It’s International Women’s Day and a fitting time for two of our star leaders to be recognised. We’re extremely proud of Dr Cathy Foley, named the NSW Woman of the Year and Dr Kimberley Clayfield, who picked up a Women’s Agenda Leadership Award.  Both recognise and celebrate Australia’s leading and most inspiring women.

Executive Manager for Space Sciences and Technology, Kimberley won the NAB Women’s Agenda Leadership Award award in the category of ‘Emerging Leader in the public or not-for-profit sector’.

Helping guide the development and implementation of Australia’s space technology agenda, her work is never dull. Kimberley supports the implementation of our space related projects and develops new space science programs as well. She recently managed a major national study which assessed for the first time, the requirement for Earth observations from space for Australia’s R&D sector.

Dr Cathy Foley, our Materials Science and Engineering chief, was named the NSW Premier’s Woman of the Year and was also a finalist in the ‘Agenda setter’ category at the  the NAB Women’s Agenda Leadership Awards. For the last 28 years, Cathy has been actively promoting the role of women in physics and science. As a new mum, when she discovered that there was no long day care in her district, she helped get a child care centre built and then ran it for seven years.  And in 2007, she became the first female president of the Australian Institute of Physics.

In our ‘Why we love what we do‘ Women’s Day profile, Cathy said, “The opportunity to influence and contribute to future science each day is what gets me up in the morning. Working here is quite unique. I have the opportunity to get my hands dirty in the lab and have a seat in the boardroom. It’s exciting!”

Congratulations to Cathy and Kimberley on their well deserved awards. They’re going straight to the pool room!