Macquarie University will host its second annual Women in Science Day next Tuesday, 9 March, to highlight the contribution women have made to the sciences in Australia and around the world.

Run in support of International Women's Day, the event aims to inspire young girls to pursue careers in science, to dream big and to fully realise their potential.

Four of the country's leading female scientists, researchers and teachers will address a crowd of more than 350 high school students on the day, talking about their work, amazing discoveries and more broadly about their areas of research. The four scientists participating on the day are:

Henderson-Sellers is former Director of the United Nations' World Climate Research Program and an international leader in climate change research. She now holds an Australian Research Council Professorial Fellowship in the Department of Environment and Geography at Macquarie University.

Westaway was last year named the most outstanding scientist for NSW/ACT at the 2009 Young Tall Poppy Science awards and is best known for being part of the research team which discovered skeletons of Homo floresiensis, dubbed 'hobbits', in Indonesia. Westaway uses bone evidence at archaeological sites to reconstruct and date the events experienced by early humans. The work provides archaeologists with a better understanding of how our early ancestors lived and died.

Hudson's research focuses on anxiety disorders in children and adolescents. She has a particular interest in the maintenance of anxiety disorders and, in particular, parent-child interactions.

Greeley is the Executive Dean of Macquarie University's Faculty of Human Sciences. Her research interest is the psychology of addictive behaviour, especially the role of learning in drug tolerance and dependence.

The day will be divided into three sessions. During the first session, students will hear from the four keynote speakers. After lunch, a group of scientists will take part in a panel discussion and during the final session students will have the opportunity to talk to scientists, view demonstrations and ask questions.

Media are welcome to attend all or part of the day and/or to interview any of the speakers involved. The schools participating on the day are Mackellar Girls High School, Riverside Girls High School, Rose Bay Secondary College, Barrenjoey High School, JJ Cahill Memorial High School, Narrabeen Sports High School, Barker College, Mount Saint Benedict College, Gorokan High School, Pittwater High School, Tyndale Christian School, Hunters Hill High School, Northern Beaches Christian School and Arden Anglican College.

Photo by Brett Cornish.

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