2023 awardees

Outstanding contributions to science have been recognised by the Australian Academy of Science with 22 of Australia’s leading scientists receiving a prestigious honorific award in 2023.

2023 awardees — The Australian Academy of Science's 2023 honorific awardees

Premier honorifics

2023 Matthew Flinders Medal and Lecture

Professor Lidia Morawska FAA, Queensland University of Technology

Professor Lidia Morawska’s 30 years of innovative work brings us closer to breathing safely. The fundamental science that she pioneered and advanced in the multifaceted ﬁeld of air pollution is critical for humanity to understand pollution and its impacts, and to build bridges translating science into public health applications. This work laid the foundation for the 2021 World Health Organization (WHO) Global Air Quality Guidelines, which included recommendations on ultraﬁne particles from combustion processes for the ﬁrst time, providing authorities around the globe with the basis to develop regulations to control this major pollutant to improve human health and save lives. Professor Morawska’s seminal work on particles from human respiratory activities became critical during the COVID-19 pandemic, in recognition of the importance of aerosol transmission, and convincing the WHO and national regulatory bodies to review public health policies and practices from schools to workplaces, making these environments safer for more people around the world.

2023 Ruby Payne-Scott Medal and Lecture

Professor Jennifer Graves AC FAA, La Trobe University

Professor Jenny Graves is an international leader in comparative genomics of vertebrates, arguing that Australian animals are particularly valuable as “independent experiments in evolution”. She exploits the biology of Australian marsupials, monotremes and reptiles to dissect conserved genetic structures and processes, pioneering a comparative approach that has led to many fundamental discoveries. She produced unique data that successfully challenged accepted ideas, leading to new hypotheses about the origin and evolution of human sex chromosomes and sex determining genes. She showed that human sex gene and sex chromosomes evolved quite recently, and the Y chromosome is degrading rapidly and will disappear in a few million years. She made fundamental discoveries about how the X chromosome is genetically silenced in female mammals, showing that genes on the inactive X are not copied into RNA, and that DNA methylation suppresses transcription. She initiated and guided collaborative research on the epigenetic control of environmental sex determination in Australian reptiles.

Career honorifics

2023 David Craig Medal and Lecture

Professor David Craik FAA FRS, University of Queensland

Professor David Craik discovered a family of plant peptides called cyclotides and is a world leader in defining their structures, functions and applications as ecofriendly pesticides and molecular scaffolds in drug design. He has shown how their unique structure makes them exceptionally stable and resistant to enzymes that would normally degrade peptide-based drugs. The work is significant because peptides are widely regarded as exciting drug leads, potentially safer and more effective than existing classes of drugs. However, previous peptide-based drugs are prone to instability and need to be injected (like insulin) rather than orally ingested. Professor Craik’s work on cyclotides shows how peptides can be stabilised and made more drug-like, thereby unleashing their potential in drug design. The natural function of cyclotides is to protect plants from insects and Professor Craik’s work has led to companies exploring cyclotides as pesticides. A cyclotide-based product, Sero-X, is now an approved eco-friendly pesticide for cotton and vegetable crops.

2023 Hannan Medal

Professor Richard Hartley FAA, Australian National University

Professor Richard Hartley has made important and pioneering contributions in the area of computer vision, both theoretical and applied, especially in the mathematical underpinnings of the ﬁeld. He is one of the founders of the research ﬁeld of multiview geometry, which is the technical foundation behind the computation of digital 3D models from sets of images or videos. This technology allows construction of models of cultural or archeological sites, as well as city and anatomical models. It also facilitates robot navigation in complex environments, and production of real (tangible) models of objects through scanning and 3D printing. The goal of his recent research is to provide a theoretical basis for ensuring that the models are correct and accurate. In one of his notable contributions he has identiﬁed the exact conditions under which available data is suﬃcient to allow unambiguous model creation. This work relies on advanced methods of algebraic and projective geometry.

