Rana Ellen Munns is an Australian botanist whose primary research has been to determine the traits that underpin

salinity tolerance Halotolerance is the adaptation of living organisms to conditions of high salinity. Halotolerant species tend to live in areas such as hypersaline lakes, coastal dunes, saline deserts, salt marshes, and inland salt seas and springs. Halophiles are ...

and adaptation to drought in crop plants. Rana was born in Sydney Australia and attended the University of Sydney, receiving her undergraduate degree in Biochemistry in 1966. She completed her Ph.D. in 1972 to begin a lifelong course of research on salt tolerance of plants first as a Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia and later at CSIRO Plant Industry in Canberra. In the early 1990s, she found that sodium exclusion was an important trait associated with the salt tolerance in wheat using a seedling stage assay. This work culminated in understanding wheat grain yield in saline soils in terms of genetic components that could be improved by an ancestral transporter gene. This research eventually led to a cultivar of wheat that yielded 25% more on saline soils that in farmers' fields and is used by over thirty wheat seed companies globally.

Career

BSc (Hons 1st Class) 1966 Biochemistry Department,

University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD) is a public university, public research university in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in both Australia and Oceania. One of Australia's six sandstone universities, it was one of the ...

Doctor of Philosophy 1972, CSIRO Plant Physiology Unit, University of Sydney. Chloroplast Development
1973–1976 Senior Tutor,

Macquarie University Macquarie University ( ) is a Public university, public research university in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Founded in 1964 by the New South Wales Government, it was the third university to be established in the Sydney metropolitan area. ...

, NSW
1977–1980 Research Fellow, Department of Agronomy,

University of Western Australia University of Western Australia (UWA) is a public research university in the Australian state of Western Australia. The university's main campus is in Crawley, Western Australia, Crawley, a suburb in the City of Perth local government area. UW ...

1981–2005 Research Scientist

CSIRO The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) is an Australian Government agency that is responsible for scientific research and its commercial and industrial applications. CSIRO works with leading organisations arou ...

Plant Industry, Canberra
2005–2010 Chief Research Scientist, CSIRO Division of Plant Industry, Canberra
2011–present Honorary Fellow, CSIRO Plant Industry, Canberra
2011–2013 Winthrop Research Professor, School of Plant Biology,

2014–present Emeritus Professor, ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology, jointly with School of Plant Biology Former Editor-in-chief of '' Functional Plant Biology''

Honours and awards

* 2006 Corresponding Member of

American Society of Plant Biologists The American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB) is a non-profit professional society for research and education in plant science with over 4,000 members world-wide. It was founded in 1924, as the American Society of Plant Physiologists (ASPP). T ...

* 2012 Thomson Reuters Australia Citation Award for most highly cited plant scientist during 2002–2012

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Munns, Rana Ellen Living people 20th-century Australian botanists 20th-century Australian women scientists Fellows of the Australian Academy of Science University of Sydney alumni Academic staff of the University of Western Australia Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century Australian botanists