The Fellowships are awarded each year by our distinguished jury. The current members of the Jury are:
Dr Foley commenced as Australia's ninth Chief Scientist in January 2021. Dr Foley was appointed to the role after a lengthy career at Australia’s national science agency, the CSIRO; she was appointed as the agency’s Chief Scientist in August 2018, the second woman to hold that role.
Dr Foley’s career in physics began with her PhD at Macquarie University on the semiconductor indium nitride. She and her colleagues were one of the first groups to carry out pioneering research that examined the properties of indium nitride in light-sensitive devices, the best-known application being white light emitting diodes used for household low energy lighting.
While working at CSIRO, Dr Foley made significant contributions to the development of a patented high temperature superconducting Josephson junction, a nanosized structure that is the critical component of the most sensitive detector of magnetic fields. She and her team have used these junctions in devices used for measuring magnetic fields, terahertz imaging (like superman vision), array antennas and high frequency communications receivers. Dr Foley and her team’s most successful application is the LANDTEM™ sensor system used to locate valuable deposits of minerals deep underground, such as nickel sulphide, silver and gold. This has led to mineral discoveries worth more than $6 billion.
Dr Foley’s scientific excellence and influential leadership have been recognised with numerous awards and fellowships, including being elected to the Australian Academy of Science in 2020, along with an Order of Australia for service to research science and to the advancement of women in physics. She was elected as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Science and Engineering in 2008 and was elected as an honorary Fellow of the Australian Institute of Physics in 2019. She was awarded Agenda Setter of the Year in the Women’s Agenda Leadership Awards in 2019, the Australian Institute of Physics Medal for Outstanding Service to Physics in 2016, and the Clunies Ross Medal of the Australian Academy of Technological Science and Engineering in 2015. In 2014, she was awarded the International IEEE Award for Continuing and Significant Contributions to Applied Superconductivity, and in 2013 she was named `Woman of the Year’ by the NSW Government.
At CSIRO, she led the development of a Quantum Technology Roadmap for Australia in 2020 championed emerging areas of scientific research, and has been a high-profile commentator on the opportunities presented by science and technology for Australia’s economic recovery and future resilience.
Dr Foley has a passion for advancing scientific research and has held various roles, including member of the Prime Minister’s Science, Engineering and Innovation Council, President of the Australian Institute of Physics, President of Science and Technology Australia, Editor-in-Chief of Superconductor Science and Technology journal and Council Member for Questacon. Dr Foley is an inspiration to women in STEM across the globe and is committed to tackling gender equality and diversity in the science sector. Throughout her career she has strived to create an environment that embraces the full human potential of both men and women for wellbeing and economic benefit and for equality.
Professor Chennupati Jagadish is a Distinguished Professor and Head of Semiconductor Optoelectronics and Nanotechnology Group in the Research School of Physics, at The Australian National University. He has published widely in semiconductor physics, materials science, optoelectronics and nanotechnology. Professor Jagadish is the Editor-in-Chief of Applied Physics Reviews, editor of 2 book series and serves on editorial boards of 19 other journals. He is a fellow of 11 science and engineering academies in Australia, the US, Europe and India, and 14 professional societies. He has received many Australian and international awards, including a UNESCO medal for his contributions to the development of nanoscience and nanotechnologies, and has been an Australian Research Council (ARC) Federation Fellow and an ARC Laureate Fellow. He became President of the Academy in May 2022.
Jenny Graves is an evolutionary geneticist who works on Australian animals, including kangaroos and platypus, devils (Tasmanian) and dragons (lizards). Her group uses their distant relationship to humans to discover how genes and chromosomes and regulatory systems evolved, and how they work in all animals including humans. Her laboratory uses this unique perspective to explore the origin, function and fate of human sex genes and chromosomes, (in)famously predicting that the human Y chromosome will disappear. Jenny has received many honours and awards, including the Academy’s Macfarlane Burnet medal in 2006 and an AO in 2010. She is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, and was on the Executive for 8 years, first as Foreign Secretary, then as Education Secretary with responsibility for the Academy's science education projects. She is 2006 L’Oreal-UNESCO Laureate for Women in Science.
