Professor Dulhunty has been recognised for her significant service to medical research and to professional organisations.

"It's quite exciting, I certainly wasn't expecting it and I feel very honoured," Prof Dulhunty said of the AM.

An emeritus professor at the John Curtin School of Medical Research, leader of the Dulhunty Group - Muscle Research since 1995, and Eccles Institute of Neuroscience since 2016, Prof Dulhunty's passion for medical research spans back to the 1970s and quickly developed during her PhD studies.

And after around 50 years in the field she said this recognition was a broader acknowledgement of the people she's worked with and studied under over that time.

"Something I think is very important to understand with research is it's usually done by a team of people and I think I've been extremely fortunate in having wonderful collaborators and mentors," she said.

"That's continued all through my career and that is what makes for good science and research for medicine, absolutely it's a broader reflection of all the people I've been privileged to work with"

While many of the "aha" moments bring up imagery of a hollywood mad scientist that doesn't reflect reality, Prof Dulhunty said she had been thrilled to be part of research teams that had made some specific breakthroughs.

"It is a bit like being a detective, you get bits and pieces of information from different angles and then you formulate a test to see if you get the desired result and if it comes through it does give you a very good and excited feeling," she said.

She said one of the major discoveries during the 80s she was proud to be part of was learning to measure tiny electrical currents through 'ion channels', a family of proteins in the membranes of cells which are the fundamental components of many cells including brain, muscle and heart function.

"I wasn't responsible, but I was part of that discovery and that opened up a lot of research," Prof Dulhunty said.

More recently it has been breakthroughs in understanding the structure of proteins.

"That has opened up a whole lot of corridors," she said.

The professor has published nearly 200 research papers and reviews for peer-reviewed scientific journals internationally and has also been a key note speaker at more than 70 major conferences and symposiums.

Prof Dulhunty said her specialty was skeletal and heart muscle and that her research had been "very basic", but developed around an interest of the "fundamental mechanisms that underlie muscle and heart diseases".

It's part of a career that has also helped her oversee and mentor several PhD and undergraduate students, and be a critical contributor to government bodies including the the National health and Medical Research Council, Australian Research Council and the Heart Foundation.

She said her research more recently had shifted to look at the mechanisms that have changed in diseases causing muscular weakness dystrophy and looking at ways they might be improved to bolster the heart or muscle performance.

Prof Dulhunty was also credited with an avid interest in equestrian as a member of the Bungendore Riding Club where she was president for three years and competed in equestrian events until recently retiring from competition.