Big data pioneer awarded L'Oreal-UNESCO Women in Science Fellowship

University of Melbourne data science innovator Dr Renata Borovica-Gajic has been awarded a prestigious 2023 L'Oréal-UNESCO for Women in Science Fellowship (Australia and New Zealand).

Dr Borovica-Gajic is Assistant Dean (Diversity and Inclusion) in the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology and Senior Lecturer and ARC DECRA Fellow in the Faculty’s School of Computing and Information Systems.

Established in 2007, the annual L’Oreal-UNESCO for Women in Science Fellowships help young talents continue their research and advance to positions of leadership in their field of expertise.

Presented at a ceremony in Sydney on Monday 20 November, five female scientists will receive $25,000 each for a one-year project.

Dr Borovica-Gajic said she was delighted to receive the Fellowship.

“It is a humbling experience and a great honour to be recognised among such outstanding fellow engineers and scientists who are working on transformational projects. Not only does this award validate my efforts, but it also inspires me to strive for greater heights,” Dr Borovica-Gajic said.

Dr Borovica-Gajic’s research aims to develop a next-generation, self-driving database, revolutionising data exploration. This means that a database could proactively analyse and interpret user queries, adjust its processing strategies, and retrieve relevant data without users having a predefined outcome in mind.

“By using new machine learning techniques, my research advances databases and makes them accessible to non-experts by automating laborious and complex tasks that most often require costly domain expertise,” Dr Borovica-Gajic said.

"In the future I envision dynamic database systems, capable of adjusting query processing strategies to fit data characteristics, particularly in scientific domains where efficient data analysis tools are currently lacking."