International Day of Women and Girls in Science 2019 Westmead celebration

Please register here to attend the International Day of Women and Girls in Science Westmead celebration on Monday 11 February, with the University of Sydney in collaboration with Westmead Research Hub.

The Day celebrates the contributions of women and girls to science and highlights their experience of gender bias, aiming to achieve full and equal access to and participation in science for women and girls around the world.

In 2019, the University of Sydney will celebrate this important occasion on Monday 11 February with a public conversation led by Jenny Brockie, one of Australia’s most respected and experienced journalists and broadcasters. The host of SBS program Insight, Jenny regularly leads lively forum discussions for which she has received 8 United Nations Association of Australia Media Peace Awards. Her extensive media career began at the ABC and spans television, online, radio and print. She has won a swag of media awards including the coveted Gold Walkley, two AFI Awards, a Logie, a Human Rights Award and three other Walkley Awards.

Our exciting panel features leading and emerging researchers in Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine (STEMM) disciplines who will discuss the challenges for and achievements of women in science..

• Christina Adler is a Research Fellow (awarded the 2019 Sydney Research Accelerator [SOAR] Fellowship) and lecturer in the University of Sydney School of Dentistry. Her research focuses on understanding how the oral microbiome evolves from a state of health to the current state of highly prevalent chronic infection and disease. Christina completed her undergraduate degree with honours at the University of Sydney (awarded the McAvoy Prize and the University Medal) and a PhD at the University of Adelaide in 2012, where she won the Doctoral Research Medal.
• Professor Nadia Badawi AM is an internationally recognised neonatologist with extensive experience working in the field of cerebral palsy and newborn brain conditions. Nadia is the Macquarie Group Foundation Professor, and Chair of Cerebral Palsy within the University of Sydney School of Medicine’s Discipline of Child and Adolescent Health, as well as the Medical Director of the Grace Centre for Newborn Care at The Children's Hospital at Westmead. She was selected as one of the ‘100 Australian Women of Influence’, and one of Australia’s most highly-respected researchers in the NHMRC publication ‘Working to build a Healthy Australia. Australian Research that's changing the world.’
• Professor Jenny Gunton is the Chair of Medicine at the University of Sydney Westmead Clinical School, Westmead Hosptial, and Head of the Discipline of Medicine for the University of Sydney. Jenny’s research interests including diabetes, obesity, and vitamin D, with a particularly interested in the intersection of transcription factors and their regulation by nutrients. Jenny was the inaugural Chair of the Workplace Equity Committee at the Garvan Institute, and contributes to the current benchmarking efforts at The Westmead Institute for Medical Research. She continues to agitate for adequate child-care and holiday care facilities at the Westmead Precinct.
• Associate Professor Ruby Lin is a biostatistician at the Iredell lab within The Westmead Institute for Medical Research, and the scientific lead for an investigator-led clinical trial involving treatment of severe Staphylococcal infections using bacteriophage therapy. She has a research and industry track record of over $5 million in grant funding. Her research focus is transcriptomics and meta-transcriptomics in disease model systems. She has expertise in genomic technologies, transcriptomics and genomics. Ruby is heavily involved in promoting gender balance and women in STEM through Australasian Genomic Technologies Association. She mentors honours, PhD and postdoctoral researchers. In her spare time she volunteers as a primary ethics coordinator, science mentor for school kids and does pro bono work as a career coach.
• Professor Phil Robinson is Head of the Cell Signalling Unit and Co-Director of ProCan at the Children’s Medical Research Institute (CMRI), where he leads a team of 23 scientists, postdocs and graduate students. Phil is also a Professor in Medicine at the Universities of Sydney and Newcastle, and one of only ~70 Australian scientists holding a Senior Principal Research Fellowship from the NHMRC. Phil is co-chair of the Gender Equity Committee for Children’s Medical Research Institute at Westmead. He is a member of the Gender Equity Committee for the Faculty of Medicine and Health at the University of Sydney. He is an active and engaging mentor, including working within the Franklin Women Mentoring Program.
• Elizabeth Wojciechowski is a biomedical engineer at the Paediatric Gait Analysis Service (PGAS) of NSW at The Children’s Hospital at Westmead. Liz is interested in improving the gait and functional ability of children with movement disorders, and she is currently enrolled in a Doctor of Philosophy on personalised 3D printed ankle-foot orthoses for children with Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease with the Engineering and Prototyping Implants for Children (EPIC) Lab.

Each will share their perspectives and experiences of science career paths, overcoming gender bias, and the future of the scientific workforce. Our panellists will also reflect on some of the exceptional scientific achievements accomplished by women in science across the Westmead Precinct.

Please register on this page to join us at Westmead for this unmissable panel discussion at 12pm, to be followed by a light lunch and networking opportunity from 1pm.

Join the conversation on Twitter @USyd_Westmead #westmeadwomen