Susan (Sue) Charman is Director of the Centre for Drug Candidate Optimisation and Professor at the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (MIPS) where her research focuses on ADME-informed drug candidate optimisation to accelerate and enhance drug discovery. She completed a PhD in pharmaceutical science in the US and worked in the pharmaceutical industry before moving to Monash to assume an academic role. She leads a team of 20 research scientists and postdoctoral fellows that undertake physicochemical, metabolism and pharmacokinetic investigations to inform drug candidate design and progression. She is particularly interested in the discovery of new drug candidates to treat tropical infectious diseases such as malaria and has supported drug discovery activities of the Medicines for Malaria Venture for more than 15 years.