2023 Jaeger Medal

Professor Matthew England FAA, University of New South Wales

Professor Matthew England is recognised as one of the world’s foremost experts on the ocean’s role in climate, spanning time-scales from seasons to millennia. His ﬁeld of research spans physical oceanography and climate dynamics, where he has written seminal papers on global water-mass formation, ocean-atmosphere-ice interactions, modes of climate variability, and ocean overturning processes. His work has afforded profound insights into the circulation of the Paciﬁc, Indian, and Southern oceans and their role in global and regional climate. He has quantiﬁed the Southern Ocean overturning circulation and its impact on climate, in both present and past climates; he identiﬁed the critical importance of the Southern Annular Mode in driving trends and variability in the coupled ocean – ice – atmosphere system; and he has shed new light on the teleconnections between the tropics and Antarctica.

2023 Suzanne Cory Medal

Professor Terence Hughes FAA, James Cook University

Professor Terry Hughes has made a superlative and sustained contribution to marine biology and science leadership in Australia and globally. His early research pioneered new understanding of the population dynamics and life histories of corals, and of the ecology of coral reef ecosystems. Among his most signiﬁcant research has been his ground-breaking exploration of the resilience of coral reefs to pollution, overﬁshing and climate change, and on the dynamics of tipping-points and regime-shifts. Throughout his distinguished career, Professor Hughes’s research provides innovative and practical solutions for improving coral reef management and governance. He is also a Highly Cited Researcher with many publications in Science and Nature, and the founding Director and driving force behind the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, providing leadership and mentoring a large team of researchers of all career stages.

Professor Catherine Lovelock FAA, The University of Queensland

Professor Catherine Lovelock is a leading global expert on the impacts of climate change on coastal wetlands and the role of coastal ecosystems in mitigating climate change. Her research demonstrates the important role coastal wetlands (mangroves, saltmarsh and seagrass) play in mitigating climate change. Achieved by assimilating atmospheric carbon within living wetland plants, a proportion of this plant material is stored in sediments for long periods of time and is known as blue carbon. Professor Lovelock has been pivotal in driving international research and policy regarding blue carbon,and was instrumental in developing a voluntary blue carbon market in Australia that will play a central role in Australia’s efforts to adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change on Australia’s coasts. Professor Lovelock’s research emphasises the important role of coastal wetland plants in accumulating substrates, a process that is particularly important in a changing climate where sea-level rise will increase erosion and inundation frequency along shorelines. Despite this important role, she has cautioned that the capacity of coastal wetlands to adjust to climate change will become increasingly limited throughout this century, unless planning decisions reduce pressures and facilitate landward retreat.

2023 Thomas Ranken Lyle Medal

Professor Susan Scott FAA, Australian National University

Professor Susan Scott is an internationally recognised mathematical physicist who has made fundamental advances in our understanding of the fabric of space-time in general relativity, and in gravitational wave science. Her ground-breaking discoveries probe the existence and nature of singularities and the global structure of space-time, and possible initial and final end states for cosmological models representing our Universe. Professor Scott has also been a pioneer in the analysis of astrophysical signatures in gravitational wave experiments, including the searches for gravitational waves from asymmetric neutron stars and from inspiralling binary systems of black holes and neutron stars. She has played an important role in the development and promotion of gravitational research worldwide, and a leading role in Australia’s participation in the first direct detection of gravitational waves in 2015.

Professor Nick Wormald FAA, Monash University

Technological, biological, social and logistical networks are a ubiquitous feature of modern life. Professor Nick Wormald is a world leader in the ﬁeld of random graph theory, which combines advanced probability theory, combinatorics and theoretical computer science to produce deep insights into the nature of such large and complex networks. The mathematics that he produces leads to greater understanding of the structure of real-world networks and to new methods for modelling them. This in turn leads to versatile tools of widespread use in algorithmic computer science and network optimisation, with other applications in physics, coding theory for communications, underground mine design and genetics. Professor Wormald is responsible for an impressive number of major breakthroughs in these areas and several standard methods used today were his invention.

Mid-career honorifics

2023 Jacques Miller Medal

Professor Di Yu, University of Queensland

Professor Yu is an immunologist whose research focuses on the function of T cells. He is internationally renowned as a leader in follicular helper T cells, a specialised subset of T cells that essentially control B cells to produce antibodies. His landmark discoveries reveal the key molecules (transcription factors and post-transcriptional regulators) and pathways (differentiation and cell death) for T cell function in health and diseases. Based on his fundamental research breakthrough, he partnered with physician-scientists and led clinical research on lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, allergic rhinitis, inﬂuenza and HIV infections, which have enabled new and improved diagnoses and therapies for autoimmune, allergic and infectious diseases, and the improvement of human vaccine eﬃcacy.

