About Franklin Women

Franklin Women is Australia’s only professional community dedicated to supporting women working in diverse disciplines, career levels and organisations across the health and medical research ecosystem.

Our vision is for a health and medical research sector where women thrive.

We hope to achieve this by:

building a community of like-minded individuals and organisations, offering support and networking opportunities
introducing and advocating for initiatives that address barriers faced by women in health and medical research careers
providing professional development and training opportunities in important skills outside of the technical sciences

supporting workplaces that employ women with creating more diverse and inclusive environments.

To do all this, we are going about things a bit differently. Unlike many organisations in the health and medical research space, Franklin Women is not a charity or not-for-profit. We are a for-profit social enterprise. This means we aim to derive income from business activities to bring about some social good – investing in our members!

We believe that keeping women in health and medical research related careers is something worth investing in. We hope you will get a lot out of being a part of Franklin Women but also feel good about supporting the cause.

We live by our guiding values of being innovative, influential, inclusive, and inspiring!

Our team

Dr Melina Georgousakis

Dr Melina Georgousakis

Founder and Director

Dr Sarah Frost

Dr Sarah Frost

Events and Initiatives Lead

Dr Amy Vassallo

Dr Amy Vassallo

Newsletter Curator

Jade Boland

Jade Boland

Mentoring Program Coordinator

Kristen Vink

Kristen Vink

Business Support Manager

Kristina Roach

Kristina Roach

Communications and Content Officer

Our governance

Inaugural Advisory Board

Prof Robyn Norton AO, Chair

Prof Robyn Norton AO, Chair

Founding Director, The George Institute for Global Health

Ms Annette Schmiede

Ms Annette Schmiede

Chief Executive Officer, Digital Health CRC

Dr Teresa Anderson AM

Dr Teresa Anderson AM

Chief Executive, Sydney Local Health District

Prof Caroline Homer AO

Prof Caroline Homer AO

Deputy Director (Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion), Working Group Head, Burnet Institute

Emeritus Prof Jane Latimer AO

Emeritus Prof Jane Latimer AO

Director of Strategy and Engagement, Elizabeth Broderick & Co

Graham Putt

Graham Putt

Non-Executive Director/Consultant

Ms Kerry Doyle PSM, OAM

Ms Kerry Doyle PSM, OAM

Chief Executive Officer, Australian Cardiovascular Alliance

Marisa Ghafoor

Marisa Ghafoor

Chief Financial Officer & Director of Strategy, Telstra Health

 

 

NSW Peer Advisory Group

Harriet Swearman, Senior Product Manager, Franklin AI

A/Prof Anita Heywood, Associate Professor, School of Population Health, University of New South Wales Medicine and Health

Prof Devanshi Seth, Principal Scientist and Group Head (Alcoholic Liver Disease Research Program), RPA Hospital, University of Sydney / Centenary Institute

Dr Kimberly Norman, Research Fellow,  Monash University

A/Prof Chloe Taylor, Associate Professor, Sport & Exercise Science, Western Sydney University

Dr Farhannah Aly,  Radiation Oncologist & PhD Student, University of New South Wales

Dr Amalie Dyda, Senior Lecturer in Epidemiology, University of Queensland

Dr Pia Campagna,  Research Fellow, Monash University

Dr Jasjit Baveja,  Associate Director Policy, Medical Technology Association of Australia

Prof Angela Webster, NHMRC Leadership Fellow, Professor of Clinical Epidemiology, Director of Evidence Integration, University of Sydney

Sarah Loomes, Associate Director, Clinical Site Partner at Gilead Sciences

Simran Kaur,  Senior Research Officer, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute

Dr Hossai Gul,  Lecturer and Head of Implementation Lab, University of Technology Sydney

Dr Emily Mould, Head of Business Development. Children’s Cancer Institute

Nan Herlihen, Head of People & Culture, Dymocks Group

 

 

 

ACT Peer Advisory Group

Dr Janie Busby Grant, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Health, University of Canberra

Dr Ramila Varendran, Geriatrician & Staff Specialist, Canberra Health Services

Dr Teresa Bonello,  Senior Research Fellow, John Curtin School of Medical Research, Australian National University

