Tuesday, 19 March 2024

 Nick McGOWAN (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (18:50): (792) I had the great fortune on Saturday 16 March of attending the Ringwood Secondary College 70th anniversary celebration. At that celebration a number of events occurred, but one in particular was quite important for the school and for the broader community of Ringwood, my district of Ringwood, and that is that there were a number of inductees into the halls of fame. It is appropriate I think over the course of the week that I will outline for not only this house but also the people of Victoria the great students, the pupils, the alumni that have emerged from Ringwood Secondary College.

One of those individuals was an individual called Professor Bridgette Semple – of course she was not called ‘professor’ at the time when she left Ringwood Secondary College in 1996. Bridgette left and started her scientific journey with a bachelor in biomedical sciences at Monash University. That was followed by an honours, which gave her a taste of research – something that is important among all of us. Bridgette pursued her PhD in neuroscience, graduating in 2010, after which she spent a four-year stint in the United States completing a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California in San Francisco. Bridgette later returned home to Australia and established, with a number of other people, an independent research group at the University of Melbourne. After two years she was a founding member of the new department of neuroscience in the central clinical school at the Alfred hospital.

Bridgette is now back in the Ringwood area living with her family, with two children. She has made significant research on traumatic brain injury in both children and adults, and her work has also focused, importantly, on a better understanding of biological processes that drive the development of long-term behavioural and functional consequences after traumatic brain injury. Bridgette has a track record of scientific publication in high-quality journals, and she is also regularly invited to present her research at conferences. She has now transitioned to a senior consultancy role, where she is focusing her time and efforts in academic partnerships across the health and medical research sectors to secure multimillion dollar grants in innovative research projects in that space.

She has remembered fondly her time at Ringwood Secondary College and particularly her English teacher Mrs Pearson. I would like to congratulate Bridgette. She is an inspiration not only to Ringwood Secondary College but to young boys and girls everywhere who perhaps while they did not initially think they might go down the path of sciences eventually did exactly that. We need more scientists. We all know this. We need to encourage girls. They have a magnificent new STEM facility they are about to open. I would also of course ask the Minister for Education to join with me in congratulating Professor Bridgette Semple on her induction into the science hall of fame at Ringwood Secondary College.