Publish Date: 
Tuesday, August 15, 2017 - 09:45

2017 Women in Technology Awards finalists announced

This year the Women in Technology awards celebrates 20 years and we're excited to see some TRI faces in the nominees, just announced yesterday. From up and coming to career achievement awards, 4 outstanding achievers have been nominated from TRI based institutes. Winners will be announced at a dinner on the 1st September. Congratulations and good luck to the participants! 

  • Srilakshimi Srinivasan - PhD Student, Queensland University of Technology
     
  • Jyotsna Batra – Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Health & Biomedical Innovation QUT
     
  • Sumaira Hasnain - Senior Research Fellow/Career Track Fellow, Mater Research Institute UQ
     
  • Professor Colleen Nelson - Professor and Chair Prostate Cancer, QUT; Director Australian Prostate Cancer Research Centre, Institute of Health & Biomedical Innovation QUT

Women in Technology - Media Release

The 2017 cohort of WiT Awards finalists are ambitious, accomplished and achieving amazing feats in technology and life sciences.

The prestigious WiT annual awards now in their 20th year are about celebrating women who are leaders and experts in their fields, succeeding in traditionally male dominated technology and life science industries.

WiT Co-President Kristy Simpkin said this year’s celebration of our 20 Years was all about celebrating our past, advancing, connecting and empowering our future.

“I am blown away by the tales, talent and tenacity of the finalists – the judges once again had a difficult time deciding on finalists and winners” Mrs Simpkin said.
Dr Alison Rice, Co President was equally impressed by the finalists and mirrored Kristy’s sentiments.

“From pioneering medical innovations to leading ground-breaking research and building a business from the ground up these women are truly remarkable.” Dr Rice said.

The list of finalists includes 32 outstanding women and organisations making their mark and three inspiring organisations embracing diversity and providing an outstanding working environment for women.

There is no doubt this year’s finalists are diverse working in start-ups, government, small business, the university sector and private industry.

Winners will be announced at the Gala Awards dinner on Friday 1 September 2017 at the Royal International Convention Centre. Tickets are available at www.wit.org.au but are selling fast. In addition to the awards presentation the audience will hear presentations from accomplished global keynote speaker Holly Ransom and Amazon Web Services and Cloud Computing head of Global Public Sector Teresa Carlson.

Life Science Young Achiever Award

Women in Life Science who are pre-award (final year of or awaiting award of PhD) making a significant contribution to the growth and development their team and organisation.

Srilakshimi Srinivasan - PhD Student, Queensland University of Technology

Srilakshimi obtained her two master degrees in India (2005 and 2007) in microbial gene technology and biotechnology. She pursued her research interests in her ongoing PhD course at QUT, Brisbane from 2011 and is awaiting her PhD conferral. She has recently received the prestigious Advance Queensland Research Fellowship to undertake post-doctoral studies at QUT. She has extensive experience in molecular biology that covers a spectrum of proteomic, transcriptomic and genetic studies. Her research focus is to understand the molecular mechanism behind the genetic associations identified through genome-wide and candidate gene association studies. She has published in journals such as Nature Genetics, Cancer Discovery, PLoS One and critical reviews of clinical laboratory sciences and have presented her work at many national and international conferences. Sri holds professional membership of prestigious committees and associations including the Women in Technology (WiT).

Life Science Rising Star Award

Women with less than 7 years postdoctoral experience making a significant contribution to the growth and development their team and organisation.

Jyotsna Batra – Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Health & Biomedical Innovation QUT

Dr Batra is an NHMRC Career Development Fellow at Australian Prostate Cancer Research Centre-Queensland, QUT. She has studied Biochemistry towards a Master’s degree and obtained her PhD in Biotechnology working on the genetic complexity of the heredity disorders. Dr Batra is leading a research group on molecular genetics of prostate cancer. Her current research focus is to identify cancer risk-associated genetic variants and to understand their molecular consequences on cancer initiation and progression. She aims to develop better biomarker to detect cancer early and to identify genetic biomarkers which can distinguish slow growing disease from very aggressive
prostate cancer at an early stage, so that better decision on therapeutic interventions can be made. Dr Batra has contributed to >75 research articles, including that in high impact journals such as Cancer Discovery, Nature Genetics. Dr Batra has received several poster and oral prizes for her research work. She has also been a finalist for the prestigious ASMR Postdoctoral Award and Women in Technology (WiT) Rising Star Award and has been awarded QUT VC Excellence Award (2015) and Performance Award (2016). She is currently funded by NHMRC, Cancer Council Queensland and Can TOO, Cure Cancer and Cancer Australia Foundation Young Investigator grants.

