NSW Woman of Excellence Award

Dr Rebecca Deans - winner

Doctor Rebecca Deans is an internationally recognised researcher in the surgical management of benign gynaecology and endometriosis and has a special interest in paediatric and adolescent gynaecology.

Day to day, she works as a gynaecologist at the Royal Hospital for Women, a fertility specialist at the RHW Fertility Research Centre, is the only paediatric and adolescent gynaecologist at the Sydney Children’s Hospital and is a senior lecturer at UNSW School of Women's & Children's Health.

Among Dr Deans’ many accomplishments are over 60 peer reviewed publications in leading national and international publications, 5 book chapters and over 20 research papers. She has also been invited to present 14 times at national and international meetings.

Dr Deans has worked with international leaders to establish protocols and is the lead researcher of a collaborative uterine transplant project. In January 2023, Dr Deans and her team performed the first Australian uterine transplant at the Royal Hospital for Women.

Cr Anne Dennis

Anne Dennis was born in Walgett on Namoi Aboriginal Reserve and attended Walgett Primary School. Anne finished Year 12 at Walgett High School in 1976 and completed a Bachelor of Education – Primary School at Charles Sturt University Bathurst. 

Anne is a life member of the NSW Aboriginal Education Consultative Group (AECG) and President of Walgett Local and Northwest Regional AECGs.

Anne also held the position of Vice-President with the NSW AECG Inc., advocating for educational reform to best support Aboriginal students at school.

A strong advocate for Aboriginal land rights and the Aboriginal community, Anne Dennis is tireless in advocating not only for her region but across the whole state.

Anne has held the positions of Deputy and Chairperson of the NSW Aboriginal Land Council, and is dedicated to maintaining and enhancing Aboriginal culture, identity and heritage.

Anne is an elected Councillor for the NSW Aboriginal Land Council North Western Region and is currently in her third term. She is also currently Co-Chair of the NSW Coalition of Aboriginal Peak Organisations.

Anne’s passion for her communities is limitless, keeping the Aboriginal community at the centre of everything she does.

Arabella Gibson

Arabella Gibson is the CEO of Gidget Foundation Australia, a national not-for- profit mental health organisation supporting the emotional wellbeing of expectant and new parents and their families. Arabella joined Gidget over 6 years ago, after a lengthy career in the media industry, working in executive management for small business as well as publicly listed entities in both Australia and the UK.

Arabella was formerly General Manager for iSUBSCRiBE, an online magazine subscription business, based in London.  Prior to this, Arabella was the Director of Communications for Australian media entity PBL Media (Nine Entertainment Co) as well as its subsidiary businesses the Nine Network Australia and ARE Media (formerly ACP Magazines /Bauer Media). Before this, Arabella was Global General Manager – Marketing & Sales for Australian icon brand, RM Williams.

Arabella participated in the advisory group to devise the Australian Government’s Women’s Health Strategy for 2020 to 2030 in Canberra and contributed to the COVID-19 National Mental Health Strategy for Children, Young People and Parents. 

Named as The CEO Magazines’ Not For Profit Executive of the Year in 2022, Arabella was also a finalist in 2018, 2019 and 2021 and a Finalist in the Women’s Agenda Leadership Awards in 2019.

Arabella holds a Masters Degree in Communication Management from UTS and is a Non-Executive Director of Future Women, an organisation supporting the advancement of women to connect, learn and lead and a Non-Executive Director of Motherland, a rural support network for mothers in the bush.

Unis Goh PSM BA MA

For the past 30 years, Unis Goh has been dedicated to advancing the important role that social housing plays in addressing the increasing need for accessible and affordable housing for NSW’s most disadvantaged citizens.

As part of her long and illustrious career in human services, Unis has served as Deputy Chair of the Disability Council of NSW. She has also been awarded with the Public Service Medal for outstanding contribution to the NSW community service sector in 2009, largely due to her work leading the team that co-designed the NSW Performance Based Registration System for community housing organisations. This system effectively shifted the culture of simply providing government funding to running a viable and sustainable community housing system.

Unis continues to work in a voluntary capacity with community housing, homelessness and disability organisations to promote the rights of all people to suitable, safe and secure housing and equality. She also works as a volunteer primary ethics teacher at the local Warrawee Public School.

Unis has a devoted daughter and a lovable grandson.

Associate Professor Jodie Ward

An internationally recognised forensic human identification expert, Jodie Ward is passionate about using an interdisciplinary forensic approach to resolve Australian unidentified and missing persons cases.

Jodie is the Program Lead of the National DNA Program for Unidentified and Missing Persons at the Australian Federal Police (AFP), which she pioneered in 2020 after spending a decade advocating to various stakeholders. This unique program is applying advanced forensic techniques to Australia’s 750 unidentified human remains cases in a dedicated effort to reunite these nameless Australians with the families missing them.

To date, the program has assisted Australian law enforcement to establish the identity of a number of unknown deceased individuals, locate some of the 2500 long-term missing Australians and provide their families with the answers they deserve.