Edwina Cornish is a biotechnologist who played a key role in establishing one of Australia’s first biotechnology companies, Florigene Limited, in the 1990s. The company developed and commercialised some of the world’s first genetically modified plants.
Research scientist on the phylogeny, population genetics and evolution of eucalypts (family Myrtaceae), who has also pursued molecular phylogenetic studies of other plant families including Lamiaceae, Ericaceae, Rutaceae and Orchidaceae.
Although her position at the Australian National Botanic Gardens was classified as Gardener, her duties included plant identification and herbarium curation.
Joy Thompson joined the National Herbarium of New South Wales as a flora writer and specimen curator in 1946, and was Honorary Research Associate at the Herbarium from 1982 to 2009.
Australian scientist who held a number of posts at the Council for Scientific Research (CSIR) and later the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s.
Lillian Ross Fraser was a botanist whose work identifying fungi and viruses was hugely beneficial to the New South Wales citrus industry.
Julia Sewell was a plant collector in southwestern Western Australia where her family ran sheep and cattle stations. Between 1882 and 1892 she collected around Mount Caroline, the Swan River, Bunbury and Geographe Bay.
Joyce Price was a trained botanist who was most well known for her contributions to the Girl Guides Association Australia and the Worldwide Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts.
Helen Gwynne-Vaughan was an acclaimed mycologist, King’s College graduate, and Head of the Botany Department (as well as first female professor) at Birkbeck College long before she joined the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps during World War I, and was made chief controller of the women deployed to France.
Czech botanist Johanna Döbereiner moved to Brazil in 1951, where she pioneered the study of how plants and microbes interact, such as how certain bacteria can promote plant growth.