2023 Nancy Millis Medal for Women in Science

Professor Renae Ryan, University of Sydney

Neurotransmitters are the chemical messengers responsible for cellular communication in the brain, a fundamental process that underlies everything we do including moving, thinking, reading and speaking. Professor Renae Ryan’s research focuses on neurotransmitter transporters – nanoscale vacuum cleaners that suck chemical messengers back into cells after they have sent their message on. In diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, epilepsy and stroke these vacuum cleaners can break down, leading to confusion in cellular communication and, ultimately, cell death. Her internationally recognised research has revealed the molecular architecture and choreography of these miniature vacuum cleaners, allowing us to start to understand why they stop working in disease states, and providing the basis for the development of new medications to treat brain disease. Professor Ryan is a globally respected leader and advocate for gender equity, diversity and inclusion, and a sought-after supervisor, mentor and role model for women in science.

Early-career honorifics

2023 Anton Hales Medal

Dr Teresa Ubide, University of Queensland

Dr Teresa Ubide studies volcanoes by looking at the crystals in previously erupted volcanic rocks. Using the chemistry of the tiny crystals she can decipher the inner workings of volcano plumbing systems and what triggers volcanic eruptions. The aim of this research is to ultimately forecast future eruptions. The research is of utmost importance to millions of people living close to, or visiting, active volcanoes around the world. Her research also explores the link between volcanoes and critical metals that are essential for the development of renewable energy technology, such as wind and solar energy. Dr Ubide loves to communicate her science and was part of the Superstars of STEM program, and has given national and international talks and media interviews about her work on volcanoes.

2023 Christopher Heyde Medal

Dr Valentina Wheeler, University of Wollongong

Dr Valentina Wheeler is a geometric analyst who has made major contributions to the ﬁeld of elliptic and parabolic partial differential equations. In particular, her work focusses on geometric ﬂows called curvature ﬂows. These describe the movement and/or evolution of a curve or surface through space and time via continuous geometric deformation determined by curvature. Valentina’s contributions include resolutions of open conjectures regarding partition problems and existence of minimal hypersurfaces; completely novel types of singularities for curvature ﬂows; the ﬁrst global analysis of the Helfrich functional; and a powerful new Harnack convergence argument for fully nonlinear curvature ﬂows with non-smooth speed. Her results include direct applications to real-world problems including modelling for the blood disease spherocytosis, behaviour of other biological membranes, and motion and evolution of merging ﬁre fronts.

2023 Dorothy Hill Medal

Associate Professor Raffaella Demichelis, Curtin University

Discovering what makes a mineral, investigating how minerals form in systems as diverse as coral reefs and the human body, and how they interact with various chemicals, is the focus of Associate Professor Raffaella Demichelis’s research. Her team’s work involves using supercomputers to model the atomic structure, crystal growth and chemical reactivity of different types of minerals. She has led landmark research that opened new perspectives in the ﬁelds of chemistry, geochemistry and mineralogy, providing quantitative evidence in favour of non-classical nucleation theory and a solution for numerous debated mineral structures. Harnessing and mimicking the rich chemistry observed in nature offers insights into, among other things, the mechanics of carbon-dioxide sequestration and coral reef preservation, how kidney stones form, and how to control scale formation in industry. Associate Professor Demichelis also contributes to the development of computational tools that are now used in academic and non-academic laboratories conducting research in the ﬁelds of chemistry and Earth science worldwide. She also volunteers a considerable amount of her time to inclusion and diversity causes, advocating for accessible and sustainable research careers, and to science outreach.

2023 Fenner Medal

Associate Professor Emily Wong, Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute

Associate Professor Emily Wong’s work contributes to our understanding of an overarching question in genetics – how does the genome specify animal form and function. This is a complex problem because, unlike genes that encode proteins, gene regulatory elements cannot be easily deﬁned based on comparative analysis of their DNA sequence alone. The elements that make up these regions remain unclear despite our ability to sequence genomes and map active regions that control gene expression. Associate Professor Wong has used systems biology approaches combining evolutionary, computational and molecular biology skills to interrogate how the non-coding genome determines cell identity. Her work has provided detailed understanding of the complex relationships between the genome and gene activity, including insights into how cis-regulatory elements evolve, and the non-linear relationship between genetic variations and their impact on chromatin structure and gene expression.

