbiologist, however, during her PhD she developed what would become a long-standing interest in structure and function of proteins. She completed a post-doctoral position where she was trained in protein crystallography and biochemistry. She was awarded an NHMRC Career Development Award and an ARC Future Fellowship - which she used to establish her own laboratory. In 2016, Sheena transitioned from a research only fellow to a teaching and research academic within the Department of Microbiology. She is currently the course coordinator and chief examiner for Masters’ and capstone 3rd year Microbiology units. She delivers lectures and workshops into second (80 - 600 students) and third year (80 - 200 students) science and biomedical science undergraduate courses, as well as generating new curricula and interactive teaching activities for these courses. In addition to her teaching activities, the research programs within the McGowan laboratory remain active, focussing on therapeutically important microbial proteins. Her team investigate whether interruption of function has therapeutic potential and then use this structural information to discover lead molecules and guide drug development. In this talk, Sheena will discuss her transition from research only to a teaching and research position and how she tries to balance the demands of both activities within the university environment.