Director of the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency (EOWA), Anna McPhee will be a keynote speaker at this year’s Women in Research Conference in Gladstone, Central Queensland.

Ms McPhee will indulge her audience of university and industry researchers, academics and students with her wealth of knowledge from working in the private and public sectors. Her address will focus on 'The Gaps and the Challenges for the Status of Women Worldwide'.

The CQU-hosted Conference, to be staged at the Gladstone campus, is held every two years to assist and support women researchers. This year’s theme is Women Doing Research.

Ms McPhee was appointed Federal Director of the EOWA in June 2004, following 10 years experience working in business and government.

Her role in the EOWA finds her in contact with more than 3000 private-sector organisations, as well as providing policy advice to the Federal Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations.

Anna has worked as an adviser to the Minister for Industry, Science and Resources, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister & Cabinet and Parliamentary Secretary for the Minister for Foreign Affairs. She has also been Adviser to the Deputy Leader of the NSW Opposition.

The WIR Conference will provide the stage for four other prominent keynote speakers including Christine Low - President of the National Council of Women of New Zealand; Dr Shirley Gregor - Professor of Information Systems, Head of School - Business and Information Management, Australian National University; Heather Nancarrow – Director, Queensland Centre for Domestic and Family Violence Research; and Dr Pam McGrath - Research Fellow, School of Nursing & Health Studies, CQU.

For more information regarding the conference or to register visit http://www.cqu.edu.au/wir and follow the links or contact Jeni Richardson on (07) 4923 2145 or the conference convenor Jan Lewis on 4970 7392 or m.lewis@cqu.edu.au .