Editors

Dr Megan Cross

Your Editing Career Launched Course Presenter

• PhD Biochemistry, Griffith University, Brisbane
• Master of Science in Protein Biochemistry, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
• Honours in Biochemistry, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
• Bachelor of Science in Genetics and Biochemistry, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg

Dr Megan Cross is a biochemist and specialist medical, science and technical editor. Her PhD thesis was groundbreaking. It described the use of structural biology to discover how an essential enzyme can be used to prevent and treat parasitic diseases, as developed during her research tenure at the Griffith Institute for Drug Discovery, Griffith University. As part of her Honours and Masters degrees, she elucidated the mechanism underlying the role of pH in controlling the function of the CLIC1 protein, which traffics chloride ions across cell membranes and is implicated in a range of diseases.

With 10 years’ research experience and a lifelong love of writing, Dr Cross has written and published 10 research articles in top peer-reviewed scientific journals and a textbook chapter for undergraduate enzymologists in Wilson and Walker's Principles and Techniques of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, an essential and best-selling resource for budding molecular biologists and biochemists.

She is passionate about science communication and is currently responsible for the hands-on science experiments in the That’s RAD! Science book series, which aims to inspire children through engaging STEM stories written by real scientists. She loves showing others how science is present in our everyday lives and believes that intimidating, complex systems can be understood by anyone if they are able to engage with them in a simplified context. Megan believes in empowering the public to tell good science from bad in the age of misinformation. Her personal war on fake news begins with enabling scientists to communicate their results and discoveries in a clear and engaging manner that reaches their target audience—be it their professional colleagues or the general public. Through her editing, she helps academics, thesis students and medical researchers/writers to present their work in a manner that is structurally consistent, concise and clear, but also reflects/demonstrates their technical excellence and experimental rigour, while remaining engaging for the reader.

She enjoys assisting students with their academic writing, particularly those from diverse language backgrounds. As a research assistant and early career researcher, she has supervised many international interns and undergraduate project students and relished the opportunity to edit their writing to communicate their ideas in the best way possible and help them grow as young scientists.