Professor Andrew Steer is a paediatric infectious diseases physician at the Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne; Director of the Infection and Immunity Theme, and Group Leader of the Tropical Diseases Research Group at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute; and Professorial Research Fellow in the Department of Paediatrics, University of Melbourne. Andrew’s main area of research is global child health and public health control of neglected tropical diseases. Andrew directs the World Scabies Program, co-chairs the Strep A Global Vaccine Consortium and is President of the Lancefield International Society for Streptococci and Streptococcal Diseases. Andrew is a fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences and was the inaugural winner of the Jian Zhou Medal from the Academy in 2020.
Elizabeth (Liz) New is a Professor of Chemistry at the University of Sydney. Her research focusses on the development of responsive fluorescent sensors for use in biological and environmental studies. Liz’s awards include the 2022 Australian Financial Review Emerging Leader Award, 2019 Malcolm McIntosh Award for Physical Scientist of the Year, and the 2015 Office of Learning and Teaching Award for Teaching Excellence.
Kate Buchanan is Professor in Ecology and Animal Behaviour within the School of Life and Environmental Sciences and Centre for Integrative Ecology, Deakin University. She is a behavioural ecologist with a longstanding interest in the impact of early life conditions on for adaptive developmental programing in birds. She has published over 130 peer reviewed papers, employing a range of songbird species to ask questions about vocal learning in birds and the relevance of environmental conditions both within and across generations. She completed a PhD at the University of London on the song behaviour as an advertisement of individual condition and went onto two UK research council-funded postdoctoral positions at the University of Stirling, UK. Kate then held a personal research fellowship from the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 at Cardiff University 2001-3 before starting a lectureship at Cardiff University 2003-2008. In 2008 she relocated to Deakin University and in 2015 was awarded an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship, which she currently holds part time. She has been Editor in Chief for BirdLife Australia’s journal Emu Austral Ornithology since 2009. Kate has organised various national and international conferences for her scientific community and in 2018 Kate was Chair of the Scientific Program Committee for the International Ornithological Congress. Since 2008, Kate has worked part-time to provide caring support for family members.
Dr Emma Burrows is neuroscientist at The Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health. Her team work with preclinical models of complex brain disorders to understand how these disorders arise and how to treat them. Emma is passionate about advancing gender equity in science and leads local and national efforts to change the culture of academia to one where more people can thrive.
Leann Tilley is a Professor Emeritus of Biochemistry and Pharmacology at The University of Melbourne. Professor Tilley’s group, based at the Bio21 institute, undertakes research in the areas of cell biology and drug development related to the malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, which kills more than 600,000 people each year. After postdoctoral fellowships in the Netherlands and France, Leann became an independent lab head at La Trobe University; and she then joined the University of Melbourne in 2011. Leann served as Deputy Director and then Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coherent X-ray Science. She was awarded a Georgina Sweet Australian Laureate Fellowship from the Australian Research Council (2015-2020), to measure and model malaria parasites. Leann is committed to supporting women in STEM, including through establishing Georgina Sweet Awards for Women in Quantitative Biomedical Science.
Robin originally trained in medicine, with specialist qualification in Pathology (FRACP 1988). After completing a PhD at the University of Otago he then undertook research into the molecular genetics of haemostatic disorders at the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, Oxford. He returned to the University of Otago after five years and was appointed to the Chair in Pathology, then as Head of Department, and later Deputy Dean of the Dunedin School of Medicine. In 2007, Robin became the Chief Executive of the Health Research Council of New Zealand, a role he held until 2014. Since then, he was worked independently providing advice and support around research across the whole of the science and innovation sector to a range of universities, research institutes, government agencies, and private sector organisations.
Margaret Brimble is the Director of Medicinal Chemistry and a Distinguished Professor at the University of Auckland where her research program focuses on the synthesis of bioactive natural products, antimicrobial peptides and peptidomimetics. She has published 390 papers, 50 reviews, holds 26 patents, won the 2012 RSNZ Rutherford Medal, the 2010 RSC Natural Products Award, the 2007 L’Oreal-UNESCO Women in Science laureate in Materials Science for Asia-Pacific and conferred the Queen’s Honour CNZM. She is President of IUPAC Organic and Biomolecular Division III, Chair of the Rutherford Foundation RSNZ, an Associate Editor for Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry and Past-President of the International Society of Heterocyclic Chemistry.
