Dr Ailie Gallant is an Associate Professor in the School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment in the Faculty of Science.

Dr Gallant's research focuses on drought, and precipitation variability and precipitation extremes. Her past work has included characterising variability and trends in characteristics of drought, extreme precipitation, and extreme heat using observations and climate models. Her work has also included palaeoclimate investigations to place recent droughts in a longer-term context. 

Her most recent research interests focus on understanding what causes droughts to start and end, with a particular focus of the role of changes in weather systems during droughts. She has a particular interest in how these processes change the nature of a formation of a drought between their typical behaviour and those droughts with a rapid onset, so-called 'flash droughts' and her team is currently working on these problems.

Dr Gallant is a Chief Investigator for the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes; the upcoming Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Weather of the 21st Century; and the Monash Node Lead of the National Environmental Science Program Climate Systems Hub. She is also the Deputy Director of the Monash Climate Change Communication Research Hub. 

Dr Gallant is also a passionate science educator, teaching courses on climate change and hydroclimate and hydrology. Her passion for science education extends beyond the classroom and she regularly interacts with media as a science communicator. She is a regular on Melbourne's 3RRR Science Show Einstein-A-Go-Go and on 774 ABC Melbourne.