Sandra Orgeig (BSc (Hons), PhD) is Professor in Pulmonary Biology and Associate Head of School (Research) in the School of Pharmacy & Medical Sciences at the University of South Australia. Throughout her research career Sandra has taken a broad multidisciplinary approach to understand the evolution, development, function and regulation of pulmonary surfactant in health and disease across a range of animal models. Sandra’s teaching has been recognized with UniSA teaching citations for promoting the teaching-research nexus and creating innovative resources for delivering a digitally-enriched curriculum in the Health Sciences. Her research has been recognised by the award of two ARC research fellowships, a Young Tall Poppy Award and the national Fenner Medal from the Australian Academy of Science and she has published >100 research articles or book chapters. Sandra serves the scientific community as Chair of the SA Tall Poppy committee and as a member of the research subcommittee of the Thoracic Society of Australia & NZ. Sandra is also a Fellow of the Governor’s Leadership Foundation in South Australia.