Stephen On

Stephen committed to a career in microbiology at the age of 14 and became especially interested in the field of diagnostics, where the ability to recognise a pathogen quickly and accurately could be critical. His interests led to the completion of his PhD on ”Identification methods for rRNA superfamily VI” conducted at the Central Public Health Laboratory in London, England, whereafter he became a Senior Researcher at the Danish Institute of Food and Veterinary Research in 1994 and moved to New Zealand in 2005 to become Food Programme Leader at the Institute of Environmental Science and Research (ESR). He moved to Lincoln University in 2015 as an Associate Professor in food microbiology, and was appointed as a Professor in 2022. He currently leads the Department of Wine, Food, and molecular biosciences and is Acting Director of the Centre for Foods for Future Consumers.
Stephen’s expertise is evidenced in over 170 research articles or book chapters, and membership of various National and International committees and advisory boards. He has won two awards recognising his contributions to bacteriology (2001, UK Society for Applied Microbiology and 2017, NZ Microbiological society) and another in 2014 recognising his success in winning the right to host an international microbiology conference here in NZ. His current projects span three major areas, including the characterisation of microbes involved in making wine – and whether or not we can predict if the wine will be good, or otherwise!