Rachel is the Professor of Bioinorganic and Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Sydney, Australia. She obtained her PhD at the University of Sydney (advisor: Peter Lay (Cr(V) speciation)) and next undertook two periods of postdoctoral research training at the University of New South Wales (advisor: Garry King (Cu(II)/Fe(III)-biotechnology)) and at the University of Arizona (advisors: John Enemark (Mo(V) enzymes), Christina Kennedy (microbial nitrogen cycling)). She returned to Australia to the University of Sydney and in 2007 established a research group in inorganic chemical biology founded on her cross-discipline research. Rachel and her team focus on the inorganic chemical biology of Fe(III) chelating microbial siderophores, with the goal to develop methods to expand the structural diversity and functional utility of these metal-binding agents for environmental and biomedical applications. With her team, she has developed methods that blend organic synthetic chemistry, chemoenzymatic assembly, metal-templated synthesis, and precursor-directed biosynthesis, to produce new chelators with re-engineered metal binding properties, some of which have shown potential application in radiopharmaceuticals. The impact of her work is reflected by a 2022 Stanford University citation analysis, which placed her work in the top 2% globally for both inorganic and nuclear chemistry, and organic chemistry. Rachel was elected a Fellow of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute (FRACI) in 2016 and is a current member (2025-2027) of the Australian Research Council (ARC) College of Experts.