Lisa Harvey-Smith

Professor Lisa Harvey-Smith is the Australian Government’s Women in STEM Ambassador and a Professor of Practice in Science Communication at UNSW Sydney.

Her role as Women in STEM Ambassador is to work with the Federal Government and the STEM sector to increase the participation of women and girls in STEM education and careers across Australia. Her Office is achieving this through a combination of education, research, advocacy and policy advice.

Harvey-Smith uses radio telescopes to study the birth of the biggest, hottest stars in the Milky Way and to probe interactions between colliding galaxies. She previously worked on the mega-telescope project the Square Kilometre Array – a continent-spanning next-generation radio telescope that will survey billions of years of cosmic history.

Lisa was a presenter on ABC's Stargazing Live and has appeared live on stage with Apollo astronauts including Buzz Aldrin. She is a TEDx speaker, regular science commentator on TV and radio and author of popular science books When Galaxies Collide, Under the Stars: Astrophysics for Bedtime and The Secret Life of Stars.

She won the 2016 Eureka Prize for Promoting the Understanding of Australian Science Research and was awarded the CSIRO Chairman’s Medal.