2023 Gottschalk Medal

Professor Si Ming Man, Australian National University

Professor Si Ming Man’s work has significantly advanced our understanding of inflammation as an underlying mechanism of health and disease. His achievements are focused in three areas: (1) Identifying the parts of microbes that cause inflammation during infection and the molecules in our immune system that trigger this response. This work may lead to targeted treatments for diseases caused by too much inflammation, for example sepsis, food poisoning and gout. (2) Uncovering previously unknown molecules made by our bodies that directly attack microbes and working out if these can be turned into treatments that will work against bacteria, including those that are resistant to current antibiotics. (3) He discovered that some of the same molecules used by our immune system to detect and respond to microbes by initiating inflammation are also important in preventing cancer. This discovery might be useful in diagnosis or predicting outcomes in cancer or may offer clues to cancer prevention. 

2023 John Booker Medal

Dr Amelia Liu, Monash University

Humans have had glass technology since ancient Egyptian times, yet understanding the nature and structure of glass remains a grand scientific challenge. Glasses are materials that retain the disordered structure of liquid when they solidify during fast quenching from the melt. Fundamentally, it is not known why glasses are solid. When crystals solidify from the melt, their rigidity is linked to the symmetry of their atomic arrangements. In contrast, for a glass, the transition to a solid phase is not signalled by any obvious new order. Dr Amelia Liu’s research addresses the central conundrum of the ‘glass problem’ with the development of new experimental tools to measure the structure of glass. In her most recent work, she demonstrated that even in globally disordered glass structures, there is a strong link between local structural symmetry and rigidity. This work illuminates the atomic-scale causes of ageing and brittle failure in glasses. Dr Liu’s new characterisation methods are a step towards engineering the properties of glasses from the atomic level.

2023 Le Fèvre Medal

Associate Professor Rona Chandrawati, University of New South Wales

Associate Professor Rona Chandrawati is internationally recognised as an emerging leader in the ﬁelds of nanosensors and nanoparticle-based drug delivery. She has achieved world-class – and frequently ﬁrst in world – research results in the synthesis and development of colourimetric nanosensors and nanozymes for nitric oxide delivery. As the country’s leading researcher in colourimetric polymer sensor technology, her patent-pending nanosensors have enabled the detection of target analytes without the need for specialised equipment; indeed, her colourimetric nanosensors are highly sensitive, with quantitative and qualitative results able to be determined based on colour changes visible to the naked eye. These have been used to monitor food spoilage and contamination, contributing to reducing the nation’s $10 billion worth of edible food waste each year. Furthermore, her synthesis of nanoparticles and nanozymes for nitric oxide delivery have signiﬁcant therapeutic implications, particularly for the treatment of glaucoma – a condition affecting 1-in-10 Australians.

Professor Tianyi Ma, RMIT University

Green solutions are urgently needed to harvest, store and utilise renewable energy sources. The effects of climate change and energy shortages have become an urgent issue for our society. Non-sustainable human activities, such as the overuse of fossil fuels, have affected the environment in an irrecoverable way. Professor Tianyi Ma’s research addresses these issues using a function-directed materials fabrication involving rich surface chemistry and delicate nano-architecture; the materials are used for key energy-related catalytic reactions leading to eﬃcient renewable solar energy, electricity, and chemical energy conversion. Lab-scale catalytic reactions of kilogram-scale hydrogen, methane, ethanol and other value-added chemical production have successfully been driven by pure renewable energy; this can be up-scaled to industry-level demonstrations and pilot plants. Professor Ma’s numerous novel initiatives have led to scientiﬁc breakthroughs positively impacting society by enabling alternatives for industry to move towards renewable energy sources.

