International Women's Day: Devi Stuart-Fox

Professor Devi Stuart-Fox is an Australian Research Council Future Fellow and Co-Chairs the Melbourne Hallmark Research Initiative in BioInspiration.

Devi and her team focus on how nature’s coloured materials, such as bird feathers, butterfly wings and beetle shells, are adapted to different environmental conditions. Devi obtained her PhD at the University of Queensland, Australia in 2003 before spending four years at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa pursuing postdoctoral research on colour change in chameleons. She won the International L’Oréal-UNESCO Special Fellowship in 2013 and the Woodward Medal in Science and Technology in 2017. She was a jury member for the L’Oréal-UNESCO for Women in Science Australian and New Zealand Fellowships and is an advocate for gender equity and diversity in science.

"As scientists, we like that think that we make decisions based on evidence, that achievement and careers are based on merit. For this reason, we like to think that the persistent under-representation of women in science is just an artefact of history, that will fix itself with time. But the evidence now tells us that the problem won’t fix itself. We need to be proactive (based on evidence!), and we can all be part of the solution." - Professor Devi Stuart-Fox