Christopher Blanchard is a professor at the Charles Sturt University. He completed a BAppSc degree at Charles Sturt University (CSU) before undertaking a Ph.D. in molecular biology based at CSIRO Plant Industry, Canberra. He worked as a molecular biologist at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in Lausanne, Switzerland and as a protein biochemist at the CSIRO Grain Quality Research Laboratory before joining CSU in 1998. He is an academic within the School of Biomedical Sciences and a pathway leader within the Graham Centre. He is also the director of the ARC Industrial Transformation Training Centre for Functional Grains (Functional Grains Centre). He received a Vice Chancellor’s Award for Research Excellence in 2023.