John Alexander (Bennelong, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to inform the House of a wonderful achievement by one of our local constituents in Bennelong, Dr Katherine Belov, who has been made an Officer of the General Division of the Order of Australia. Dr Belov has had a marvellous career in academia and university across a number of different roles. She is truly a lifelong local Bennelongian, residing and growing up in West Ryde before attending Macquarie University. She specialised in comparative genomics and had a distinguished career in that field, including research on fighting superbugs and documenting the genomic composition of native Australian wildlife. Since 2005, she has been an assessor on the Australian Research Council, and in 2014 she was awarded the Fenner Medal in biology by the Australian Academy of Science. In addition to her research, Dr Belov has been a strong advocate for women in STEM and has led successful research teams of largely female research students and postdoctoral students.

I would like to add my personal congratulations to Dr Belov not only for her well-deserved award but for her years of groundbreaking research and positive contributions to science in Australia. Australia can only continue to excel as a first-rate country if we have passionate and public STEM leaders such as Dr Belov leading from the front.