Alison McLennan joined the Faculty of Business, Government and Law at the University of Canberra in 2016. She completed her PhD on the regulation of synthetic biology, an emerging biotechnology, at the Australian National University. Alison has also worked in legal policy in the Commonwealth Attorney-General's Department and as a Judge's Tipstaff in the NSW Land and Environment Court.

Alison researches intellectual property and the regulation of emerging technologies. She is interested in how we can not only manage the risks, but also maximise the potential benefits of new technologies. Alison is a leading Australian researcher in the legal issues surrounding synthetic biology. Her research on regulation of synthetic biology has been published in a single-author book, journal articles and a book chapter. Dr McLennan has also coedited an interdisciplinary collection on intellectual property and emerging technologies including stem cell research, nanotechnology and genetic testing. She has been invited to present her work to government agencies and at the International Yeast 2.0 and Synthetic Genomes Conference, CSIRO Synthetic Biology FSP Workshop and Australian Academy of Science Australia–China Symposium on Synthetic Biology.