Dr Cruz Izu of the School of Computer Science has been awarded a University of Adelaide 2017 Barbara Kidman Fellowship. The Fellowship Scheme is designed to support female academics to enhance and promote their career.

The Fellowships are named after Dr Barbara Kidman who, at the time, defied society’s expectations of women in scientific roles. She was the only female studying physics in second year, third year and the Honours year at the University of Adelaide in the 1940s, and ended up with a First Class Honours degree. Dr Kidman devoted up to 3 years to full-time research at Oxford University before returning to Adelaide and being awarded a PhD in 1956 (one of the first two women to achieve this). Following a 9 year interruption Dr Kidman returned to work in 1966 in what was then the very new field of computing, and completed 20 years of work in this industry before retiring in 1987.