The month of May is Female Leaders month globally for Startup Grind, with the vast majority of our 350 chapters celebrating strong, amazing women leaders in business by inviting them to speak with us at our fireside chats.

In keeping with this goal, we are thrilled to host Dr. Catherine Ball at our next Startup Grind event on May 22 at QUT Business School.

Dr. Catherine Ball is a global, independent, innovation, and environmental science consultant, with particular interests in multi-modal data processing, ecological surveys, infrastructure, agriculture, and the coastal and marine interface. Dr. Ball was the Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) technical lead for international company URS within Australia and New Zealand, and led the delivery of URS’s first Beyond Line of Sight RPAS project in Australia in 2013.

As a sought after voice in industry, Dr. Ball is working across a diverse portfolio of projects including unmanned systems (aerial, terrestrial, and aquatic) for environmental monitoring. In particular, her most recent works include the provision of technical support for innovation and new technology within existing monitoring frameworks for the oil and gas industry, marine and environmental monitoring, international development, capacity building, business plan advisory, and data management practice improvement.

Dr. Ball’s big passion is working on Projects that have a humanitarian aspect, from use of RPAS for emergency response, to recording cultural heritage, and agricultural assessments. Dr. Ball has travelled and worked extensively in sub-Saharan Africa and Australia on some cutting edge projects that combine science, entrepreneurship, empowerment, and ongoing education.

Dr. Ball has over 15 years’ experience in handling complex data sets from various environmental conditions and resolutions. Her experience includes soil microbial ecology using molecular techniques, as well as surveys in fluvial, freshwater, forest, intertidal and marine ecosystems. Furthermore, she has experience in data generation and analysis including microbiological molecular techniques, GIS, remote sensing, with an active interest and aptitude for linking environmental physico-chemical conditions to ecological phenomena.

Dr Ball holds a BSc Honours (Environmental Protection) and a PhD (Spatial Ecology, Descriptive and Predictive Statistics) from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in the United Kingdom. 

We at Startup Grind are privileged to have her share her journey and discuss her STEM initiatives with us later this Month. DO. NOT. MISS. THIS.

Looking forward to meeting you again at the event.