Sumaira Hasnain - Senior Research Fellow/Career Track Fellow, Mater Research Institute UQ

Sumaira Z. Hasnain is a Senior Research Fellow/Career track Fellow at Mater Research. She currently leads a team of 8 researchers within the Immunity, Infection and Inflammation Program. She has an interest in chronic inflammatory diseases such as pulmonary fibrosis, inflammatory bowel disease and diabetes as well as infectious diseases. Sumaira was the first to demonstrate that immunity can modulate protein production in secretory cells in infectious/chronic inflammatory diseases. Her long-term vision is to characterize these novel immune factors and manipulate them therapeutically using preclinical models of immune-driven pathologies. She holds a patent for targeted immunotherapy of a specific immune factor, in type 1 and type 2 diabetes. Sumaira has had a rapid upward trajectory,
evident by extensive body of high quality publications (23 papers) in multidisciplinary scientific journals attracting a high number of citations (>800). She has been awarded $2.9m in funding and won 17 scientific awards including the Mater Research Strategic Grant for Outstanding Women in 2017. Delivered 29 international conference presentations (invited speaker at Gordon Research Conference on Cilia & Mucus Interactions (USA) & European Association Study of Diabetes (UK) in 2017). She currently serves at the Australasian Society for Immunology National Council as the Queensland representative.

Life Sciences Outstanding Achievement Award

For women with more than 15 years’ experience making a significant contribution to the growth and development of Queensland’s Life Sciences industry who serve as role models for others to aspire to.

Professor Colleen Nelson - Professor and Chair Prostate Cancer, QUT; Director Australian Prostate Cancer Research Centre, Institute of Health & Biomedical Innovation QUT

Professor Nelson is recognised as a leader in programmatic translational prostate cancer research and for strategic development of international collaborative research Centres and networks accelerate the translation of scientific discoveries into clinical and commercial applications. She founded and directs the Australian Prostate Cancer Research Centre- Queensland, where she leads 80 transdisciplinary Faculty and researchers. Prof Nelson has made significant contributions to prostate cancer translational research, specifically in characterising androgen action, identifying novel potential therapeutic targets; their validation and translation into the clinic. Her greatest impact has been on androgen targeted therapies and uncovering mechanisms underlying castrate resistant prostate cancer. Over her career she has been awarded more than $214M in international funding, and has organised, chaired, and presented at numerous international meetings and holds executive positions on prostate cancer advisory boards and committees. Prof Nelson has 21 international patents, 7 book chapters, 150 peer-reviewed publications, >200 conference abstracts, >7,000 citations and an H Index of 45 derived from > 20 years of prostate cancer expertise. She has been an invited speaker at 118 national and international conferences including the American Society of Clinical Oncology, Endocrine Society, European Association of Urology, ASCO-Genitourinary Cancers Symposium, American Society of Andrology, UK Prostate Cancer Forum, Prostate Cancer Foundation, Australian Society of Medical Research, Pfizer Oncology Forum, Discovery Science & Biotechnology Australia, World Microarray Congress and World Prostate Cancer Congress.

WiT is proud to be supporting Share the Dignity as their 2017 charity partner for the event.

Sponsors and supporters include the Queensland Government, Queensland University of Technology, The University of Queensland, QUT ihbi, Griffith University, PwC, Amazon Web Services, River City Labs, Brisbane Marketing, Australian Computer Society & Flight Centre.

Media contact: Sarah Smith, Women in Technology, 0405 991 282

Finalists and WiT Co-Presidents Dr Alison Rice and Mrs Kristy Simpkin are available for interviews. 

> For more information go to www.wit.org.au