Women at Imperial Week 2024

Women at Imperial is an annual event that takes place around International Women’s Day (8 March). Over the course of the week of 4-8 March the Department of Life Sciences celebrated female staff as well as raising awareness of the support available in College for women. 

Take a look at the profiles below to learn more about women in our department who are making their mark. 

Women profiles 1

Katarina Piponi

Katarina is a PhD researcher, working with the Savolainen Laboratory (run by Professor Vincent Savolainen). She is researching the evolutionary genetics of same-sex sexual behaviour in primates, using genetics to disentangle the ‘darwinian paradox’ of homosexual behaviour.

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Dr Ghita Ghislat

Ghita joined Imperial as a Marie-Curie Research Fellow in 2022. Her research programme is interdisciplinary at the interface between cell biology, immunology and artificial intelligence.

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Women profiles 2

Fiona Watt

Fiona Watt is a Senior Laboratory Technician for the Sir Alexander Fleming Building. She is part of the team of Life Sciences core research technicians, whose service includes waste processing and management, autoclaving and glass washing, and oversight over laboratories and departmental spaces to support the important and exciting research done within the department.

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Dr. Cristina Banks-Leite

Cristina's work is about understanding what drives species decline and what happens to the environment when biodiversity changes. Her greatest achievement has been to influence policy in two different countries, helping protect biodiversity and ensuring a more sustainable use of nature.

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Women profiles 3

Dr Smitha Maretvadakethope

Smitha is a postdoctoral researcher specialising in theoretical systems biology. She has a passion for curiosity-driven problems in mathematical biology and fluid dynamics and her focus is on unravelling the fundamentals of cell dynamics.

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Dr Jie Song

Jie is a plant scientist who joined Imperial in 2014 and is currently a Royal Society University Research Fellow in Life Sciences. Her research focuses on molecular networks throughout plant development. She first studied flowers, later the entire plants, and then the regeneration of plants.

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