Female scientists awarded for pollution and water research

Women scientists in Australia and New Zealand received recognition across two different sets of awards this week.

Tuesday saw the announcement of the 2016 L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Australian & New Zealand Fellowships. For the past 10 years, the program has recognised the achievements of exceptional female scientists at different stages of their careers and awarded them with $25,000 fellowships to help further their research.

Among the four fellowship winners was Dr Jenny Fisher, from the University of Wollongong, whose research focuses on understanding the chemistry of the many different emissions released from both human and natural activities. Jenny plans to develop an Australian atmospheric chemistry model, similar to those already used in North America and Europe, to assist in predicting pollution amounts and their responses to future change. The information provided from the model will help advance scientific understanding of the atmosphere on a global scale, while also providing new insights into what affects our local air quality.

Other fellowship winners were investigating the manipulation of environmental factors in order to boost sperm quality; how the placenta has evolved independently in many different species; and how inorganic elements can be used to synthesise polymers.

The fellowships were followed on Wednesday by the inaugural Women in Research Citation Awards, presented by Clarivate Analytics and The Australian National University (ANU). Honouring the outstanding achievements of 12 early- to mid-career women researchers across a variety of research disciplines, the awards are based on a methodology and analysis of source data from the Web of Science Core Collection, said to be the world’s most trusted source of citation databases.

One such awardee was Jin Teng, who was recognised for her work investigating climate impact on water, including water availability, floods and droughts through CSIRO Land and Water. Teng is also a part-time PhD scholar at Fenner School of Environment & Society, ANU.

Teng said water was fascinating to study, noting, “Without it life simply couldn’t exist; too much of it can destroy everything on its path.

“My research is to help society to make informed decisions on how we can adjust our behaviour around issues related to water, so that we can preserve the earth for future generations.”

Other environmentally focused citation award winners included Dr Zoe Bainbridge (research discipline: Environmental Science & Management), Dr Delphine Lannuzel (Chemical & Biological Oceanography), Dr Margaret Mayfield (Plant Ecology) and Dr Eugenia Sampayo (Marine Ecology).

Pictured: CSIRO’s Jin Teng.