Dr Yee Lian Chew

Dr Yee Lian Chew 
‘The worm lady’, NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellow 

Dr Yee Lian Chew uses the ‘worm’  Caenorhabditis elegans – one millimetre long with only 300 neurons, yet 80% genetically identical to humans – to identify brain pathways that can be targeted for treatment of neurological conditions such as chronic pain.  

An early career academic, Dr Chew earned her BSc (2010) and PhD (2015) from the University of Sydney. In 2015, she moved to Cambridge UK to study worms in colder weather, at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology. She returned to Australia in 2019 as a teaching-research academic at the University of Wollongong and is currently a Mary Overton Senior Research Fellow at Flinders University.  

Outside the joy of experiments, Dr Chew is a budding science communicator. She has given public lectures at National Science Week, contributed to a children’s outreach program at the Cambridge Science Festival, recorded a podcast, and filmed an elevator pitch for ABC Science. She was part of the 2021-2022 cohort of Superstars of STEM, a program run by Science and Technology Australia to promote the profile of women STEM professionals.  

The former (2021) Chair of the EMCR Forum Executive supported by the Australian Academy of Science, Dr Chew also aims to promote equity, diversity and inclusion in academia by removing barriers to retention for minoritised groups. In 2021, she was awarded a SA Young Tall Poppy award in recognition of her science communication and research profile. She served as an early- and mid-career researcher representative on the NHMRC Research Committee for the 2021–2024 triennium.