Career Showcase 2019
Wondering what direction to take your science career? Need inspiration on how to get there?
Our Career Showcase event, part of WiSPP’s Self Managed Career Series gave participants the opportunity to hear from six presenters with diverse careers in science.
Presenters
Katherine Jackman - Investment Analyst
Kath joined Brandon Capital Partners in 2016. Prior to joining, Kath was based in academia working in the field of experimental stroke. She spent 5 years at Weill Cornel Medicine-New York Hospital as a NHMRC CJ Martin and American Australian Association Sir Keith Murdoch Fellow, before returning to the Florey Institute in Melbourne. During her time in academia, she secured competitive research funding from both the NHMRC and Brain Foundation of Australia.
Kath has a Bachelor of Science degree (University of Melbourne, First Class Honours), a PhD in Pharmacology (University of Melbourne) and an MBA (Melbourne Business School, Dean’s Honours list).
In addition to her role at Brandon Capital, Kath is Chief Operating Officer for Athena Medicines Pty. Ltd, an MRCF portfolio company.
Dr Sally Davis - Patent Attorney
Sally is an Associate Patent Attorney and Lawyer at Davies Collison Cave. She specialises in the preparation and prosecution of patent applications in the areas of molecular biology, cell biology, genetics, precision medicine and diagnostics. She assists local clients in developing patent strategies that align with their research and commercial objectives to maximise the value of patent portfolios in the global and domestic markets. She also provides technical assistance in contentious and non-contentious patent disputes.
Sally completed her PhD at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre under the guidance of Ian Campbell, Kylie Gorringe and Kaylene Simpson. Her studies spanned a number of key disciplines including cancer genetics and genomics, high-throughput screening, RNAi and targeted therapeutic development. During the course of her studies, she identified a number of genes that may be targeted for the treatment of advanced ovarian cancer. She also established an international collaboration with research groups in the United States and Canada to analyse gene expression in a large cohort of ovarian cancer patients. Results from her research have been published in peer-reviewed scientific journals and presented at domestic and international conferences.
Sally was admitted to practice as a solicitor of the Victorian Supreme Court and High Court of Australia in 2015 and was registered as an Australian and New Zealand patent and trademarks attorney in 2017.
Dr Lev Kats - Group Leader, Junior Faculty
Lev Kats heads the Targeted Therapeutics Laboratory within the Translational Haematology Program at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. He completed his undergraduate and PhD studies at Monash University and postdoctoral training at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre/Harvard Medical School.
Dr Kats has an interest in blood cancers, stem cell biology, epigenetics and targeted therapies. He is currently a Victorian Cancer Agency Mid-Career Fellow and leads a team of two postdoctoral fellows and three students supported by funding from a range of government, industry and philanthropic sources.
Dr Sarah Jaber - Senior Consultant, Research Engagement and Commercialisation
Sarah is a senior consultant at KPMG, focusing on higher education and research commercialisation advisory. Her role involves working with universities to help solve problems and provide strategic advice on issues relating to research funding, industry engagement and commercialisation. Sarah holds a PhD in nanoscience from the University of Melbourne, where she studied the optical properties and self-assembly of gold nanoparticles. She has also worked at the University of Melbourne, supporting researchers to secure government and industry funding.
Dr Tanya Petrovich - Business Innovation Manager
Dr Tanya Petrovich is Business Innovation Manager, Centre for Dementia Learning, Dementia Australia.
She completed studies in the field of Genetics at the University of Melbourne and Post-Doctoral studies at the Marie Curie Research Institute, UK. She has spent many years teaching in the fields of Science, and Health Science. She joined Dementia Australia in 2008.
In 2012 Tanya was instrumental in initiating the dementia consulting services on the built environment which has now further developed a focus on leadership in dementia care practice.
Tanya leads the team in applying innovations in technology throughout dementia care education. This includes the Virtual Dementia Experience, an immersive sensory environment at the Perc Walkley Dementia Learning Centre which won the 2014 Victorian iAward, National iAward for Education and APICTA award for E-learning, 2015 Victorian Public Health Award-Gold Winner. The Virtual Dementia Experience gives participants an understanding of what it might be like to have dementia and also how the built environment impacts on the person living with dementia.
More recently in 2016 EDIE- Educational Dementia Immersive Experience was released for use on the Samsung – Oculus Gear VR. This mobile technology has opened the opportunity to have these virtual experiences available to people not only in Australia but worldwide. The EDIE project was awarded the project Innovation Award for projects less than$2.5Mil from the Simulation Australasia Innovation Awards 2017 and also the Best Aged Care Software Development and Deployment Award at the Information Technology in Aged Care awards (ITAC) 2017.
Her team is currently working on a project to create an artificially intelligent Avatar living with dementia.
Ms Fiona Ellery - Platform Operations Manager
Fiona has a nursing background and has been working in the clinical trials arena for over 20 years. Fiona has had extensive trials experience working as a clinical trials coordinator in a number of large teaching hospitals, before moving into the pharmaceutical industry. There, she worked as a clinical research associate, and later a trials consultant, project managing many local and international multi-centre clinical trials.
She currently works as the Stroke Platform Operations Manager at the Florey and has particular interest and expertise in working with clinicians, managing investigator-initiated trials from trial concept through to final publication. She has managed and consulted on a number of single and multi-centre investigator-initiated clinical trials with complex trial interventions and is passionate about bringing a level of rigour to investigator-initiated research equal to that of the pharmaceutical industry.