Carolyn Dillon completed her PhD in bioinorganic chemistry at the University of Sydney in 1996. She is currently employed as a Associate Professor in the School of Chemistry and Molecular Bioscience at the University of Wollongong where she is the coordinator of the Medicinal Chemistry Degree. Her primary research focus in on the design, synthesis and biological testing of selective anti-cancer drugs. She is the inventor of a class of arsenic drugs designed to target specific cancers and she is currently collaborating with the pharmaceutical industry to determine their efficacy.

Carolyn has been using synchrotron radiation techniques (X-ray and IR) since 1996 at facilities such as Brookhaven National Laboratory, the Advanced Photon Source, the Australian National Beamline Facility (KEK, Tsukuba) and the Australian Synchrotron, covering IR microspectroscopy, microprobe SR-XRF imaging and XAS for solving inorganic medicinal chemistry problems. Additionally, she uses neutron reflectometry to study the interactions of drugs with membrane mimics. Her specific areas of interest include: the design and development of new arsenic anti-cancer drugs, bismuth bowel cancer chemopreventives, and metal anti-inflammatory drugs.