Matt Bawn studied physics and worked as an engineer in industry before studying a PhD in biochemistry. He undertook postdoctoral positions in New York and Peru and at the Earlham and Quadram Institutes in Norwich working on pathogen evolution, before joining the University of Leeds in July 2022 as a lecturer in bacterial genomics. Matt applies bioinformatics solutions to research questions concerning the evolution of bacterial pathogens via their interaction with the environment, their hosts and horizontal-gene transfer and implications for human health. His work addresses the biological evolution of pathogenicity and its impact to epidemiology and method development of tools for the detection of horizontal gene transfer in bacteria. Recently Matt has adjusted his research trajectory towards questions of population genetics and has developed a collaboration using single-cell sequencing and in-vitro evolution to determine the effect of sub-inhibitory concentrations of antibiotics on bacterial evolution.