Joel Ricky Steele

From Medical Science to Space Biology  

A proud Palawa man (Tasmania), Dr. Joel Ricky Steele was driven to medical science after surviving childhood cancer, studying medical science and a PhD in neuroscience. 

Dr Steele is the Lead Expert in Proteomics (ERC) at the Monash Proteomics and Metabolomics Platform, where his technical expertise and innovative research approaches have provided groundbreaking results in the field of biological mass spectrometry (which provides rapid and sensitive qualitative analysis of biomolecules). He was recognised as a high-achieving scholar during his PhD studies through the Faculty of Science and the Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning.

Dr. Steele's career is distinguished by several prestigious awards, including being an Aurora Study Tour scholar in 2018, and a placement for the NASA-JPL Internship Program in 2020.  

"It changed my perspective on where my career could go, on the things that I could do".

Shooting for the stars 

Dr Steele was selected as a Fulbright-Future Postdoctoral Scholar at NASA Ames in 2022. He conducted research on bacterial mutation rates due to spaceflight radiation exposure and on mouse muscle proteomes.

During his tenure at NASA’s GeneLab, he contributed to the analysing omics data from complex spaceflight datasets. His work notably applied explainable machine learning to identify biomarkers defining muscle atrophy due to microgravity.  This research could help protect future astronauts’ bodies against harsh space environments.

As the Proteomics Lead, Dr Steele has led over 500 proteomic experiments and processed more than 7,000 samples during his three years at Monash. “I apply my scientific and technical expertise to understand complex biology (proteins), from diseases to organisms [to] help scientists solve their biological and medical questions”.