Dr Shu Mei Teo completed her BSc(Honours) in Statistics at the University of Singapore. During her Honours year, she became interested in techniques and algorithms used for analysing data from SNP microarrays. She went on to pursue a PhD focusing on statistical methods for the improved detection and analyses of structural variants, under a joint Genetic and Molecular Epidemiology PhD program from the National University of Singapore in Singapore and Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden.

After her PhD, Shu Mei did a brief postdoctoral placement at the National University of Singapore before moving to Melbourne in 2013. Since then, she has been analysing microbiome data and linking them to diseases such as atopy, childhood asthma, cystic fibrosis and Crohn’s disease.