Cecilia works in the School of Biological Sciences within the Faculty of Science at Monash University as a Research Fellow.

Cecilia’s areas of interest are:

• The regulation of cyanogenesis in forage sorghum
• The molecular mechanisms of desiccation tolerance in resurrection plants and how this knowledge can be applied to abiotic stress tolerance in crop plants
• Food security

Cecilia completed a BSC (Forestry) at the Australian National University (Canberra) in 1985. The next two years were spent working in Tasmania for private industry to develop elite Eucalypt varieties. Cecilia returned to study and started a Masters Prelim at the School of Botany at Melbourne University in 1988, which developed into a PhD investigating sexual reproduction and fertilisation in plants. During her PhD she also worked part-time as a research assistant at Calgene Pacific, developing a tissue culture protocol for Eucalyptus regnans. In 1993 she took a position as a post-doc research fellow at Monash University to study the phenomenon of desiccation tolerance in the resurrection grass, Sporobolus stapfianus.

While raising a family Cecilia worked in a variety of science related positions. From 2000-2001 she worked part-time as a lecturer in Genetics at the School of Biological Sciences at Monash University. This was followed by 2 years as a research fellow with the Department of Sustainability and Environment (Creswick, Vic.) establishing a forest molecular genetics lab with the aim of assessing the genetic diversity within/between Eucalyptus regnans populations in Victoria. During 2004-2006 Cecilia free-lanced as a copy editor for CSIRO publishing, as well as returning to research (part-time) at Monash University, again working on desiccation tolerance in resurrection grasses.

In 2007 Cecilia joined what is now the Plant Ecophysiology Group led by Ros Gleadow in the School of Biological Sciences, investigating the molecular control of cyanogenesis in crop species, primarily forage sorghum.

Conference Proceedings

Blomstedt, Cecilia K., Gleadow, Roslyn M., O’Donnell, Natalie, Naur, Peter, Jensen, Kenneth, Laursen, Tomas, Olsen, Carl Erik, Stuart, Peter, Hamill, John D., Møller, Birger Lindberg, Neale, Alan D.  (2011) TILLING Identifies a Mutation in the Cytochrome P450 CYP79A1 Gene Resulting in Acyanogenic Forage Sorghum.  Genetics Society of Australasia.  Melbourne Australia July 10^th-13^th 2011.

Blomstedt, Cecilia K., Gleadow, Roslyn M., O’Donnell, Natalie, Naur, Peter, Jensen, Kenneth, Laursen, Tomas, Olsen, Carl Erik, Stuart, Peter, Hamill, John D., Møller, Birger Lindberg, Neale, Alan D.  (2011)  TILLING identifies mutations in key genes involved in the cyanogenesis pathway in Sorghum. International Botanical Congress Melbourne 23^rd-30^th July 2011.

Blomstedt, Cecilia K., Molecular analysis of nitrogen metabolism in acyanogenic mutants of Sorghum bicolor. Society for Experimental Biology, Annual Main Meeting Salzburg Austria, 29^th June – 2^nd July 2012.

Blomstedt, Cecilia., Rosati, Viviana., Fromhold, Samantha., Edwards, Aaron.,  Neilson, Elizabeth.,  Gleadow, Roslyn.  Nitrogen metabolism in acyanogenic mutants of Sorghum bicolor. ComBio 2013 Perth, Australia 29^th Sept -3^rd Oct 2013.

Research articles by Cecilia can be found on the EcoFizz publications page.