2023 Dean’s Awards celebrate achievements of Faculty of Science staff and students
Faculty of Science staff and students have been recognised for their contributions to research, teaching, engagement, equity and access in the 2023 Dean’s Awards for Excellence.
About 70 Faculty of Science staff and students attended the annual awards presentation on 22 November 2023, which also included the Dean’s Honours Awards for PhD theses.
Dean of Science Professor Moira O’Bryan welcomed everyone at a special luncheon in the Woodward Centre at the Melbourne Law School.
Dean of Science, Professor Moira O'Bryan (front left), and the recipients of the 2023 Dean's Awards.
“The Dean’s Awards recognise excellence in many forms across the faculty, including brilliant research, innovative teaching, and outstanding initiatives and support from professional staff,” Professor O’Bryan said.
“With dedicated staff and a strong leadership team, our faculty is well placed to realise our vision: to bring scientific thinking and curiosity to the world around us, share this with our communities, and find the answers to the biggest questions we face today.”
32 staff received Dean’s Awards across the following categories:
- Excellence in Research - Dr Tim Werner, Associate Professor Elizabeth Hinde, and Dr Hafiz Suleria.
- Excellence in Teaching - Dr Haydon Dalton, Dr Catriona Vi Nguyen-Robertson, Associate Professor Jen Carter, Dr Nicolas Bamford, Dr Jenny Raffetto, Jemima Bowen, Maree Cox, Nathan Anderson, and Richard Li.
- Excellence in Graduate Research Supervision - Associate Professor Malcolm Wallace.
- Excellence in Engagement - Susan James, Cindy Huang, Dominic Maderazo, Paul Fijn and Cait Pryse.
- Excellence in Professional Staff - Nathan Anderson, Youngsoo Cho and Meredith Potter
- Excellence in Equity and Access - Agathe Lise-Pronovost, Professor Michael-Shawn Fletcher, Cam Raw, Siobhan Vivian, Lea Stuart, and Ellen Tunumafono.
- Excellence in Collegiality and Citizenship - Dr Kelvin Say, Carolyn Best, Jay Black, Jo Harwood, and Maria Beatriz Lopez Peralta.
Professor O’Bryan also presented Dean’s Honours Awards recognising academic excellence to the following 7 students for their PhD theses:
- Teruhito Ishihara for Evolution of epigenetic control of reproduction and development in therian mammals, marsupials, and eutherians.
- Innes Bigaran for A Taste of Flavour and Neutrino Physics with Scalar Leptoquarks.
- Yun Xiong for Sorghum grain phenolic compounds, bioactive functions, and its application of its bran in food systems
- Heyou Zhang for Direct Assembly of Single Nanocrystal Arrays.
- Yiwen Eva Wang for Statistical and Computational Methods for Microbiome Data Analysis
- Xiuming Zhang for Integrated assessment of global and regional Nr mitigation: potential, cost-benefits, and strategies
- Roozbeh Valavi for On the Predictive Performance of Correlative Species Distribution Models
“To receive a Dean’s Honours Award, PhD candidates must produce a thesis that requires only minimal corrections and receives outstanding scores and rankings for all examination criteria,” Professor O’Bryan said. “These exceptional students should be immensely proud of their achievements, as I know I am.”