A/Prof Matthew AB Baker grew up in Dunedin, New Zealand and finished an Hons in Chemistry at the Australian National University studying Fluctuation Theorems before completing his DPhil in Physics at the University of Oxford as a John Monash Scholar looking at the molecular motor that makes many bacteria swim. Matt focused primarily on how simple subunit interactions govern assembly of complex architectures, including the rotor and filament of the bacterial flagellar motor. Matt’s group at UNSW Sydney continue to study the flagellar motor, using directed evolution and ancestral reconstruction to examine the evolutionary landscape that constrains the adaptation of the motor. Matt’s team also investigate force sensitive proteins reconstituted in synthetic lipid bilayers and membrane dynamics using novel DNA nanotechnology with the ultimate goal to control membrane communication using de novo DNA designs.