Dr Samantha Nixon is a former QASMT graduate and arachnophobe, turned venoms scientist and spider advocate at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience, The University of Queensland.
Her research harnesses the unique chemistries in venoms to develop new medicines, biotechnologies and pharmacological tools. Samantha is an avid explorer, working around the world from the Amazon, to Outback Australia and Antarctica.
She is a passionate advocate for addressing inequality in STEM, education and leadership through science communication and hopes sharing her passion for spiders will help inspire the next-generation of Australian scientists. Samantha has been recognised with the Westpac Future Leaders Scholarship, the UQ Global Change Scholar Award and Young Science Ambassador Award.
Samantha was awarded the 2020 Queensland Women in STEM Prize, the 2020 Women in Technology Young Science Achiever Award and the 2020 Green Talent Award from the German Ministry of Education and Research, recognising her as one of the top 25 young leaders in science for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals worldwide.
Samantha's science communication excellence has been recognised with appearances on Channel 10's Scope, Totally Wild, ABC Catalyst and represented Australia at the 2021 British Council FameLab Science Communication Finals, where she was international runner-up.