Academy Fellow Professor Tanya Monro has become the first woman to lead Australia's Defence Science and Technology. She takes up her new position as Chief Defence Scientist in March, replacing Professor Alex Zelinsky.
Professor Monro is currently Deputy Vice Chancellor Research and Innovation and an ARC Georgina Sweet Laureate Fellow at the University of South Australia.
In 2012 she became one of the youngest living Fellows of the Australian Academy of Science elected for ‘exceptional scientific contributions of international significance to optical glass materials and fibres, photonics and optical physics, most notably in nanophotonics for nonlinear optics and sensing’.
In the same year Professor Monro also won the Academy’s Pawsey Medal. Throughout her career the physicist has also been an advocate for diversity and inclusion and a champion of the Academy’s Science in Gender Equity (SAGE) initiative.
Professor Monro was the inaugural Director of the Institute for Photonics and Advanced Sensing (IPAS) from 2008 to 2014 and was also the inaugural Director for the ARC Centre of Excellence for Nanoscale BioPhotonics (CNBP) at the University of Adelaide.
Her awards include the Prime Minister's Malcolm McIntosh Prize for Physical Scientist of the Year (2008), South Australian Scientist of the Year (2010), South Australia's Australian of the Year (2011), and the Eureka Prize for Excellence in Interdisciplinary Scientific Research (2015).
© 2024 Australian Academy of Science
