Associate Professor Newbigin is a plant biologist in the School of BioSciences at the University of Melbourne with nearly 30 years research experience in the areas of the cellular and molecular biology of plants. As coordinator of the Melbourne pollen count since 1997, he has been instrumental in delivering an important community service to Melbourne’s allergy sufferers, providing them with resources and information about the impact of grass pollen on human health. Through his work with community groups and as a member of cross-disciplinary groups of researchers, he has contributed significantly to raising the profile of aerobiology in Australia.

Edwin Lampugnani completed his PhD at Monash University (Australia) in the field of developmental plant genetics and is a postdoctoral research fellow in the School of BioSciences at the University of Melbourne. Edwin's expertise lies in cell and molecular biology however, he is also interested in how citizen science can contribute to research outcomes. Edwin has been a part of the Melbourne Pollen Count team since 2011 and has played a central role in developing the infrastructure utilised by the team. Edwin is using citizen science to better understand how changes in environmental factors, including airborne pollen levels, affect peoples’ hay fever and asthma symptoms.

Usha is a software developer with over a decade of experience across multiple technology stacks. She did her Masters of Computing (Computer Science) from the National University of Singapore and then worked internationally across a range of industries in cutting-edge (sometimes bleeding-edge) one-of-their-kind projects. Specializing in application development, data science, data modelling and visualization, and math-intensive programming, she quite enjoys the process of bringing to life the ideas of the best and brightest minds of our generation. Usha works at the Melbourne Data Analytics Platform.

The Unix Services team provides operational service delivery of the technology infrastructure behind the Pollen Count and Forecast websites across the several states.