Professor David Gardner did his undergraduate and postgraduate training at the University of York in the UK in the laboratory of Professor Henry Leese. He then spent time as a Fellow at Harvard Medical School with Professor John Biggers, before moving to Monash University in the late 1980’s to work with Professor Alan Trounson. At Monash David worked on methods for the successful culture and diagnosis of human embryos. In 1997 he moved back to the USA where he became the Scientific Director of the Colorado Centre for Reproductive Medicine, established a large research team and was an adjunct Professor at Colorado State University. In 2007 David returned to Australia to take up the position of Chair of Zoology at the University of Melbourne and in 2008 became Head of Department. In 2015 he took the position of Research Professor in the School of BioSciences. In 2017 he was elected into the Australian Academy of Science and was the recipient of the Distinguished Researcher Award of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine. In 2018, he became a Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor at the University of Melbourne. David has been the Scientific Director of Melbourne IVF since 2018. His current research is focussed on the analysis of gamete and embryo function, and how external factors such as diet, the environment and culture conditions affect subsequent foetal development and offspring health. His group continues to work on the development of embryo biomarkers and embryo culture conditions. David has published over 280 scientific papers and chapters, and edited 15 books on embryology and Human IVF.