Marshall Lightowlers is Principal Research Fellow with the National Health and Medical Research Council in Australia and Professor in the Faculty of Veterinary and Agricultural Sciences at the University of Melbourne. In 2011 he was appointed by the University of Melbourne Council as Melbourne Laureate Professor. He has published more than two hundred articles in internationally refereed journals and books. He has been an active member of the Australian Society for Parasitology, serving as the society's President in 1995/6, Honorary Secretary, and as a council member representing Victoria. In 1998 the society awarded Lightowlers the Bancroft-Mackerras Medal in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the science of parasitology.