Women researchers continue career progression thanks to Faculty grant

Dr Michelle Blumfield

Congratulations Dr Michelle Blumfield and Dr Rachel Hill, researchers in the School of Clinical Sciences at Monash Health (SCS) who have each received the Faculty’s Advancing Women in Research Award.

With a long-standing commitment to gender equity and diversity and to increasing the representation of women in senior academic roles, the Advancing Women's Research Success Grant supports the career progression of early to mid-career high potential female academic staff.

Dr Rachel Hill

By providing funding at a critical time in the careers of high potential female academic staff, this initiative aims to reduce the impact of career breaks and/or intense caring responsibilities on research productivity.

A lecturer in the Department of Nutrition and Dietetics, Dr Michelle Blumfield’s research focuses on the primary prevention of adiposity related non-communicable diseases.

“I study the role of maternal diet during pregnancy and its relationship with offspring phenotype and health outcomes, including body composition, blood pressure, cognition and sleeping behaviour,” said Dr Blumfield.

“This grant provides me with the funds to employ a research assistant, who will assist me to collect data for my study examining the effect of a circadian informed sleep intervention on glucose tolerance, weight gain and body composition parameters in pregnancy.”

Dr Blumfield said that without these funds, she would not have the opportunity to collect data in 2016 due to her current limited working capacity—she is the primary carer of two small children and has other commitments as a lecturer.

“These funds have the capacity to make a significant difference to my success with national funding bodies in the future,” said Dr Blumfield.

Also juggling career and family responsibilities, NHMRC Career Development Fellow Dr Rachel Hill studies animal models to better understand the pathophysiology that underlies mental illness.

“We use a range of models to determine how genes and our environment (including infection and stress) alter brain development and behaviour,” said Dr Hill, who is currently on maternity leave with a 4 month old and a 4 year old.

Until recently Head of Psychoneuroendocrinology laboratory at the Florey Institute, Dr Hill will join SCS in August as Head of the new Behavioural Neuroscience lab, Molecular Psychiatry division.

 “I will work closely with Professor Suresh Sundram to investigate common dysfunctional pathways in human patients and mouse models that can be targeted for novel therapeutic development.”

Professor Sundram has assessed expression levels of over 90 genes in patients with schizophrenia.

“This grant will enable us to assess the same genes in one of our mouse models—the maternal immune activation model—allowing us to determine any common links between prenatal exposure to infection and schizophrenia in the human population,” said Dr Hill.

Dr Hill said this is the first step to finding the common pathway of dysfunction in schizophrenia.

“It is great to work for an employer that supports women to excel in a highly competitive research environment and recognizes that in order to do so there is sometimes a need for extra resources during time of career disruption (i.e. during child-rearing years) to keep ahead of the game,” said Dr Blumfield.

Dr Blumfield thanks and acknowledges Head, Department of Nutrition and Dietetics Professor Helen Truby for providing a flexible working environment for women and always supporting their career development.