Dr Tessa Swain is an RNA Design Research Fellow at the Australian Centre for RNA Therapeutics in Cancer (ACRTC) and RNA Innovation Foundry (RIF) at the University of Western Australia (UWA), working alongside Archa Fox and Nikolay Shirokikh. Her role entails developing methods for optimising RNA structure, with the aim of improving stability and protein expression. She is also the co-chair for the WA RNA Salon and the current chair for the A-RNA EMCR committee. Prior to these roles, Tessa was at PYC Therapeutics (Research Scientist), where she developed skills for optimising large molecular screening tools for identifying potential RNA binding domains that could be used for targeting small RNA therapeutics to specific cells and tissues. She was also a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research, during which she built on the epigenome editing tools she developed for use with single cell analysis. Tessa completed her PhD at UWA working under the supervision of Prof. Ryan Lister. Her project focused on developing several novel, highly effective, combinatorial epigenome editing tools laying the foundations for future research to probe the complex epigenomic landscape.