Dr Stephen Kidd was awarded his PhD in Molecular Microbiology from the University of Queensland. He then worked in Prof. Nigel Brown's research group (The University of Birmingham, UK) on the transcription factor MerR; the mechanism of its environmental stress response. He started work on a number of other MerR-like regulators and then after moving back to the University of Queensland, some of these which functioned in disulfide stress response in pathogenic bacteria. In November 2008 he started working at the University of Adelaide as a Group Leader in Microbiology and Immunology.