Dr Deanna D'Alessandro

2010 Early Career Recipient, College of Science and Engineering

Dr Deanna D’Alessandro is currently the Professor and Director of the Net Zero Initiative at the University of Sydney.

She studied at James Cook University from 1997 until 2005 successfully completing a Bachelor of Science in 2000, a Bachelor of Science with Honours Class 1 in 2001 and her PhD was conferred in 2006.

Her time at JCU was littered with prizes including the 1997 Science First-Year Prize, the 1997 Royal Australian Chemical Institute (Queensland Branch) Prize, the 1998 H.J. Priestley Memorial Prize, 1998 Royal Australian Chemical Institute (North Queensland Section) Prize, the 1999 Joe and Val Baker Prizes (Prize A), and the 1999 G.N. Richards Medal in Chemistry.

She was awarded the University Medal in 2001 and Medal for Excellence for a Doctoral Research Thesis in 2005, and the pattern has continued since leaving JCU with the Cornforth Medal and “Fresh Science” awards in 2006.

Dr D’Alessandro was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California at Berkeley from 2007 to 2009; Dow Chemical Company Fellow, American-Australian Association in 2007; and, the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 Research Fellow 2007-2009.

She has been an invited lecturer at universities in the United States, New Zealand and Australia and has had 20 refereed papers published between 2005 and 2009.

She joined the University of Sydney in 2010 as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow, that same year she was named a L'Oreal Australia for Women in Science Fellow.  In 2011 she was awarded the  "Young Tall Poppy Science Award" from the Australian Institute of Policy and Science.

Updated 2010