2023 Moran Medal

Associate Professor David Frazier, Monash University

A web of complex models underpins modern life. Models are used to predict traﬃc patterns, help control invasive pest populations and mitigate the spread of disease. These models are driven by unknown quantities, and so statistical inference is used to quantify and understand these unknowns, with Bayesian statistical inference methods often applied in such settings due to their interpretability. However, in many cases the underlying models and data are so complex as to render standard Bayesian methods intractable. In such cases, the best we can hope to do is perform statistical inference using ‘approximate’ Bayesian methods, which seek to deliver tractable Bayesian inferences in challenging modeling settings. Much of Associate Professor David Frazier’s research has focused on establishing the statistical behaviour of approximate Bayesian methods in a wide variety of contexts, including approximate Bayesian computation, Bayesian synthetic likelihood, and variational Bayes methods. The overarching goal of his work is to ensure practitioners can reliably apply these approximation methods to derive meaningful inferences, make reliable decisions and obtain reproducible results.

Dr Rachel Wang, University of Sydney

Working at the interface of theoretical statistics, computational statistics and data-driven applied ﬁelds, Dr Rachel Wang has pursued a diverse research trajectory emphasising both rigorous theoretical development and practical relevance to interdisciplinary scientiﬁc problems. She has made contributions to statistical inference problems in network models, enabling model selection and parameter tuning to be performed with provable guarantees. Her theoretical work on local convergence issues in variational approximation and scalable MCMC has led to a deeper understanding of how algorithms navigate a high dimensional, non-convex landscape, addressing a prevalent problem in all large-scale machine learning tasks. Leveraging her expertise in theory and computation, she has developed novel statistical and computational tools for extracting new biological knowledge from genomics data, seeking to improve our understanding of gene regulatory mechanisms and the inner workings of cells.

2023 Pawsey Medal

Professor Yuerui Lu, Australian National University

Modern information technologies are increasingly focused on the development of integrated opto-electronic devices with compact footprints and integrated functionalities. Key in the downscaling of integrated opto-electronic devices to the nanometre scale has been ultra-thin, two-dimensional (2D) ‘quantum’ materials. Professor Yuerui Lu’s team at ANU has developed new types of atomically thin 2D materials and devices with peculiar optical and electronic properties, enabling new applications in electronics, photonics and space. These novel materials facilitate devices that are significantly smaller, less massive, and require much lower power to operate. His discovery could introduce new materials and devices in applications ranging from smaller and fast-speed 3D cameras for future smartphones, and low-weight and high-quality satellite electronics – making future space missions more accessible and cheaper to launch. His work was chosen by the Australian Research Council (ARC) to be a national highlight in 2020.

About the honorific awards

Central to the purpose of the Academy is the recognition and support of outstanding contributions to the advancement of science.

Read the Academy’s media release announcing the 2023 honorific awardees.

2022 awardees

Outstanding contributions to science have been recognised by the Australian Academy of Science with 20 of Australia’s leading scientists receiving a 2022 honorific award.

2022 awardees — The Australian Academy of Science's 2022 honorific awardees

Premier honorifics

2022 Macfarlane Burnet Medal and Lecture

Professor Steve Simpson AC FAA FRS, University of Sydney

Professor Steve Simpson has revolutionised the scientific understanding of swarming in locusts, with research spanning neurochemical events in the brains of individual locusts to continental-scale mass migration. Professor Simpson, with colleague David Raubenheimer, has also developed a powerfully integrative framework for nutrition called the Geometric Framework, which he devised and tested using insects. The Framework has since been applied to a wide range of organisms, from slime moulds to humans, and to problems from aquaculture and conservation biology, to dietary causes of human obesity and ageing. Since 2012, Professor Simpson has applied his biological and biomedical research and knowledge to ease the burden of chronic disease in humans through a unique, cross-disciplinary initiative at the Charles Perkins Centre at the University of Sydney.

2022 Ruby Payne-Scott Medal and Lecture

Dr Liz Dennis AC FAA FTSE, CSIRO

Dr Liz Dennis is a distinguished plant molecular biology researcher. She has addressed important basic questions in plant development, vernalisation-induced flowering and the increased yield of hybrid varieties. A feature of her research is that she has worked with Arabidopsis, a plant favoured in laboratory research, and then transferred her discoveries to crop plants. This has been a powerful strategy. Her analysis of the basis of hybrid vigour has been outstanding in Arabidopsis and subsequently in rice. The development of hybrid mimics in rice has removed the first-generation limit for hybrids and facilitates a continuity of high food grain production. The development of high yielding mimic varieties can be expected in many other crops.

