Dr Alexandra Whittaker has a unique background being trained as a veterinarian, animal welfare scientist, and lawyer. Her work involves developing new tools for assessment of animal welfare. Specifically, a focus on those that are feasible for use within industry.
Animal welfare is a societal issue, inspiring lively, and polarised debate. What’s more, it is becoming increasingly obvious that good animal welfare is not only of importance for the animal but is needed to minimise the risk of ‘spillover’ of diseases from humans to animals in the form of pandemic events. Whilst value judgments are important in our interactions with animals, decision-making around animal husbandry practices needs a basic in scientific evidence.
Alexandra completed her PhD in 2016 and currently works as a senior lecturer in animal welfare and law the at the University of Adelaide.
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Dr Xanthe Strudwick, is a Research Fellow, Regenerative Medicine at the Uni SA, Future Industries Institute.
While a paper cut can be painful, real trouble starts with more serious wounds. Ideally, we would like to achieve true wound regeneration. Where the restored skin appears identical to and works as well as the original. Sadly, we don’t have treatments which enable this. Burn and diabetic patients are often left with debilitating scarring or with a wound that just fails to heal. The added risk of wound infection sadly compounds the problems faced by these patients.
Dr Strudwick is studying a protein which is present in high amounts in both burns and diabetic patients and seems responsible for their impaired healing. She works to understand how it prevents healing, in order to reduce its detrimental effects and promote healing. Dr Strudwick is also working with a multidisciplinary team to creating a new smart wound dressing that clears infections and jumpstarts the body’s own healing processes.
Dr Xanthe was awarded her PhD from UniSA in 2016 for her investigation of the role of the cytoskeletal protein Flightless I in tissue regeneration.
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Dr Samantha Munroe is an ecologist dedicated to the conservation of Australian wildlife. She studies the habitat use patterns of plants and animals and how they will be impacted by environmental change. She has worked with a variety of species on land and at sea, including sharks, prawns, shrubs, and grass.
Dr Samantha has spoken to roughly 2000 children about her work at schools across Australia and internationally. She also has a YouTube channel where she creates videos on ecology and debunks scientific myths in film and television.
Dr Munroe completed her PhD in 2015 at James Cook University. She spent the past 5 years as a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Adelaide with the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network, but recently commenced a new position as a Research Scientist with CSIRO.
You can connect with Dr Samantha Munroe on ResearchGate.
(Terrestrial and Marine Ecology, Landscape Ecology, Environmental Monitoring)
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