Professor Dragana (Dana) Stanley was awarded a PhD in Molecular Microbiology from Victoria University, Melbourne, in 2009. Following graduation, she began a postdoctoral position at CSIRO’s Animal Health Laboratories (AAHL) in poultry intestinal health research. Dana specialised in gut microbiota and genetics during her time at AAHL. She moved to Central Queensland University in 2013 and is now a leader of the Microbial Genomics research cluster in the Institute for Future Farming Systems, focusing on human and livestock intestinal health and nutrition, probiotics, the development of next-generation antibiotics, and pathogen control. Her most cited manuscripts, published in Nature Microbiology and Nature Communications, investigate human diseases such as Multiple Sclerosis and Diabetes.  Most of her time is committed to research focused on understanding, preventing and controlling disease outbreaks in livestock, where she works closely with the best of the Australian livestock industry. Dana is consistently listed among the annual top 1% of researchers worldwide by Stanford University's list of the World's Top Scientists and in the top 2% of all time for lifelong work. Since 2025, Dana has been honoured to become a member of the Australian College of Experts.