Course Director: Associate Professor Peter Temple-Smith

Peter is a zoologist by training and a reproductive biologist by discipline and research experience. He graduated in science, with a major in Zoology, from the University of Tasmania (BSc Hons) and completed a PhD in Zoology at the Australian National University in Canberra. His early research was on breeding biology of native Australian fauna, an area in which he continues to retain a research interest. He was awarded a three year Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship in 1974 to study mammalian fertilization and epididymal sperm maturation in the Department of Ob/Gyn at Cornell University Medical Centre/New York Hospital complex in New York and then returned to Australia to a position in the Department of Anatomy at Monash University working with the reproductive biology group headed by Professor David de Kretser.

From the early 1980s to the mid-1990s, he collaborated with Monash IVF, particularly Professors Alan Trounson and David de Kretser to develop various techniques relating to severe forms of male infertility with Dr. Graeme Southwick, a microsurgeon with research interests in infertility, and in plastic and aesthetic surgery. These techniques included microsurgical correction of obstructive azoospermia, the aetiology and diagnosis of Young’s Syndrome, epididymal aspiration with AI and IVF, aspiration of epididymal spermatozoa for ICSI and cryopreservation of immature spermatozoa for use in ICSI. The international success of these techniques resulted in invitations to national and international conferences and symposia to present results of the research.

In 1988 with Professors de Kretser, Short and Findlay he helped establish, and was made Director of, the Monash University Centre for Reproductive Biology which later became the Education Program in Reproductive Biology. This program was built around two new postgraduate courses in reproduction – the Graduate Diploma and Masters of Reproductive Science – which continue to be important courses in this program.

In 1997 he was appointed Director of Conservation and Research at Zoos Victoria – Melbourne Zoo, Healesville Sanctuary and Werribee Open Range Zoo – and held this position until 2004. During his time at Zoos Victoria he directed conservation and research programs on native and exotic fauna, including various endangered species recovery programs including the eastern barred bandicoot, New Holland mouse, brush-tailed rock wallaby and the northern hairy-nosed wombat. Links programs with the University of Melbourne, Monash University and Deakin University led to ARC Linkage Grants to support some of these programs and he was appointed as a Professorial Fellow (Honorary) in the Department of Zoology at the University of Melbourne. He has a continuing interest in the use of ART for improving the conservation options by improving reproductive outputs for endangered species.

In 2005 he returned to Monash University as Director of the Education Program in Reproductive Biology (now the Education Program in Reproduction and Development) and Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Reproduction and Development at Monash Institute of Medical Research. He also chairs the two Monash Medical Centre Animal Ethics Committees, and is Research Director for the Australian Plastic Surgery Education Foundation, a founding member of the Victorian Biotechnology Ethics Advisory Committee, Professorial Fellow in Zoology at the University of Melbourne and Deputy Chair of the Higher Education Board of Studies at Box Hill TAFE.