Joan Gardner (microbiologist)

Joan Forrest Gardner AO (16 June 1918 – 19 November 2013) was an Australian microbiologist who had an extensive career researching and teaching in the areas of disinfection, infection control, and sterilisation.

Her uncle was Nobel laureate Howard Florey; her mother, Hilda Josephine Gardner, was a leading bacteriologist, serologist and hematologist in Melbourne; and her father, Jack Gardner, was a physician and army medical officer during World War I.

Following her graduation, she travelled to England to attend the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology at the University of Oxford where she gained her doctorate (DPhil [Oxon]).

It was in England that she became interested in the sterilisation of medical equipment, as important advances in the field were being made there.

[3] Gardner was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia in the 1992 Queen's Birthday Honours in recognition of service to medicine in the field of sterilisation, disinfection and infection control.