Dr Megan Downie,  Associate Director, Government Affairs, Gilead Sciences

Prof Girija Chetty Professor, Faculty of Science & Technology, University of Canberra

 

A/Prof Liz Sturgiss, GP Researcher, Monash University and Directions Health Services

Dr Fiona Wilkes,  Academic Registrar, Academic Unit of Psychiatry, Advanced Trainee Psychiatry of Old Age, Canberra Health Services, Clinical Associate Lecturer, Australian National University Medical School

Dr Maria Kozlovskaia, Research Support Coordinator, Research Institute for Sport & Exercise, University of Canberra

Dr Patricia Carreira, Quarantine Facility Manager, Australian National University

 

 

Our why

There are several professional networks in Australia for women working in different industries, for example, business, IT and law. Just like in these industries, there are gender disparities across the Australian science sectors, including within the health and medical research sector. Yet, until Franklin Women, there was no independent professional community bringing together women working in this sector.

It is clear that we are losing women from health and medical research related career pathways. In academia, the disparities between genders increase with career progression, with fewer women holding senior scientific academic positions than men. The NHMRC report that women accounted for more than 50% of applicants for early career research fellowships, but only a very small proportion of applicants for their more senior fellowships (between 2013 and 2017). Even worse, it appears that we are not only losing many scientifically-trained women (and some men!) from academia, but from the health sciences sector altogether. This seems to be because of a perceived lack of skills and/or opportunities to transition into non-academic careers. We are effectively losing all of their scientific know-how and passion, often after an investment of 8 or more years of tertiary education.

The current grant-based funding system, as well as cultural barriers within the field, have contributed to these disparities. But this space seems to be changing – hooray! Many peak bodies in Australia have gender equity on the agenda and conversations around the need for employing people who are skilled in health sciences in non-academic roles are finally happening. Here are a few key reports and initiatives in the Women in STEMM space:

As a grassroots social enterprise, Franklin Women hopes to contribute to these efforts while supporting, inspiring, and promoting women who are currently working in health and medical research related careers.

What’s in a name?

Rosalind Franklin inspired our name.

You may know of her work, or you may not. If you have time to read about her story do, as it is fascinating both with respect to the science and also to see what it was like as a woman doing science in the early 1900s.

A brief run down…

Rosalind graduated from Cambridge in 1945 with a doctorate in physical chemistry. After a short stint in Paris where she learnt the technique of X-ray crystallography, she joined a research group at King’s College in London.

During her short career (Rosalind died from ovarian cancer at the young age of 38), she researched the structure of many biologics including the tobacco mosaic and polio viruses. However, the research she is most well known for is that of the structure of DNA.

By using X-ray diffraction, Rosalind captured an image of DNA (famously referred to as ‘Photo 51’) that led to the discovery of its double-helix structure. Without her knowledge, this photo was shown to her colleagues James Watson and Francis Crick at Cambridge University who correctly interpreted this finding and published it in the journal Nature in 1953. While Rosalind also published in that issue, it was not the primary publication. Watson, Crick and another researcher, Wilkins, received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for this work in 1962. The Nobel Prize is not awarded posthumously so Rosalind’s contribution was not acknowledged. Some say it would not have been even if she was alive, but we will never know!

What we do know is that her legacy as a pioneering health and medical researcher and as a strong, intelligent and resilient woman is definitely recognised today.

If you want to read her story there are numerous books. One we enjoyed is Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA by Brenda Maddox.

The four publications in Nature and one in The Journal of Experimental Medicine describing the evidence that underpinned the discovery of the structure of DNA are available online.

Happy reading!

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Our monthly e-newsletter keeps you up to date on the news from our sector, shares stories by women on their career journey, and provides updates on our events and initiatives. You will also find bits and pieces on our favourite things – good food, health and wellbeing, and maybe a few cute animals.

Thanks for subscribing to the Franklin Women Newsletter!

Sign up to receive our newsletter and updates

Our monthly e-newsletter keeps you up to date on the news from our sector, shares stories by women on their career journey, and provides updates on our events and initiatives. You will also find bits and pieces on our favourite things – good food, health and wellbeing, and maybe a few cute animals.

Thanks for subscribing to the Franklin Women Newsletter