Siouxsie Wiles

Siouxsie Wiles MNZM (born Susanna Wiles) is a British microbiologist and science communicator based in New Zealand. Her specialist areas are infectious diseases and bioluminescence.

She is the head of University of Auckland's Bioluminescent Superbugs Lab.

Wiles was born in the United Kingdom, grew up in the UK and South Africa. Her mother is a retired social worker and her father is a business owner.

Ebola was the microbe that started Wiles' interest in microbiology when she was a teenager. During her TEDxChristchurch talk in 2015 she said:

"This is the microbe that got me hooked on microbiology in the first place, because it’s both amazing and utterly terrifying. I was a teenager when I first read about Ebola and all I could think of was: How does this turn the human body into a virus producing factory?"

The book The Hot Zone by Richard Preston, which focuses on Ebola, was what made Wiles focus her education on medical microbiology.

Wiles studied at the University of Edinburgh and graduated in 1997 with a BSc(Hons) in Medical Microbiology. While an undergraduate, she received a Nuffield Scholarship and worked in the university's School of Biological Sciences. Wiles received her PhD from Edinburgh Napier University, conducting research at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (previously known as the Institute of Virology and Environmental Microbiology), which is located in Oxford.

During her PhD Wiles first used bioluminescence to create biosensors to monitor the health of environmentally beneficial microbes.

After completing her PhD, Wiles moved to Imperial College London for a post-doctoral research position on tuberculosis. In 2007 she became a lecturer at Imperial College's Department of Infectious Diseases and Immunity, and in 2009 was awarded a Sir Charles Hercus Fellowship from the Health Research Council of New Zealand and moved to the University of Auckland. Wiles is the head of the university's Bioluminescent Superbugs Lab.

In 2013 she won the Prime Minister's Prize for Science Media Communication which includes prize money of NZ$100,000.

Wiles started the company Brightenz that sells kits with which one can create bioluminescent art at home.

In 2018 Wiles became science ambassador for House of Science, a non-for-profit venture for raising science literacy in local communities. She was also reelected as general Councillor of the Royal Society Te Apārangi in 2018. Two years later she was on the list of the BBC's 100 Women announced on 23 November 2020.

Wiles is also working on finding new antibiotics by screening 10,000 New Zealand fungi for possible medical use.

Bioluminescent Superbugs Lab

Wiles leads the Bioluminescent Superbugs Lab at the University of Auckland which focuses on how glowing bacteria can advance the understanding of microbial infections such as food poisoning, tuberculosis and hospital superbugs.

The bioluminescence is used to speed up the process of developing new antibiotics utilising the light emitted from the bacteria, because only living bacteria emit light. About her work Wiles says "My career has been built on making nasty bacteria bioluminescent and using them for all sorts of things, including finding new medicines". New Zealand has some of the highest rates of infectious diseases among developed countries. Globally 700,000 people die each year from drug-resistant diseases.

Science communication

Wiles is passionate about demystifying science for the general public. She is an active blogger on Sciblogs.co.nz, an online podcaster, a commentator on Radio New Zealand and appears on TV shows to discuss science stories in the news. She was one of the eight scientists who fronted the "Great New Zealand Science Project", the New Zealand government's public engagement programme leading to the National Science Challenges in 2012.

She commissioned, co-wrote, and appeared with her daughter in the TVNZ online children's science show Siouxsie & Eve Investigate.

From 2010 until 2016 Wiles was co-host of the Completely Unnecessary Skeptical Podcast which focused on skepticism in New Zealand.

She has also used art and film to communicate scientific ideas: in 2011 she collaborated with Australian graphic artist Luke Harris to produce a series of animated films featuring bioluminescent creatures and their uses in science. The animations on NASA's use of fireflies for the search of extraterrestrial life was selected for inclusion in the 6th Imagine Science Film Festival in New York in 2013, and the Goethe Institute's 2014 Science Film Festival. Wiles collaborated with artist Rebecca Klee on an installation at the Auckland Art in the Dark Festival in 2013, which featured Hawaiian bobtail squid and Aliivibrio fischeri. Wiles thinks that relevant science education should start in primary school, for increasing science literacy and interest in the field more generally.

