Hafna received her PhD in Biological Chemistry from the Australian National University, and joined CSIRO Land & Water as a Postdoctoral Fellow to study RNA riboswitches with the Industrial Systems Biology and Biocatalysis & Synbio Teams. Her general research interests include understanding structure-function relationships in protein families and RNA aptamers, protein inhibitor design, and protein engineering. She is currently investigating applications of RNA and protein engineering with the Biocatalysis & SynBio Team, using a combination of methods including molecular biology, biochemistry, structural biology, and bioinformatics.