Career honorifics

2022 David Craig Medal and Lecture

Professor Christopher Barner-Kowollik FAA, Queensland University of Technology

Professor Christopher Barner-Kowollik’s work fuses the in-depth understanding of chemical processes that are induced by light with their use to prepare soft matter materials, with applications from 3D printing inks to photodynamic materials. His main body of work – based on an esteemed career in physical-organic chemistry – exploits light as a ‘molecular surgical tool’, where its colour and intensity are finely adjustable gates to ‘operate’ on the molecular structure of materials with unprecedented precision. This precision gives rise to materials whose mechanical strength and chemical composition can be readily adjusted without bringing them in contact with chemicals or heat. Professor Barner-Kowollik’s work has enabled new materials concepts, for example a material that is solely stabilised by light, so-called ‘light stabilised dynamic materials’.

2022 Haddon Forrester King Medal

Dr Kathy Ehrig, BHP Billiton

Dr Kathy Ehrig is renowned for her insights into the complex geological events involved in the formation of the supergiant copper-uranium-gold-silver Olympic Dam ore deposit. Her leadership in this research has attracted global attention because her advances may contribute to further discoveries elsewhere. She has created highly innovative solutions in characterising in situ ore properties and predicting metal extraction in advance of mining, primarily in the context of the Olympic Dam mine. These solutions are based on her profound knowledge and understanding of mineral assemblages and have proven to be highly robust and transferable to other mines, thereby having a crucially positive impact on productivity. The foundation of her achievements has been her ability to integrate diverse datasets through harnessing cutting-edge research methods and novel approaches. Dr Ehrig’s diligence, enthusiasm and dedication to the pursuit of science combine to make her an exceptional research leader.

Professor Richard Henley, Australian National University

For over 50 years, Professor Richard Henley has been a leader in the development of understanding of how economic deposits of metals, especially copper and gold, were formed within large-scale hydrothermal systems in volcanoes and mountain belts. The fundamentals that he derived have provided the basis of exploration for epithermal through to orogenic gold deposits, the practical chemistry of fluids in active geothermal systems and many follow-up research programs around the world. He has been acknowledged for his direct contribution to a number of major discoveries including the giant Ladolam Au (Lihir Island, Papua New Guinea) and the Onto Cu-Au (Hu’u, Sumbawa Island, Indonesia) deposits. In the last few years, he has led the recognition of high temperature magmatic gas reactions with rock forming minerals as the principal control on the generation of porphyry copper deposits. He is currently focused on application of X-ray micro CT scanning to derive new and detailed understanding of water-rock interaction chemistry and the properties of rock materials.

2022 Ian Wark Medal and Lecture

Professor Tim Senden, Australian National University

Professor Tim Senden is a physical chemist whose pioneering research has provided new understanding of surface phenomena at the nanoscale, developing methods to quantify colloidal and molecular forces. For two decades, he was involved in the development of novel applications of radioactive nanoparticles for clinical use, which received strong commercial sponsorship leading to clinical trials. From the 2000s, Professor Senden was part of a major translational activity that continues to develop a novel imaging and analysis platform based on X-ray microtomography, leading to new insights into complex granular and porous materials. This activity has greatly enhanced applications in topics spanning papermaking, carbon sequestration, composites, and mineral and hydrocarbon extraction. Following an industry consortium of 23 energy companies, Lithicon was spun-off and became one of the most successful ANU companies.

2022 Mawson Medal and Lecture

Professor Andrew Roberts, Australian National University

Professor Andrew Roberts has made fundamentally important contributions to understanding the magnetisation of sediments, which provides the basis for use of paleomagnetism to reconstruct global plate tectonic movements and to understand variations in Earth’s magnetic field through its history. His work influences all aspects of understanding sedimentary magnetisation acquisition, and has particularly contributed to recognising that the previously poorly-known magnetic mineral greigite, and magnetic minerals produced by magnetotactic bacteria, make important contributions to the magnetisation of globally distributed sedimentary rocks. He is an international leader in the field of environmental magnetic analyses of climate change, and has developed new methods in rock magnetism that are used widely in solid state physics, materials science, the magnetic recording industry, and Earth science. His work in environmental magnetism has made significant contributions to understanding African monsoon dynamics, sea level variations, and Arctic and Antarctic glacial history.

