The Centre for Nutrition and Food Sciences

I was awarded an academic position at RMIT University as an Indigenous pre-doctoral research fellow. In this capacity, I completed my PhD in the School of Health and Biomedical Sciences. My research project was titled: ‘Evaluating the dietary safety of Australian native plants’. The project was a collaboration with Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) and a number of Aboriginal groups who are developing their plant foods for the commercial markets. The outputs of this project included the dietary risk assessment and nutritional analysis of a native grain variety that is currently being developed by a Gamilaraay collective of Traditional Custodians. During the project I also developed a framework approach that could be used to better assess the dietary safety of traditionally used foods within Australia. Importantly, this approach would see the assessment of traditional foods recognise the long history of use by indigenous peoples, while also maintaining the scrutiny needed to ensure consumers have access to safe foods.

The National Indigenous STEM Professional Network brings together Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics professionals, academics and students to network and build capacity. As a past member of the leadership committee, we successfully organised and sought funding for the inaugural gathering for Indigenous peoples in STEM related disciplines.

UROP student internship within the Sleebs Lab of the Chemical Biology division. I was creating small molecule inhibitors to target the BCL-like apoptotic pathway found within the Schistosoma worm. This involves heterocyclic organic chemistry, granting me invaluable knowledge in the synthesis of small molecules. This experience greatly supplements my undergraduate studies in biomedicine.

Completion of a 12 week summer internship.6 weeks was spent in the Lessene labs working under Dr Brad Sleebs and Dr William Nguyen in the Chemical Biology division. The project I was involved in was looking at targeting BCL like apoptotic pathways in schistosome worms using small molecule inhibitors. The remaining time was spent in the CTx group (Street Lab) working under Dr Hendrik Falk and Dr Anderly Chüeh in the screening labs. This project was looking at identifying small molecules that activate BMP signaling to inhibit breast cancer metastasis.

A-Grade electrician in the commercial sector