I grew up in the large city of Melbourne, but a love of farms and plants lead me to the Agricultural Science degree at Melbourne University, from which I graduated in 1975. I was awarded a University of Melbourne Travelling Scholarship and studied for the PhD in Plant Pathology at the University of California at Davis, completed in 1980. My PhD supervisor was Dr David Gilchrist, Professor in Plant Pathology at UC Davis. Plant breeding for disease resistance and associated molecular and genetic research has dominated my career since that time, starting with a CSIRO Postdoctoral Studentship at Cornell University and then as a plant breeder for lupins at Agriculture Western Australia. In February 1999 I took up a position in Plant Breeding at the University of Western Australia where I was promoted to full Professor in 2012. From 2013 to 2026 my position was 70% funded by a project at UWA to breed canola in Australia for the company NPZ Australia Pty Ltd, and 30% funded through The UWA Institute of Agriculture as Associate Director and for undertaking research and some teaching. Currently I my salary is supported by several research grants in plant breeding.

As a practicing plant breeder, I have released several commercial lupin and canola varieties. I have also undertaken research into genetics and physiology of resistance to various diseases in lupins and canola, and published several research papers in this field. I was co-author with international authors on a book chapter on lupin breeding (Cowling et al., 1998b), and published a monograph on lupin genetic resources through the International Board for Plant Genetic Resources (Cowling et al., 1998a).

I have developed new methods for crop improvement based on the animal model and genomic selection, which we call BRIO. We have applied this methodology to canola and more recently to common beans in an ACIAR-funded project in Africa.

I acted as convenor of the 12th Australasian Plant Breeding Conference in 2002 and the 1st Australian Lupin Technical Symposium in 1994, and an OECD conference on Brassica genomics in 2009. I co-managed the scientific program for the Internaitonal Rapeseed Congress in 2023 in Sydney, Australia.

Until 30th June 2026, I acted as Principal Plant Breeder for NPZ Australia Pty Ltd, a small company which funds the canola breeding project at The University of Western Australia. I am qualified as a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. As a plant breeder, I have released several lupin and canola cultivars during my career, and I am enthusiastically applying new breeding approaches to canola and more recently common beans in an ACIAR project in Africa. I achieve great satisfaction from seeing the results of research in new and improved canola varieties on farms.

I developed a new system of plant breeding (which we abbreviate as BRIO) based on four major components - accurate breeding values, rapid cycles of recurrent selection, index composed of multiple economic traits, and optimal contributions selection to optimise crossing designs and to improve long-term genetic gain.  This system of breeding has been applied to canola, field peas, and recently common bean in a project funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) in East Africa.

Hybrid breeding requires advanced understanding of “heterotic pools” of germplasm that may be exploited in hybrids with strong hybrid vigour or heterosis.  I am developing new systems for developing heterotic pools.

With research colleagues, I hope to further explore the application of molecular genetics to the study of gene transfer in wide crosses in the Brassica family. We are already seeing great practical benefits from our previous research in this area, and hope to extend the research to new Brassica species and related species.

I have a strong interest in the basic mechanism of disease resistance and susceptibility in plants, and would like to pursue our current results that suggest that the susceptible reaction in lesions caused by necrotrophic fungal pathogens is the result of apoptosis in plant tissue induced by the fungus.

At UWA since 2002, I have won research grant funding exceeding $23 million. 

I contribute to teaching genetics and breeding at UWA. I supervise or co-supervise PhD and MSc students. I help to co-ordinate other plant breeding activities at UWA.