L’ORÉAL-UNESCO Awards For Women in Science

The 14th Annual L’ORÉAL-UNESCO Awards For Women in Science

© Julian Dufort for the L’Oréal Corporation Foundation

UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova and Chairman of the L’Oréal Foundation Sir Lindsay Owen-Jones will present the L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Awards to five exceptional women scientists during a ceremony at the Organization’s Headquarters on Thursday, 29 March.

The winners of this year’s awards are:

• Professor Jill Farrant, Research Chair – Plant Molecular Physiology, Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of Cape Town, South Africa;
• Professor Ingrid Scheffer, Chair of Paediatric Neurology Research, University of Melbourne, Australia;
• Professor Frances Ashcroft, Royal Society Research Professor, Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics, Oxford University, United Kingdom;
• Professor Susana López, Developmental Genetics and Molecular Physiology, Department of the Institute of Biotechnology, National University of Mexico, Cuernavaca, Mexico;
• Professor Bonnie Bassler, Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, USA

An international network of nearly 1,000 scientists nominates the candidates for each year’s Awards. The five laureates are then selected by an independent international jury presided by Gunter Blobel, who received the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1999.

Also present at the awards ceremony will be the 2012 L’Oréal-UNESCO International Fellows. These 15 young women were selected for the excellence and feasibility of their proposed research projects and for the potential impact of their research on the lives of human beings or the environment.

They are:

• Peggoty Mutai, PhD in Chemistry, Kenya (Medical chemistry)
• Gladys Kahaka, PhD in Plant Science, Namibia (Biotechnology/ Biochemistry)
• Johannie Maria Spaan, PhD Student in Zoology/Ecology, South Africa (Wildlife biology)
• Kathrin Barboza Márquez, PhD Student in Biology, Boliva (Behavioural Ecology)
• Giomar Helena Borrero-Pérez, PhD in Biology, Colombia (Marine biology)
• Dora Medina, PhD in Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, Mexico (Bioengineering)
• Sidrotun Naim, PhD Student in Environmental Science, Indonesia (Molecular virology)
• Zoë Hilton, PhD in Biological Sciences, New Zealand (Marine biology)
• Patricia Miang Long, PhD in Cell and Molecular Biology, Singapore (Proteins engineering)
• Aziza Hassan Kamel, PhD in Biology, Egypt (Virology)
• Dana Bazzoun, PhD Student in Cell and Molecular Biology, Lebanon (Cell and molecular biology)
• Emna Harrigua, PhD in Molecular Biology, Tunisia (Molecular biology and bioinformatics)
• Naama Geva-Zatorsky, Israel (Molecular and systemic biology)
• Elza Van Deel, PhD in Cardiology and Molecular Genetics, Netherlands (Molecular and clinic genetics)
• Vita Majce, PhD in Chemistry, Slovenia (Molecular microbiology and chemistry)

More information and video portraits of the laureates and the fellows