Dr Tanya Latty
University of Sydney Animal Behaviour/Ecology/Entomology Have you ever wondered how ants, which have brains smaller than a grain of sand, are able to find and ruin your picnic so quickly? Ant colonies are examples of ‘swarm intelligence’, where groups display intelligence far beyond the capacity of individuals. How is this possible? The overarching aim of…
Read More »Associate Professor Igor Aharonovich
University of Technology, Sydney Nanoscale engineering To observe, understand and potentially control the many important biological processes that occur within individual cells of our body, we need high magnifications and we need to be able to tag parts of the cell with uniquely designed markers. Associate Professor Aharonovich’s research focuses on developing such a toolkit:…
Read More »Dr Amy Reichelt
University of NSW Behavioural Neuroscience Dr Reichelt’s research looks at the effects of modern diets – loaded with sugars and fats – on both learning and memory at various life stages – as adolescents or as adults. In particular, she is examining changes to areas of the brain including the hippocampus, which is known to…
Read More »Dr Ben Colagiuri
University of Sydney Psychology The majority of Dr Colagiuri’s research focuses on the placebo effect – whereby a person experiences improvement following a sham treatment, simply because they believe it will work. His research tries to understand how this happens and has found that placebos can help people sleep better, can reduce uncomfortable symptoms like…
Read More »Dr Camilla Whittington
University of Sydney Comparative genomics/Evolutionary biology Viviparity (live birth) is a critical evolutionary innovation that allowed animals, rather than laying eggs, to incubate embryos internally and exploit new environments. However, this game-changing novelty is poorly understood because pregnancy is produced by the collective action and evolution of thousands of genes. Dr Whittington is using cutting-edge…
Read More »Dr Dan Johnstone
University of Sydney Neuroscience Around 400,000 Australians live with intractable age-related neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases; this number is expected to double in the next 20 years. At present, we have no effective treatments to prevent these diseases or halt their progression. Dr Johnstone’s research is pioneering new ways to protect the…
Read More »Dr Dane McCamey
University of NSW Physics Dr McCamey’s research aims to identify, characterize and control the many ways that electrons move and interact in electronic materials and devices. The impact that complex electronic products, such as mobile phones, have had on modern society is immense. His work is important as it allows him to determine what limits…
Read More »Dr Deborah Cromer
University of NSW Mathematical modelling of infection Dr Cromer’s research uses mathematics to explore the transmission of infectious diseases, and to understand how immunity can slow this transmission. She mathematically probes data from experimental studies to understand the underlying ‘dynamics’ of a disease. This type of analysis is very important as it helps to guide…
Read More »Dr Edith Chow
CSIRO Nanotechnology Imagine having a hand-held device that can alert you of your health condition at an early stage, which is cheap and simple enough to use by everyone. Dr Chow believes that such a vision can be achieved by using multiple sensors on a chip as tiny as a fingernail. Her sensor chip is…
Read More »Dr Elizabeth New
University of Sydney Bioinorganic chemistry and chemical biology Often diseases arise because of changes to the chemical content of cells. For example, the build-up of oxidising chemicals in cells can lead to diseases such as Alzheimer’s, diabetes and obesity. In order to gain a better understanding of how these diseases begin, and how we can…
Read More »