The Prime Minister’s Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Award marks the 60th anniversary of the accession of Her Majesty the Queen and will be awarded annually to a high achieving Australian female student whose research will contribute to the advancement of women’s leadership in Australia.

 

The inaugural recipient of the award, Dr Laura Bray, is a postdoctoral fellow from the Queensland University of Technology whose research aims to improve outcomes for patients with severe injuries to the surface of their eye, for which there is no current long-term treatment option.

Dr Bray will use the $118,000 award to undertake postdoctoral research for two years at the world class Leibniz Institute for Polymer Research in collaboration with the University of Technology in Dresden, Germany.

 

“I believe this award will assist me in leading the advancement of women in the tissue engineering and medical research sector by giving me a stepping stone into a productive career,” said Dr Bray, who looks forward to mentoring the next generation of young female scientists.

 

Dr Bray also sees the award as an opportunity to build ongoing international research linkages and said that through the Award she “can establish career-long collaborations between highly successful researchers at the Queensland University of Technology and in Germany.”

 

Applications for the 2014 Prime Minister’s Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Award, applications will open on 01 April 2013. For more information, please see the Endeavour Awards website.