UQ Researchers shine at Women in Technology awards

The University of Queensland has won five of the nine categories at the 14th annual 2011 Women in Technology awards held in Brisbane last Friday. 

The awards celebrate outstanding women in the technology industries and provide women, regardless of age or career status, with opportunities to develop their careers and be recognised. 

Two researchers from the School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering each scooped an award, with Professor Janet Wiles winning the Infotech Research Award and Professor Jane Hunter receiving the Infotech Oustanding Achievement Award. 

The judges comments were:

"Janet Wiles is an outstanding researcher who has chosen to apply her talents to the challenging interface between neuroscience and computing. Janet is using her understanding of complex systems to help us unravel basic functions of the brain, so we can use computing to model and to amplify how we develop, learn and recall. Her work embodies the type of interdisciplinary skills now required by the ICT field as it moves into a new and exciting era."

"Jane Hunter impressed the judges with her unassuming quiet confidence when taking us through her outstanding contribution in her field of research. Jane is currently on the Editorial Boards of several Journals including the International Journal of Digital Curation. She also regularly receives invitations to speak at international conferences. She has a passionate vision about encouraging young women to enter and stay in the ICT research sector."

World leader in the field of structural biology, Professor Jenny Martin, from UQ's Institute for Molecular Biology took out Biotech Outstanding Achievement Award. 

She has been recognised for her significant and highly influential research contributions to oxidative folding proteins, structure-based drug design and high-throughput technologies, and has played a leadership role in the scientific community. 

The Rising Star Award went to Ms Olivia Wright from the School of Human Movement Studies, while Kelly Brooks from the UQ Diamantina Institute represented student research by winning the PhD Career Start Award. 

Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor Max Lu congratulated all the award recipients for their excellent work. 

“These awards are a great way of recognising the remarkable achievements of women working in Queensland's research and industry sectors,” he said. 

“The fact that UQ scooped five out of nine categories of the WiT Awards is testimony to the excellence of researchers at a world-leading institution like UQ. 

“We are incredibly proud of these five award-winning women researchers and their individual achievements.” 

For more information on the WiT awards visit www.wit.org.au  

 

Media: Caroline Bird (Office of Marketing and Communications; 07 3365 1931 or c.bird1@uq.edu.au)

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