International Day of Women and Girls in Science Seminar

Panelists
 

Prof Neena Mitter

Prof Neena Mitter is the Director of the Centre for Horticultural Science, Queensland Alliance of Agriculture and Food Innovation, the University of Queensland and the Director of the Australian Research Council Industrial Transformation Research Hub for Sustainable Crop protection. Her career and passion for delivering real world outcomes has received recognitions such as Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering, 2021 Pravasi Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Australian Women in Technology Outstanding Life Sciences Award, and Gates Grand Challenges Explorations Award. She has >120 publications and has supervised >20 PhD students.  She is globally renowned for her leadership of innovative platforms namely ‘Environmentally sustainable BioClay platform for crop protection’ and ‘Clonal propagation of avocado using plant stem cells’.  These are ground-breaking platform technologies influencing agricultural production, environmental sustainability, and socio-economic dynamics of farming community.  Prof Mitter is also championing a UQ wide initiative on ‘Protected Cropping for Tropics and Subtropics’. With increased scrutiny on use of chemicals as crop and animal disease control agents, Prof Mitter is focussed is on developing clean technologies for the agriculture of tomorrow.   As Chairperson of UQ Cultural Inclusion Council and Deputy Council member of the Australian Human Rights Commission Leadership Council on Cultural Diversity, Prof Mitter is at the forefront of diversity and inclusion initiatives.

Prof Christine Beveridge

Christine Beveridge is the Director of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Plant Success in Nature and Agriculture, a Professor at The University of Queensland, a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, an ARC Georgina Sweet Laureate Fellow, a highly cited researcher and an affiliate at the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation.
Christine was both the first female and first Australasian president of the International Plant Growth Substances Association. Her research focus has been on the role of plant hormones in regulating and coordinating plant development, particularly shoot architecture. She discovered the plant hormone strigolactone and that sugar signalling is a driver of shoot branching.   More recently her focus has shifted to identifying how different genetic and physiological networks work together to control plant productivity.
Christine’s contributions to plant science, combined with her industry experience, leadership skills, and her global network of research collaborators and industry partners, make her the ideal Director of the multidisciplinary research program being conducted in the Centre for Plant Success.

Dr Marina Fortes

Marina Fortes has a degree in Veterinary Medicine (2004) and a Master of Science in Animal Reproduction (2007) from the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. She completed her PhD in genetics, in 2012 at The University of Queensland (UQ). Her thesis title was “Genes and genetic markers Associated with puberty in beef cattle” and for that, she had prestigious scholarships from UQ and the Beef CRC (UQ Research Scholarship, UQ International Research tuition Award, and Beef CRC top-up scholarship). After her PhD, Marina worked as a post-doc at the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation (QAAFI) and her main research project was titled “Transcriptome of the Pubertal Brahman Heifer”. On August 2014, Marina joined the School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences (SCMB), to lecture in genetics and bioinformatics and to establish the Livestock Genomics Group. Her group is interested in understanding how genetics influence livestock production and reproductive biology. Ongoing collaborations link her group to a rich research environment, both domestic and international, which contributes to sustainable livestock industries. Meat and Livestock Australia has provided ongoing support to the projects led by her group.