Nancy Millis Medal

Professor Anita Ho-Baillie, University of Sydney

Professor Anita Ho-Baillie is a pioneer in developing next-generation solar cells which will play a key role in the transition to a carbon-free-economy. Traditional silicon-based solar cells are inefficient at converting high-energy light into electricity. Professor Ho-Baillie’s research centres on multi-junction solar cells, utilising a range of semiconductor materials to absorb different sections of the solar spectrum within a single cell, significantly enhancing energy conversion efficiency. She has achieved record efficiencies for multi-junction solar cells utilising metal halide perovskites. Her recent breakthrough addresses the issue of perovskite cell degradation in heat and humidity. This marks a pivotal step toward durable, commercially viable perovskite cells and solidifies her role in advancing this technology. Beyond research, Professor Ho-Baillie is deeply committed to inspiring young minds in STEM fields and science communication. She is a regular speaker at the Harry Messel International Science School, engaging high-calibre high-school students worldwide. She is also a popular public speaker for science outreach, contributing to numerous National Science Week events.

Professor Renae Ryan, University of Sydney

Neurotransmitters are the chemical messengers responsible for cellular communication in the brain, a fundamental process that underlies everything we do including moving, thinking, reading and speaking. Professor Renae Ryan’s research focuses on neurotransmitter transporters – nanoscale vacuum cleaners that suck chemical messengers back into cells after they have sent their message on. In diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, epilepsy and stroke these vacuum cleaners can break down, leading to confusion in cellular communication and, ultimately, cell death. Her internationally recognised research has revealed the molecular architecture and choreography of these miniature vacuum cleaners, allowing us to start to understand why they stop working in disease states, and providing the basis for the development of new medications to treat brain disease. Professor Ryan is a globally respected leader and advocate for gender equity, diversity and inclusion, and a sought-after supervisor, mentor and role model for women in science.

Professor Vanessa Peterson, Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation

Our continual need for cheap energy presents major challenges. Professor Vanessa Peterson’s game-changing research into the fundamental working mechanisms of energy materials is helping to solve these global challenges. Professor Peterson’s significant research targets functional materials at the heart of energy technology such as batteries, fuel cells and materials for the separation and storage of energy relevant gases including hydrogen and carbon dioxide. Vanessa has pioneered methods to understand the atomic level function of materials, revealing in unprecedented detail how the arrangement and motions of atoms can be harnessed to make new and better sustainable-energy devices. Her work has led to discoveries that push the frontier of our understanding of energy materials, helping to reduce Australia’s carbon emissions and develop sustainable clean-energy systems. Professor Peterson is an internationally-regarded leader in materials characterisation, specialising in neutron scattering methods, and is an outstanding mentor, advocate and role model for women in science.

Professor Angela Moles, UNSW Sydney

Professor Moles’ research is to understand the different strategies that plants have evolved to grow in ecosystems ranging from tropical rainforests to arctic tundra. She was the first to quantify global scale patterns in vital plant traits such as plant height, seed size and defences against herbivores. Her work has also revealed how quickly introduced plant species evolve when they are introduced to a new range with different environmental conditions. One such plant has changed so much since being introduced to Australia in the 1930s that it is becoming a new, reproductively isolated species. She is currently applying her understanding of the ways that environmental conditions shape plant ecological strategies to help understand the likely effects of climate change on Australian ecosystems.

Professor Moles is nationally and internationally regarded as a leader in global scale ecology, and is an outstanding mentor, advocate and role model for women in science.

Associate Professor Cathryn Trott, Curtin University

During the first billion years, the first stars and galaxies formed and died, bathing the Universe in light and evaporating the hydrogen fog that existed beforehand. By using low frequency radio telescopes, Associate Professor Trott hunts for this needle-in-a-haystack signal from the time of the first generation of stars. She has pioneered methods to observe this weak signal and separate it from all of the radio light from other galaxies that formed in the past 12 billion years. Observation of this signal requires advanced knowledge of our telescopes, and painstaking work to collect the thousand hours of clean data required to find it. Trott is a world-leader in the hunt for this exciting, important and fickle signal that will transform our understanding of the Universe.

Professor Nicole Bell, University of Melbourne

Professor Nicole Bell is an outstanding theoretical astroparticle physicist who has made significant contributions in the areas of dark matter and particle theory, matter-antimatter asymmetries and neutrino astrophysics and cosmology. Her work has helped shape the interpretation of Large Hadron Collider searches for dark matter, using physically self-consistent descriptions of dark matter interactions. She has explored the link between dark matter and matter–antimatter asymmetries and examined whether the accumulation of dark matter in old neutron stars can result in gravitational collapse to black holes. She has also used cosmology and astrophysics to constrain the properties of neutrinos and has examined whether dark matter annihilation can account for unexplained galactic gamma ray and antimatter signals.

