Dr Gabrielle Matters is Director, Assessment & New Basics Branch of Queensland Department of Education and the Arts, and Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Education of Queensland University of Technology.

Major achievements:

• Teaching students to use their minds well (taught chemistry and physics for 20 years including five years as a deputy principal)
• Leading teams of talented educators on various projects (Queensland Core Skills Test, Assessment & Reporting Framework, New Basics)
• Writing journal articles, books and conference papers on test design and marking, test-taking behaviour, the underachievement of boys (before the topic became trendy), the curriculum wars, the relationship between pedagogy and assessment, and 'death by assessment'
• Doing reports including Reinventing Years 10–12 in State Schools (1999, with Richard Smith et al) and The New Basics Research Report (2004)
• Having fun working in and across academe and the bureaucracy.