Upulie Divisekera | |
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 Upulie Divisekera in 2017 | |
| Alma mater | |
| Scientific career | |
| Institutions | Monash University |
Upulie Pabasarie Divisekera is an Australian molecular biologist and science communicator. She is a doctoral student at Monash University and is the co-founder of Real Scientists, an outreach program that uses performance and writing to communicate science. She has written for The Sydney Morning Herald , Crikey and The Guardian .
Divisekera wanted to be a scientist since she was a child. [1] She is of Sri Lankan descent. [2] After finishing high school she worked for biochemist Mary-Jane Gething from 1995 through 1997. She completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Melbourne in 2001. [3] Here she worked on molecular parasitology with Malcolm McConville. Between 2002 and 2004, she worked as a research assistant at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research on apoptosis and antibody production. She joined Australian National University for her postgraduate studies, graduating in 2007. [3] Divisekera worked on the epithelial to mesenchymal transition in fruit fly embryos in Canberra. [2] She worked as a research assistant at the University of Melbourne in 2007. Divisekera worked as a research assistant at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre from 2008 to 2012. [3] [4] [5] During this time, she worked in developmental biology and cancer research with Mark Smyth. [2] She studied CD73 as a potential immunotherapy for breast cancer. [6] She is a doctoral student in the department of chemical engineering at Monash University working on nanoparticles and drug delivery. [7] [8]
In 2011, Divisekera participated in and won the online science communication competition, "I'm a Scientist, Get Me Out of Here". [3] Divisekera spoke at TED x Canberra in 2012 on dinosaurs, curiosity and change in science. [9] She has written for The Guardian, The Sydney Morning Herald, Crikey, and ABC TV's panel show Q and A, while also regularly contributing to ABC Radio National. [1] [10] [11] In 2013, she was one of three co-founders of the Real Scientists project, a rotating-curator Twitter account where a different scientist is responsible for a week of science communication. [12] Real Scientists looks to democratise access to science through live diarising of a scientists' day on Twitter, as well as demonstrating the diversity in the sector. [12] She appears regularly on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's radio channels. [13] [14] [15] Divisekera provides training for academics, postgrads, clinicians and humanities students in science communication.
Alongside science communication, Divisekera is involved with arts programming, including events at the Wheeler Centre. [16] [17] [18] She took part in a discussion with Cory Doctorow and Maggie Ryan Sandford about the prospect of inhabiting Mars in 2015. [19] Since 2016 she has been a speaker at the Melbourne Writers Festival, and has spoken at The Writer's Bloc, the New South Wales Writers' Centre and the Emerging Writers' Festival. [20] [21]
Divisekera was included in the Government of Australia Chief Scientist "Five Scientist Pledge". [22] She has spoken on Australian Broadcasting Corporation about what can be done to support more women into science. [23] [24] She gave a keynote talk at the March for Science in Melbourne. [25] In May 2018 Upulie took on Elon Musk in a Twitter feud after he referred to nanotechnology as "bs". [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] She is a contributor to the literary magazine The Lifted Brow. [31]
Elon Reeve Musk is a businessman and investor known for his key roles in space company SpaceX and automotive company Tesla, Inc. Other involvements include ownership of X Corp., formerly Twitter, and his role in the founding of The Boring Company, xAI, Neuralink and OpenAI. He is one of the wealthiest people in the world; as of July 2024, Forbes estimates his net worth to be US$221 billion.
The Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, also known as the Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute and commonly abbreviated as Peter Mac, is an Australian oncology research institute, cancer treatment and professional oncologist training centre located in Melbourne, Victoria. The centre is named in honour of Sir Peter MacCallum. Since June 2016, the centre has been located within the Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre (VCCC) in Parkville.
Talulah Jane Riley-Milburn is an English actress. She has appeared in films, including Pride & Prejudice (2005), St Trinian's (2007) and its sequel St Trinian's 2: The Legend of Fritton's Gold (2009), The Boat That Rocked (2009), and Inception (2010). She has also appeared on the HBO science fiction western series Westworld (2016–2018) and the FX biographical miniseries Pistol (2022).
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Vanessa "Van" Badham is an Australian writer and activist. A playwright and novelist, she writes dramas and comedies. She is a regular columnist for the Guardian Australia website.
Amanda Susan Barnard is an Australian theoretical physicist working in predicting the real world behavior of nanoparticles using analytical models and supercomputer simulations and applied machine learning. Barnard is a pioneer in the thermodynamic cartography of nanomaterials, creating nanoscale phase diagrams relevant to different environmental conditions, and relating these to structure/property maps. Her current research involves developing and applying statistical methods and machine/deep learning in nanoscience and nanotechnology, and materials and molecular informatics. In 2014 she became the first person in the southern hemisphere, and the first woman, to win the Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology, which she won for her work on diamond nanoparticles.
Drew Berry is an American biomedical animator at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne, Australia. He produces animations of proteins and protein complexes to illustrate cellular and molecular processes.
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Michelle Yvonne Simmons is an Australian quantum physicist, recognised for her foundational contributions to the field of atomic electronics.
The Future of Life Institute (FLI) is a nonprofit organization which aims to steer transformative technology towards benefiting life and away from large-scale risks, with a focus on existential risk from advanced artificial intelligence (AI). FLI's work includes grantmaking, educational outreach, and advocacy within the United Nations, United States government, and European Union institutions.
Jee Hyun Kim is an Australian behavioral neuroscientist whose work focuses on emotional learning and memory during childhood and adolescence. She is a professor, ARC future fellow, and head of the Molecular Psychiatry Laboratory at the Deakin University School of Medicine, Australia
Effective Altruism Global, abbreviated EA Global or EAG, is a series of philanthropy conferences that focuses on the effective altruism movement. The conferences are run by the Centre for Effective Altruism. Huffington Post editor Nico Pitney described the events as a gathering of "nerd altruists", which was "heavy on people from technology, science, and analytical disciplines".
Neuralink Corp. is an American neurotechnology company that has developed, as of 2024, implantable brain–computer interfaces (BCIs), and is based in Fremont, California. Founded by Elon Musk and a team of seven scientists and engineers, Neuralink was launched in 2016 and was first publicly reported in March 2017.
Michelle Law is an Australian writer. She is known for the web series Homecoming Queens, and the book Sh*t Asian Mothers Say, co-authored by her brother Benjamin Law, and her 2017 play Single Asian Female. She is of Chinese descent.
Elizabeth Jens is an Australian propulsion engineer who works at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Andrej Karpathy is a Slovak-Canadian computer scientist who served as the director of artificial intelligence and Autopilot Vision at Tesla. He co-founded and formerly worked at OpenAI, where he specialized in deep learning and computer vision.
Maria Kavallaris is an Australian scientist, based at the University of New South Wales' Children's Cancer Institute, where she is best known for her contributions to the field of cancer research. On 25 January 2019, Kavallaris was appointed a member of the Order of Australia.
Misty Rayna Jenkins is an Australian scientist known for her research into lymphocytes and cancer treatment.
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