Associate Professor Kate Schroder, University of Queensland

Associate Professor Kate Schroder is an international leader in the field of inflammatory biology. Her innovative work is defining the molecular and cellular processes of inflammation. The protein complexes involved in inflammation and disease are known as inflammosomes. Her research has established that inflammasome signalling is crucial in antimicrobial defence and she has established that they drive pathological inflammation in diseases. Associate Professor Schroder’s laboratory seeks to use the understanding of fundamental cellular processes to develop therapeutics for a wide range of inflammatory diseases. Small molecule inflammasome inhibitors co-invented by Associate Professor Schroder are currently under commercialisation as novel anti-inflammatory drugs.

Professor Jacqueline Batley, University of Western Australia

Professor Batley has made major contributions to our understanding of the genetics and genomics of crops including canola (Brassica napus), a major source of edible oil. Her DNA markers have been critically important in the mapping and sequencing of genomes of canola, related Brassicas such as turnip and cabbage, and other crops including wheat, peas and lentils. In addition, she has developed new ways of looking at how pathogens interact genetically with crop plants. In these ways she has played a key role in pioneering biotechnological methods that are now being exploited by plant breeders worldwide. Examples of some successful commercial applications in canola include improvements in oil quality, reduced shattering of seed pods, and breeding for increased resistance to blackleg fungus infection. Her motivation to improve world food security and rural economies is being rewarded through such applications.

Dr Marie-Liesse Asselin-Labat, The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research

Dr Marie-Liesse Asselin-Labat is internationally recognised as a leading researcher in cancer biology, tissue-specific stem cells and development and is emerging as one of Australia’s young leaders in medical research in the lung stem cell and cancer research field. Using multiple strategies combining genetic approaches as well as computational studies, her team has demonstrated that some lung cell types are efficient in repairing their DNA following exposure to DNA damaging agents while others are not so proficient. These results provide novel insights into the pathogenesis of lung diseases such as lung cancer and emphysema. She also identified key regulators of basal stem cell production in the embryonic lung. Her work sheds lights on the molecular events that are critical in normal lung formation and maintenance that may be altered in lung disorders and impacts therapeutic applications.

2017

2017

Professor Kerrie Ann Wilson, University of Queensland

Professor Kerrie Wilson has made significant discoveries in the environmental sciences that have resulted in more effective conservation practices. She identified how significant funds for conservation can be saved and investments could be more equitable through incorporating socio-economic principles into setting priorities for conservation investments. This has resulted in new theory and novel decision support tools to inform how limited conservation funds should be allocated to achieve multiple objectives, further enhancing the legacy and impact of her influential applied research program. Her research has led to innovative ways to efficiently protect and restore natural ecosystems and her ability to translate this new knowledge into practical applications has positioned her as a global, national and local leader in conservation science.

2016

Dr Elena Belousova, Macquarie University

Dr Belousova has achieved international renown for her TerraneChron® method for analysing trace elements in zircon and applying this technology to studying crustal evolution. Her discoveries have greatly influenced understanding of the geological development of the Australian continent and has major significance for mineral exploration.

2015

Associate Professor Tamara Davis, University of Queensland

Associate Professor Davis uses astrophysics to test our fundamental laws of physics, and study the nature of dark energy and dark matter. She is one of the most highly cited astrophysicists in the world. Her contributions include testing advanced theories of gravity, measuring time-dilation of distant supernovae, using galaxies to measure the mass of the lightest massive particle in nature (the neutrino), and discovering that active galaxies fuelled by black holes can be used as standard candles.

2014 inaugural award

Professor Emma Johnston, University of New South Wales

Professor Johnston is Australia’s leading young investigator of human impacts on marine systems. Her research has broken new ground by combining traditional laboratory studies with novel field-based experiments in Antarctica, the Great Barrier Reef, and temperate Australian estuaries. Her work has earned respect in both the international ecological and ecotoxicological fields.

Professor Johnston’s work has generated critically important findings on the causes and consequences of bio-invasion. As a result, she has not only found the first evidence that pollution facilitates the invasion of marine systems, but also discovered that heritable pollution tolerance promotes invader dominance, published the first studies of marine invasion that control exposure to marine invasive larvae, and identified the potential for translocation of non-indigenous species via small-scale disruptions to antifouling surfaces.

Director of the Sydney Harbour Research Program for SIMS, Professor Johnston has demonstrated outstanding leadership in the field – all the more remarkable given that her PhD was received just 11 years ago.