Alumni Magazine Issue 6

Multicultural NSW appoints entrepreneurial alumna Esther Adeyinka Bachelor of Laws (Honours) / Bachelor of Arts Class of 2020 Esther Adeyinka is adding Youth Advisory Board Member at Multicultural NSW to her impressive list of accomplishments. Having moved from Nigeria to Australia with her family in 2003 when she was just six years old, Esther has plenty of insight to offer the agency. “I genuinely believe that cultural diversity is an asset for our society. However, with all that’s going on in the world, we’re seeing more and more that many people don’t agree,” says Esther. "I’m a Black woman and I’m an immigrant. I’ve come to see this as an asset.” Since graduating Esther has been working as an Associate at the District Court of NSW and is also in the process of establishing an ethical fashion label. The latter idea was born from Esther’s own difficult experiences of shopping as a woman of colour in Australia. “I want to create the change that I’d like to see in the fashion industry,” Esther says. “My vision is to help women with darker skin tones like me find products designed with us in mind. It’s a small but very important change.” Groundbreaking research into genetics goes global Gabriella MacDougall Bachelor of Biomedical Science (Honours) Class of 2015 Having completed her PhD at the Perron Institute for Neurological and Translational Science, Gabriella MacDougall has secured a research position at renowned Duke University in North Carolina. Her research on induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) has the potential to change the way we understand and treat various neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s, ALS, Huntington’s and Parkinson’s. “It is difficult to study the brain of a person with Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s as there is no way of directly examining the brain tissue until they are deceased. We take the iPSCs that we keep in blood cells or bone marrow and mimic the process they go through to become other cells,” she explains. “Sun Tzu once said ‘know your enemy’. This was in reference to war, but it is equally pertinent in studying disease,” she explains. “iPSCs research allows us to accurately understand the disease, what’s going on in the patient’s brain, and how we can help them.” Research like Gabriella’s presents a potentially substantial increase in our knowledge of neurological diseases. Alumni Magazine – Page 7