Dr Alize Ferrari (Queensland Centre for Mental Health),  Associate Professor Margaret Mayfield, School of Biological Sciences and Director of the Ecology Centre and Dr Eugenia Sampayo, School of Biological Sciences and ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies
Dr Alize Ferrari (Queensland Centre for Mental Health), Associate Professor Margaret Mayfield, School of Biological Sciences and Director of the Ecology Centre and Dr Eugenia Sampayo, School of Biological Sciences and ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies
26 October 2016

Three University of Queensland researchers have been honoured in the inaugural Women in Research Citation Awards for their influential work in public health and plant and marine ecology. 

Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor Robyn Ward said she was delighted that the calibre of UQ’s female researchers has been recognised, with the University receiving the most awards nationally, or three 3 of the 12 awards made to early to mid-career Australian researchers.

UQ’s winners are:

“The University is enormously proud to have contributed a quarter of the nation’s highly cited female researchers in these inaugural awards, and I congratulate our winning researchers for this achievement,” Professor Ward said

“These women are phenomenal scientists and researchers in their disciplines, as well as fine role models for female researchers who are under-represented in academia, especially at senior levels.

“UQ is proud to be part of the national SAGE pilot to improve gender equity in the Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths and Medicine disciplines.

“It’s wonderful to have these trailblazing highly cited researchers at UQ, to inspire early to mid-career female researchers and to create change in the world through their discoveries.”

Dr Ferrari studies global epidemiology and burden of mental and substance use disorders.

Her team published research in a special edition of The Lancet this month, showing that depressive disorders followed by anxiety and schizophrenia are the major drivers of the global burden from mental disorders.

Associate Professor Mayfield’s work as a field ecologist spans theoretical and applied ecology, and she aims to improve our understanding of the factors maintaining biological diversity in a changing environment.

Dr Sampayo studies the relationship between corals and single-celled micro-organisms that live together in a symbiotic relationship, where the microorganisms use the sun’s energy to provide food for their coral host.

Researchers qualified for the Women in Research Citation Awards through publication and citation data from the Web of Science Core Collection.

The methodology focuses on authors affiliated with Australian organisations that first started publishing papers after 2004 and have published at least five papers in a 10-year window.

Clarivate Analytics (formerly Thomson Reuters IP & Science) and the Australian National University hosted the awards today in Canberra.

Media: communications@uq.edu.au, +61 7 3346 7086