Michelle Dickinson

Director, Nanogirl Labs Ltd

Michelle is the Director of Nanogirl Labs Ltd, Co-Founder of the charity OMGTech! and Senior Lecturer in Engineering at the University of Auckland. Her international research into the nanomechanical failure of materials had helped her to gain insights into current and future technology, while her charitable work aimed at providing science education platforms to all hopes to remove some of the barriers surrounding science and technology.

With a PhD in materials engineering specialising in fracture mechanics, Michelle is formally trained in breaking engineering components, but is passionate about devoting her life to breaking stereotypes. Michelle set up New Zealand’s only Nanomechanical testing laboratory in Auckland, New Zealand which carries out research for clients all over the world.

Winner of the Prime Ministers Science Media Communication Prize and the New Zealand Association of Scientists Science Communicators Award in 2014, and the Sir Peter Blake Leadership Award and Royal Society of New Zealand Callaghan Medal in 2015 as well as being made a Member Of The New Zealand Order Of Merit, Michelle strongly believes that science should be open, transparent and a topic of conversation over the dinner table, not just the lab bench.