Our Super Seven
University of Adelaide academics have garnered more than 10 per cent of the national Superstars of STEM awards with seven women named in the 2023-24 round.
Congratulations to Associate Professor Tara Pukala, Dr Melissa Humphries, Dr Jessica Bohorquez, Dr Alice Jones, Dr Rachelle Kernen, Dr Tatiana Soares da Costa (pictured left to right above), and Dr Sarah Scholten (pictured below) who have joined the latest cohort of 60 women nationwide set to raise the public profile of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
Dr Jessica Bohorquez (School of Civil, Environmental and Mining Engineering)’s research focuses on water pipeline inspection and monitoring techniques using pressure transients and artificial intelligence. She is an advisor at Inside Infrastructure (a Ricardo company) on hydraulic modelling for systems design and operation.
Dr Melissa Humphries (School of Mathematical Sciences) is a statistician who creates and applies analytical tools that make sense of the world. Dr Humphries splits her time between improving decision making in forensic science and defence and training the next generation of statisticians.
Dr Alice Jones (School of Biological Sciences) is a senior lecturer and researcher in resilience ecology. She is passionate about solution-focused science.
Dr Rachelle Kernen (Australian School of Petroleum and Energy Resources) is a leading researcher and educator in Earth Sciences, specifically in the fields of evaporite sedimentology and stratigraphy.
Associate Professor Tara Pukala (School of Physical Sciences) is focused on developing analytical chemistry tools to identify the detail of large biomolecules such as proteins and DNA which form the molecular machinery of our cells.
Dr Sarah Scholten (School of Physical Sciences) is creating the next generation of optical atomic clocks that break the traditional limits between size, weight and performance of such clocks to improve global positioning systems.
Dr Tatiana Soares da Costa (Waite Research Institute) is a leading researcher in biochemistry, a Future Making Fellow and the Head of the Herbicide and Antibiotic Innovation Lab.
Since the awards were created by Science and Technology Australia in 2017, Superstars of STEM has made a powerful contribution to tackling gender inequity and the visible diversity of STEM role models in the media.