Academy Fellow Professor Branka Vucetic of the University of Sydney has been awarded the prestigious CSIRO Eureka Prize for Leadership in Innovation and Science for her major contributions to the science of coding theory and wireless communications that underpin much of the wifi technologies we use today. Professor Vucetic was elected to the Academy in 2017.
Also acknowledged at the awards was the Academy’s 2019 Gottschalk Medal winner, Associate Professor Laura Mackay of the University of Melbourne. She was awarded the Macquarie University Eureka Prize for Outstanding Early Career Researcher, and is regarded as a leader in the field of immunological ‘memory’. The Academy awarded Associate Professor Mackay the 2019 Gottschalk Medal in recognition of her contribution to the discovery of tissue-resident memory T cells.
Four Academy Fellows were shortlisted for the prizes: Professor Terry Hughes, Professor Stephen McMahon, Professor Branka Vucetic and Professor Michelle Coote.
The Australian Museum Eureka Prizes shine a light on Australia’s world-leading science and scientists, acknowledging leaders and innovators in STEM from primary school students to science journalists, to research teams at our top scientific institutions in 17 separate awards.
The finalists and winners for the awards demonstrated the diversity of the STEM sector and the top-level science that is coming out of Australia. The Academy applauds the introduction of the Australian Government Department of Industry Eureka Prize for STEM Inclusion this year. The inaugural winner of this award was the National Indigenous Science Education Program (Macquarie University, Charles Sturt University and the Yaegl Country Aboriginal Elders).
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