IT’S time to meet the super six.

Over the next three days, we will reveal our final shortlist for the Evening Times Scotswoman of the Year 2017.

From an initial mailbag of dozens of nominations, the judging panel of representatives from the Evening Times and our generous event partner St Enoch Centre has whittled it down to an outstanding final half-dozen.

Today we reveal the first two names on the shortlist, with the other four being announced tomorrow and Thursday. The winner will be revealed at a glittering invitation-only gala dinner in the City Chambers on February 15.

SALLY MAGNUSSON

As a respected broadcaster and best-selling writer, Sally is well-known across Scotland.

In 2013, she founded a charity which has changed the way people with dementia are cared for across the UK.

For the last five years Playlist for Life has quietly gone from strength to strength, challenging misconceptions and changing lives along the way.

The charity makes it possible for people with dementia to have access to meaningful music from their past. It has now provided training for more than 1600 staff in 98 organisations and has won the backing of a wide range of health professionals – including GPs at a Glasgow care home who now prescribe Playlist for Life as part of medical care. The Care Inspectorate also recently announced its backing for the charity.

When Mamie Baird Magnusson developed dementia, Sally and her sisters discovered that no matter how lost their mother became in the disease, they could still reach her with the songs and music that had been part of their family life together.

“Singing with my mother kept her in touch with us, and with herself,” explains Sally. “It seemed to tap into something deep in her identity. After she died, I wanted to tell other families about this – I wanted them to know that amid the darkness and the difficulty, there was something that could help.”

After Mamie died, Sally discovered Music and Memory, an American charity which was already delivering personal music on iPods to people in care homes with positive results. Realising no-one was doing anything similar in the UK, Sally set up Playlist for Life.

The charity’s chief executive Sarah Metcalfe explains: “Sally learned a secret when caring for her mum for 12 years: personal music can help people living with dementia. The research proves it but no-one in the UK was telling families. Until, that is, Sally set up Playlist for Life.

“Sally’s dedication to family, her warmth and generosity come through in all her dealings with those affected by dementia. She is an inspiration.”

Sally adds: “I am very surprised and immensely honoured to be nominated for SWOTY. It has been very thrilling and heartening to see the response we have had to Playlist for Life. I love the idea I have been able to plant a seed which is starting to take root in all kinds of gardens, all over the country. I think my mum would have been proud.”

PROFESSOR DAME SUE BLACK

The University of Dundee’s Sue Black is an internationally renowned forensic anthropologist. She is Director of the Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification (CAHID) and co-Director of the Leverhulme Research Centre for Forensic Science.

She was recently named an ‘Outstanding Woman of Scotland’ by the Saltire Society, and is a fantastic example of how Scottish women continue to make a difference in this country and around the globe.

Her forensic expertise has been crucial to a number of high-profile criminal cases, including the conviction of Scotland’s largest paedophile ring in 2009 and more recently the conviction of Richard Huckle, the UK’s most prolific paedophile. At CAHID she leads a team which has developed new forensic techniques such as identification of child abusers through vein and skin patterns of the hand.

In 1999 Professor Black headed the British Forensic Team’s exhumation of mass graves in Kosovo. She has been deployed to aid with disaster victim identification in major events such as the Asian tsunami of 2004. She received a Damehood in HM The Queen’s 90th birthday honours last year.

Professor Black is also patron of Dundee University’s Women in Science festival, the only one of its kind in the world. The festival celebrates the achievements of women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics and aims to encourage more young girls to consider a career in these subjects.

She said: “I am truly honoured to be shortlisted for the Evening Times Scotswoman of the Year award.”