Dr David Simmons is a Senior Lecturer and head of the Placental Biology Laboratory in the School of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Queensland. He was awarded his PhD from the University of Western in Canada and, following his time as a Lalor Foundation and Alberta Heritage Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Calgary, joined the University of Queensland to start a research group focusing on the developmental origins of adult disease and placentation. Dr Simmons primarily utilises transgenic mouse models to explore trophoblast differentiation, the formation of the placental maternal-foetal interface, and the influence of errant placentation on foetal development.