Originally from New Zealand, Dr Ian Monk completed a PhD at University College Cork in Ireland under the supervision of Professor Colin Hill and Dr Cormac Gahan on the functional genomics of Listeria monocytogenes. As a postdoctoral researcher, he then spent four years at Trinity College Dublin with Professor Tim Foster where he developed novel, widely applied methods for the genetic manipulation of Staphylococci. In 2013, he joined the Laboratory of Professor Tim Stinear in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology (Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity). He is currently using a range of genomic techniques to investigate the complexity of two-component system signalling in Staphylococcus aureus and understand the evolution of last line antibiotic resistance in Enterococcus faecium. He is interested in the molecular analysis of Gram-positive pathogenesis (Staphylococci, Enterococci and Listeria) where he has developed and applied sophisticated techniques for protein-protein interaction, protein-DNA interaction combined transposon mutagenesis and rapid targeted mutagenesis.