Karina Khambatta.

Curtin Health Innovation Research Institute PhD student Karina Khambatta is primed to share her discoveries with the world after making it to the finals of the Western Australian Fresh Science competition.

Karina was one of 10 finalists selected from WA, which saw her recently undertake two days of intensive training in public speaking, media and industry engagement before presenting her research pitch at a public event and progressing to the “on-the-spot” research pitch round.

Fresh Science is a national competition that takes up-and-coming researchers with no media experience and turns them into spokespeople for science, giving them a taste of the spotlight through media training and a public event in their home state.

Karina was chosen for the program after submitting a proposal based on research she recently had published in the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Analyst journal and which she is undertaking at Curtin under the supervision of CHIRI’s Dr Mark Hackett and Curtin’s Dr Alan Payne.

“Karina spoke incredibly well, and was an excellent ambassador for Curtin,” Mark said. “I was so proud to see her so skilfully translate what she has discovered in the lab on the big stage, which is such an important part of the work of a modern researcher.”

Karina’s research combines organic chemistry and applied spectroscopy for cell analysis. The research she presented at Fresh Science involved the use of Synchrotron science to measure a range of samples, from soft membranes to hard cell wall structures, to demonstrate the technique’s potential for high-resolution chemical mapping across a broad range of applications in medicine, biology and environmental science.

Well done Karina!