Dianne Nicol is Chair of Academic Senate and a Professor at the Law Faculty at the University of Tasmania. Dianne started her academic career as a scientist, receiving a PhD from Dalhousie University in Canada in 1987. She started studying law after moving to Tasmania in 1992. She was admitted as a barrister and solicitor to the Supreme Court of Tasmania and the High Court in 1998 and spent some time in legal practice. She commenced work as an academic at the University of Tasmania in 2000. Her teaching focuses on primarily on the interface between technology and the law, in the following subjects: intellectual property law, information technology and the law, biotechnology and the law, media law and equity. The broad theme of Dianne’s research in the law discipline is the regulation of biotechnology and human genetics. She is particularly interested in the commercialisation of genetic knowledge and patenting of genetic inventions. She is currently the lead chief investigator on two Australian Research Council funded projects, one on patenting of biotechnology inventions, the other on the role of law in the era of personalised medicine.