Her 2015 science communication projects include the Biolumination II exhibition.

Wiles is active in the skeptical movement having received the Skeptic of the Year Award from the New Zealand Skeptics in 2016 and attended several NZ Skeptic Conferences. She has also spoken out against anti-vaxxers and other public health related issues.

In 2018, Wiles was named as a finalist for New Zealander of the Year Awards for her work on antibiotic-resistant superbugs and infectious diseases. She won the award in 2021 for her leadership in the public communication of New Zealand's COVID-19 response.

Wiles has been at the forefront of science communication in New Zealand during the COVID-19 pandemic. With cartoonist Toby Morris Wiles created "Flatten the Curve", an animated GIF comic, for The Spinoff to describe how simple citizen actions could vastly reduce the death toll. The comic went viral and was seen worldwide (including in Wikipedia). Called "the defining chart of the coronavirus", it was based on earlier graphics by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Rosamund Pearce of The Economist, and Thomas Jefferson University professor Drew Harris.

In 2020 Wiles was the subject of a documentary short entitled "Siouxsie and the Virus".

Antibiotic Resistance

Wiles' book Antibiotic Resistance: The End of Modern Medicine? was published in 2017 and examined the growing global problem of antibiotic resistance. Commenting on the book, University of Otago infectious diseases expert Professor Kurt Krause described it as "a clear call to action for New Zealanders on one of the most critical issues we face". Sarah-Jane O'Connor from the Science Media Centre writes that the book "[…]Antibiotic Resistance will provide an excellent tutorial for those who know there’s cause for concern but need some extra background to understand why".

Wiles is married to Steven Galbraith, a professor of mathematics at the University of Auckland, and together they have a daughter. She met her husband, a New Zealander, in London and left her position at Imperial College London to move to New Zealand in 2009. Wiles was granted New Zealand citizenship in2014.

She is a fan of Lego and likes to play with it while being a critic of what she describes as gender bias in the Lego minifigures. She has dyed her hair since she was a teenager, and is known as the "pink-haired science lady". In a 2013 blog post, Wiles says that the name "Siouxsie" comes from singer Siouxsie Sioux, lead singer of the band Siouxsie and the Banshees.

On 10 September 2021, Wiles attracted media attention after right-wing blogger Cameron Slater posted a video of her socialising with a friend at an Auckland beach during an Alert Level 4 lockdown in the Auckland Region in response to the August 2021 Delta variant community outbreak. Slater alleged that Wiles and her friend flouted lockdown restrictions with the story being circulated on several right-wing blogs. In response, Wiles clarified that her friend was part of the same bubble as her and that the pair had cycled 5km from her house to the beach. She also accused Slater of spreading disinformation in order to discredit her and the country's collective response toCOVID-19. National Party leader Judith Collins drew controversy when she described Wiles as a "big, fat hypocrite" during a virtual conversation with a Pasifika group aligned with the party. In response to Collins' criticism of Wiles, Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield defended Wiles from allegations that she breached lockdown restrictions. Wiles agreed her friend broke the Level 4 "do not go swimming" rule, and said she should have stopped her.

• 3Rs Prize from the United Kingdom National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs) in 2005
• New Zealand National Animal Ethics Advisory Committee Three Rs Prize, 2011
• New Zealand Association of Scientists' Science Communication Prize (now known as the Cranwell Medal), 2012
• Prime Minister's Prize for Science Media Communication, 2013
• Royal Society of New Zealand's Callaghan Medal, 2013
• Blake Leader Award from the Sir Peter Blake Trust, 2016
• New Zealand Skeptics' Skeptic of the Year Award, 2016
• Selected as one of the Royal Society Te Apārangi's "150 women in 150 words", celebrating the contributions of women to knowledge in New Zealand.
• Appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to microbiology and science communication, in the 2019 New Year Honours.
• Supreme Winner, New Zealand Women of Influence Award, 2020
• 2021 New Zealander of the Year