2022 Suzanne Cory Medal

Professor Georgia Chenevix-Trench FAA, QIMR Berghofer

Professor Georgia Chenevix-Trench is a cancer geneticist, interested in both inherited and acquired genetic variants that contribute to the risk and development of cancer. Her main focus is on breast and ovarian cancer, but she has also made major contributions to inherited skin and gastric cancers. In the last 15 years, her main focus has been on genome-wide association studies to identify inherited genetic variants associated with cancer risk. These have identified over 200 regions of the genome associated with breast cancer risk. This information is currently being used in international clinical trials to stratify women for breast screening, but has also transformed our understanding of the biological basis of breast cancer. Professor Chenevix-Trench’s main focus now is to identify the relevant susceptibility genes in those 200 regions, to determine how they contribute to breast cancer risk, and whether this information can be used to treat breast cancer, or even to prevent it.

Mid-career honorifics

2022 Gustav Nossal Medal for Global Health

Professor Rebecca Guy FAHMS, UNSW Sydney

Professor Rebecca Guy is a renowned international authority in the implementation and evaluation of public health interventions related to HIV and sexually transmissible infections (STIs), particularly among vulnerable populations. Among her many achievements to date, she has introduced STI and COVID-19 point-of-care testing in remote Aboriginal communities and led the evaluation of HIV point-of-care tests that can be conducted by people in their own home (HIV self-tests). Serving as Head of the Surveillance Evaluation and Research Program at The Kirby Institute, as well as leader of both the NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence in the Accelerated Implementation of New Point-of-Care Technology for Infectious Diseases and the ARC Industrial Transformation Research Hub to Combat Antimicrobial Resistance, Professor Guy’s research has been highly inﬂuential on policy and practice, both in Australia and internationally.

2022 Nancy Millis Medal for Women in Science

Professor Vanessa Peterson, Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation

Our continual need for cheap energy presents major challenges. Professor Vanessa Peterson’s game-changing research into the fundamental working mechanisms of energy materials is helping to solve these global challenges. Professor Peterson’s signiﬁcant research targets functional materials at the heart of energy technology such as batteries, fuel cells and materials for the separation and storage of energy relevant gases including hydrogen and carbon dioxide. Vanessa has pioneered methods to understand the atomic level function of materials, revealing in unprecedented detail how the arrangement and motions of atoms can be harnessed to make new and better sustainable-energy devices. Her work has led to discoveries that push the frontier of our understanding of energy materials, helping to reduce Australia’s carbon emissions and develop sustainable clean-energy systems. Professor Peterson is an internationally-regarded leader in materials characterisation, specialising in neutron scattering methods, and is an outstanding mentor, advocate and role model for women in science.

Early career honorifics

2022 Anton Hales Medal

Associate Professor Jenny Fisher, University of Wollongong

Understanding of the sources, transport and fate of trace atmospheric species is crucial for the development of evidence-based policies for the management of air pollution and to evaluate their contribution to future climate scenarios. Associate Professor Jenny Fisher’s research leads international efforts to model the atmospheric concentrations and transport of these species and to predict their response to future emissions and environmental change, and to quantitatively evaluate impacts of Australian and global environmental policies. The species include mercury, a neurotoxin that is distributed globally through the atmosphere. In recognition of its adverse effects, mercury is now regulated by the UN Minamata Convention on Mercury. Her work also provides new and crucial information on biogenic emissions and atmospheric chemistry of trace species from vegetation which play important roles in air pollutant formation.

2022 Christopher Heyde Medal

Dr Francis Hui, Australian National University

Dr Francis Hui’s research focuses on the development of innovative, fast approaches for the statistical analysis of big data, particularly when many correlated variables are collected in space and/or time to produce richly correlated data. He has made substantial contributions to the literature on efficient approximate methods for ﬁtting multi-level models, techniques for data visualisation of many variables and scalable tools for ﬂexibly ﬁtting non-linear models and for selecting which predictors to include in complex correlated data settings. Dr Hui works at the interface between methodological and applied statistics, ensuring that his research has an immediate and substantial impact on the wider scientiﬁc community. His research has been particularly impactful in ecology, where his methods and software are applied by practitioners to project spatio-temporal change of species assemblages under climate change scenarios and for enhancing the understanding of terrestrial and marine ecosystems both across Australia and internationally.

