The XX Effect: Securing Australia’s health and economy

The University of Queensland is hosting an International Women’s Day 2020 breakfast featuring our inspiring UQ staff and alumnae who are leading the charge to ensure a diverse collective of voices shape the future of health and environmental sciences globally.

To secure Australia’s health and economy into the future, the talents of women in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine (STEMM) are vital.

In recognising the significance of International Women’s Day 2020 commitment to an equal world that is an enabled world, we have brought together a collective of STEMM specialists to celebrate their achievements and inspire others to follow in their footsteps. What would you share with your younger self once you have traversed the STEMM pipeline?

Please join us at this inspirational event and we can together, celebrate women’s achievements in STEMM, raise awareness against bias and take action for equality.

Meet the Panellists:
Equal in their tenacity, curiosity and innovation in reaching varying levels of their careers, our panellists are dedicated advocates for levelling the scientific playing field and inspiring the next generation of women into the fields of STEMM.

Moderator Dr Deanne (Dee) Gibbon CSC OAM. Dee is the Associate Director of Workplace Diversity and Inclusion at the University of Queensland. She holds a PhD from the University of New South Wales and has published a range of book chapters and r areas of expertise; increasing women’s representation in non-traditional occupations and operationalising United National Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325, Women, Peace and Security. She is currently seconded, on a part-time basis, to the Australian Government’s Office for Women, to develop Australia’s next Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security.   

SCIENCE - Professor Kate Schroder: Kate heads the Inflammasome Laboratory and is Director of the Centre for Inflammation and Disease Research at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB), University of Queensland, as an NHMRC RD Wright Biomedical Fellow. She is the Chair of the Institute’s Diversity and Equity Committee. UQ’s Schroder lab are developing new drugs to fight inflammatory disease – a break through that could ease the burden of this 21^st century disease.

TECHNOLOGY - Dr Sue Keay: Sue is the Research Director for Cyber-Physical Systems at CSIRO’s Data61 and has more than 20 years experience in the research sector, managing and ensuring impact from multidisciplinary R&D programs and teams. She has a PhD in Earth Sciences from the Australian National University and an MBA with the UQ Business School, completed in 2018. She set-up the world’s first robotic vision research centre and led the development of Australia’s first Robotics roadmap, outlining how robotics and automation will impact on every sector of the Australian economy. Sue has worked with physical scientists, engineers, social science researchers and economists and loves the challenge of managing research across distributed sites. Sue is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and serves on the Board of the CRC for Optimising Resource Extraction and Women in Robotics International.

ENGINEERING - Dr Anita Parbhakar-Fox: Anita is a Senior Research Fellow in Geometallurgy and Applied Geochemistry at the W.H Bryan Mining and Geology Research Centre within the Sustainable Minerals Institute. Anita's research is focussed on mine waste characterisation to improve mine planning and waste management practices where she has worked with Mining, Equipment, Technology and Services (METS) sector and government stakeholders. Anita has been a passionate lecturer in environmental geology and mentored many young female geologists as they enter the sector. She is also an active member of the international geoscience community serving as an assistant editor of Minerals Engineering and an active member of boards and committees focussed on mine waste and rehabilitation in both Tasmania and Victoria, as well as often being invited to chair mine waste sessions at international geoscience conferences. 

MATHS & ASTROPHYSICS - Prof Tamara Davis: Tamara is a cosmologist investigating new fundamental physics, such as the properties of dark energy and dark matter and the mass of the neutrino. She is searching to the BIG extensional questions such as, what is causing the expansion of the universe and why is this speeding up, despite what we have understood about gravity – until now. A highly regarded and award-winning scientist, Professor Davis joined the astrophysics team at UQ to work on the WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey, which has mapped ~220,000 galaxies across half of the observable universe. She and the WiggleZ team are using that data to test our theory of gravity and try to figure out the nature of dark energy and dark matter.

MEDICINE – Dr Aideen McInerney-Leo: Aideen is a NHMRC Senior Research Fellow at UQ’s Diamantina Institute. A Genetic Counselor and NHMRC grant recipient with 20 years of patient care experience, Aideen is a clinician-academic dedicated to utilising genomics to improve patient outcomes. Her current research focusses on integrating genomic testing into mainstream clinical care, starting with melanoma genetic testing in dermatology clinics. Aideen’s interest in the psychosocial impact of genetic conditions, coupled with her ability to utilise next-generation genomic science, keeps her focussed on improving the lives of people living with a variety of genetic conditions including rare medical disorders and melanoma. She came to Brisbane in 2006 after working in the US as a researcher at the National Institutes of Health and as Associate Director  of the genetic counselling program at Johns Hopkins University.