Dr Nic Waddell obtained her PhD in molecular biology from the University of Leicester in the UK. She is head of the Medical Genomics group at QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute. Prior to that she has been a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Queensland and QIMR Berghofer. She is a cancer researcher and collaborative bioinformatician who is an expert in the interpretation of next generation sequence data. She has also played a key role in the Australian International Cancer Genome Consortia (ICGC) projects (PIs Grimmond, Biankin and Bowtell) and the Australian Melanoma Genome Project (AMGP).

Her team focuses on the genomics of several cancers including oesophageal, melanoma, mesothelioma and lung cancer. She has received over 10 million AUD of funding as a CI. With an H-index of over 45, she has consistently published in high impact journals including multiple articles in Nature. She is co-founder of precision analytics company, genomiQa. This company specialises in in whole genome data analysis.  Dr Waddell is a member of the Queensland Genomics Community Group where she contributes to a variety of projects in community engagement and the development of guidelines to enable the clinical use of genomics.