Jenny Martin to lead University of Wollongong's research and innovation strategy

IUCr Executive Committee member Jenny Martin has been appointed as Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Innovation) by the University of Wollongong (UOW), Australia. The current director of the Griffith Institute for Drug Discovery at Griffiths University will pursue a research strategy that is “values-based” from next March.

“My vision is for a research strategy that encompasses the values that I hold dear: excellence, respect, integrity and collegiality,” Professor Martin said. “In a high-performing research organisation like UOW we expect to recruit and retain researchers of the highest calibre, and that means providing the support and opportunity for early-career, mid-career and senior researchers to pursue excellence. I also want to bring an element of entrepreneurship and innovation into everything that we do, and I am excited about the opportunity to engage with industry, government and the community." She added that she was also looking forward to working with dedicated and highly talented people from all disciplines - across the arts, humanities, social sciences, engineering, information sciences, business, law as well as science, medicine and health. “That breadth of knowledge, innovation and creativity takes me back to my Oxford days when I was living in college with students from the humanities, with archaeologists and political scientists and engineers. I loved the diversity and the opportunity to communicate with people across discipline boundaries. That is where the greatest innovations occur.”

Professor Martin was made a Companion of the Order of Australia earlier this year for “eminent service to scientific research, particularly in the field of biochemistry and protein crystallography applied to drug-resistant bacteria, as a role model, and as an advocate for gender equality in science”. She is also a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, current President of the Asian Crystallographic Association and a former Editor of Acta Cryst. D.

For more information, please see here.