WOMEN ACHIEVING IN SCIENCE...
Compiled by Diana Temple
Congratulations to distinguished medical professor Dr Marie Bashir AO, who has accepted appointment as Governor of NSW. A woman and one from a scientific profession make two innovations. It is good also to read that her husband, Sir Nicholas Shehadie, is to resign his other commitments in order to be governor's consort. WISENET wrote to the Sydney Morning Herald deploring its inappropriate headline to the announcement- "Philip, Bligh, Macquarie - now Grandma!"
Marcela Bilek has been appointed, at the age of 32, as the first female Professor of Physics at the University of Sydney. The Sydney University News reports on her diverse career: she moved with her family from Prague to Sydney, and after a degree in Applied Physics from Sydney, worked for industrial firms in Tokyo then Melbourne, then studied Engineering at Cambridge where she acquired a PhD. Her research fields include semi-conductors, optical polymer lenses, filters, protective coatings, low friction and corrosion resistant materials. She also has an MBE. With this background, her aim of setting up collaborative projects with commercial partners should be achievable! Her leisure pursuits are described as ballroom dancing and cycle touring. She claims never to have felt discrimination. Congratulations, Marcela!
Successful collaboration with business has also been achieved by a university team including Wisenet members Drs Rebecca Mason and Meloni Muir. The team, including researchers from several departments at Sydney University, together with Novogen Ltd, is investigating plant isoflavone derivatives and their effect on women's hormones and physiology. Collaborative grants of $7 million have been received over years by the team, and now a Business Higher Education Round Table (BHERT) award for outstanding achievement in collaborative research and development. {Source: University of Sydney News, Nov 30 2000}
Congratulations to Professor Kaye Basford, who was appointed Head of the School of Land and Food Sciences at the University of Queens land for 4 years from January 2001. In 1998, she was awarded the Australian Medal for Agriculture from the Australian Institute of Agricultural Science and Technology, for "outstanding research and scholarship at the interface between statistics and quantitative genetics and its impact on the design and analysis of large-scale field experiments".
Chief Engineer Claudine Sharp is the first Australian woman to earn the certificate of Marine Engineer Class 1, as well as a Bachelor of Technology (Marine Engineering). This qualifies her to sail as chief engineer on any size motor vessel. An employee of BP Shipping she works on oil tankers engaged in international trading. She started as an engineering cadet with BP Shipping in 1992.{Source: Sydney Morning Herald, Jan 18, 2001}
The Minister for Science, Senator Minchin, announced science prizes in October 2000. In our last issue, we congratulated Liz Dennis who with Jim Peacock won the prestigious Prime Minister's Prize for Science. We also congratulate Una Morgan of Murdoch University, who won the Minister's Prize for Achievement in Life Sciences for her research on the parasites Cryptosporidium and Giardia.
Robyn Stutchbury, of Australian Science Communicators, organises Science in the Pub to popularise science. It meets on a regular basis in Sydney and in some country centres. The February session of Science in the Pub was staged in Geneva, as a session for the Public Communication of Science and Technology Conference at CERN, with the theme 'Has the Bubble of Big Physics Burst?' A truckload of lager was provided by Fosters to give international scientists the idea of Science in the Pub. Robyn presented a paper on 'Science in the Pub goes Outback … by DC3!' This examined the background of SciPub and demographics from surveys, together with some of the outback story from last National Science Week.
Alison Ord, of CSIRO Exploration and Mining in Nedlands WA, is contact person for a new CRC, the Predictive Mineral Discovery Cooperative Research Centre, announced recently by the Minister for Science. The mission of this CRC is to create a predictive environment for mineral discovery. Its objectives include improving existing exploration models for the location and quality of ore deposits, using multidisciplinary teams and sophisticated computer systems. Transfer of these concepts, skills and technologies into the Australian educational scene and industry should give a competitive advantage in the global market. The Research Locations are Perth, Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney, and Townsville. The Core Participants are the Australian Mineral Industries Research Association, the Universities of Melbourne, Monash, La Trobe, James Cook, and Western Australia, and the CSIRO and Australian Geological Survey Organisation.
The NSW Rhodes Scholar for 2000 is Annaleise Grummitt, who won a Sydney University Medal in Chemistry and studied plant products as potential anti-cancer drugs for her honours year under the direction of Associate Professor Margaret Harding. She will now undertake an Oxford D.Phil. in Chemistry.
Vanya Cullen of Cullen Wines, Margaret River, won 2000 Winemaker of the Year, an award from QANTAS/The Wine Magazine. {Source: UWA's Uniview}
CSIRO Women.
The United States National Academy of Science Gilbert Morgan Smith Medal has been won by Dr Shirley Jeffrey (CSIRO Marine Research) for her work with algae. She has been made a member of the US Academy of Sciences.
The Australian Mathematical Society Medal 2000 was won by Dr Christine O'Keefe (CSIRO Maths and Info Services), the first woman and youngest winner of this award.
The 2000 Coal Association Research Excellence award was won by Dr Binzhong Zhou and Dr Peter Hatherly (CSIRO Exploration and Mining).
The St James Ethics Centre Vincent Fairfax Fellowship has been awarded to Dr Fiona Soloman (CSIRO Minerals).
British women.
The journal Chemistry in Britain reports that "Women students scoop SET prizes". At the 2000 Science, Engineering and Technology Student of the Year awards in London, Emma King, a physics student from Sussex University, won the top award for SET Student of the Year. Other winners were Kate Ronayne of Queen's University, Belfast, with award for best chemistry student, Rachel Cooke of Cambridge for chemical engineering, Melissa McBride of Strathclyde for pharmacology, Marie-Astrid Ottenhof of Nottingham University for food technology and Nicola Cowan of Heriot-Watt University for materials.
Chemistry in Britain also reports an "all-girl final of the (British) Chemical Industry Young Person of the Year Awards". The five finalists, all women, each won a regional heat; chosen from these was Jennifer Bloor, a 23-year-old control and instrumentation engineer at Ciba Specialty Chemicals. She is active in AWISE, the British sister of WISENET.
And some still claim that science is not for women.
STOP PRESS
Professor Suzanne Cory Director of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in
Melbourne has won the prestigious L’Oréal / UNESCO Women in Science Award for
2001. Professor Cory's Award is in recognition of the outstanding quality of
her research work in the field of molecular biology of the immune
system and her singular
contribution to leading-edge scientific advances.
Please send items of news about women achievers to Diana Temple, address on back page.