'Mammal lady' named Australian Thinker of the Year

The self professed "mammal lady', who controversially claimed through her comparative genomics research that the male determining Y chromosome will become extinct, has been named Australian Thinker of the Year.

The award, created by the School of Thinking in partnership with the Melbourne Exhibition and Convention Centre, is in its third year and was created to recognise the contribution Australian thinkers make globally.

This year's winner, Professor Jenny Graves of The Australian National University (ANU) and Melbourne University, is one of Australia's most influential scientists, renowned for her research into the function and evolution of human genes, particularly those responsible for determining a baby's sex.

Winner of the UNESCO Prize for Women in Science in 2006 and, in the same year, the Macfarlane Burnett Medal for Biology, Graves is celebrated as a role model to women scientists and an inspiration to students of genetics.

But the now renowned scientist almost didn't take on this line of work. She said she wasn't interested in becoming "one of those Australians who end up working on the local fauna'.

"Over time it dawned on me that we have a genetic goldmine here; that kangaroos and platypus do things differently from placental mammals and that you can often figure out what the ancestral system was like from how the two systems differ.

"The genetic variation between such distantly related species is a very powerful way to discover new genes - in humans and all mammals - and figure out how they are turned on and off during development."

Graves says it's a career path she's now very glad she ventured down.

"Science is very exciting. It's not easy, but it's incredibly exciting. It really grabs you and it doesn't let you go. It's a detective story and it's an adventure story and you never know what's going to happen next."