Andrew Lonsdale had a background in software engineering before deciding to return to study bioinformatics in 2010. After completing the MSc, he was a research assistant and PhD student in the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence in Plant Cell Walls, with a research focus on the predication of leaderless secretory proteins in plants. He then crossed over to work on human biology as a research assistant at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute (MCRI), working on cancer and kidney RNA-seq experiments, and teaching bioinformatics workshops. After submitting his thesis, he began a postdoctoral at Peter Mac in 2019 in Alicia Oshlack’s group. Andrew is a strong advocate for the discipline of bioinformatics, and enjoys teaching computing and bioinformatics skills.