2022 Dorothy Hill Medal

Dr Samintha Perera, University of Melbourne

Australia’s per capita carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions are among the world’s highest and the recent drought and bushﬁre crises clearly illustrate our vulnerability to increases in greenhouse gas emissions. Although carbon dioxide geo-storage in deep coal seams can play a vital role in emission reduction, conversion of CO₂ into a highly chemically reactive “supercritical CO₂ (scCO₂)” at such deep depths causes unpredictable CO₂ ﬂow behaviours in coal seams while modifying its flow and mechanical properties. Dr Samintha Perera discovered the unique interaction between the coal mass and scCO₂ and the resulting impacts on underground applications. According to her ﬁndings, all these unique scCO₂ behaviours in coal seams are caused by the signiﬁcant coal matrix swelling resulted from the coal-scCO₂ interaction. Regardless of that, she found the effectiveness of scCO₂ as a fracking ﬂuid for coal reservoirs, which gave a great value to this problematic scCO₂ as a reservoir stimulation agent.

2022 Fenner Medal

Associate Professor Chris Greening, Monash University

Associate Professor Chris Greening’s remarkable discovery that bacteria can live on air has redefined what constitutes life. When bacteria exhaust organic energy sources, they can survive indefinitely by scavenging the unlimited supply of hydrogen and carbon monoxide gas present in the atmosphere. This survival mechanism has broad-reaching consequences for global biodiversity, infectious disease, climate change and public health research. Chris has revealed it supports the biodiversity of life’s soils and oceans, regulates greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and enhances agricultural productivity. He has also shown that these gas-eating bacteria provide a basis for life in continental Antarctica, where conditions are too extreme for plants to prosper. Yet similar survival mechanisms are also used by devastating human pathogens, including causative agents of tuberculosis and dysentery. By integrating his One Health microbiology laboratory with large-scale applied programs, Professor Greening is translating these fundamental insights into applied interventions that improve environmental and human health.

2022 Frederick White Medal

Professor Kerrylee Rogers, University of Wollongong

Professor Kerrylee Rogers has made an internationally significant contribution to one of the most pressing environmental issues of our time: the impact of climate change on the world’s most threatened and ecologically important habitat, wetlands. Her work has demonstrated that coastal wetlands (mangrove and saltmarsh) respond dynamically to sea-level rise. By trapping sediment and building root systems, wetlands adapt to climate change but also help mitigate climate change by sequestering atmospheric carbon dioxide. Professor Rogers has used these insights to show that the restoration of coastal wetlands is an effective climate change adaptation strategy that can yield financial benefits to landholders. Carbon captured through wetland restoration can be reported by governments as saved emissions and traded by landholders in emissions trading programs. These insights have been effectively communicated through management and policy-focused papers, presentations and expert advice.

2022 Gottschalk Medal

Dr Alisa Glukhova, WEHI (Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research)

All cellular organisms exchange information with their environment in the form of chemical molecules or light, electrical or physical stimuli. G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are primary information sensors at the cell surface and are major drug targets for a multitude of conditions. Dr Alisa Glukhova is using structural biology approaches to understand the biology of GPCRs and, specifically, how these receptors recognise chemical signals and how they transmit these signals inside the cell. Her research provided the first structural insights into the activation mechanism of the A1 adenosine receptor, a target for pain management and heart disease, opening possibilities for structure-based drug design. Her current work, in collaboration with researchers from Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, aims to understand the biology of other members of adenosine receptor family and identify novel mechanisms for targeting them, either through unconventional binding sites or by altering their signalling path. The current research in her lab at WEHI (Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research) is focused on understanding the structural basis of Wnt signalling that involves a different GPCR family that is a major target for cancer therapeutics.

2022 John Booker Medal

Associate Professor Annan Zhou, RMIT University

Associate Professor Annan Zhou has made seminal contributions to the understanding and modelling of the fundamental hydromechanical behaviour of unsaturated soils. Any soil can be unsaturated with water due to either evaporation or engineering processes like excavation. Unsaturated soils have been widely blamed for many geotechnical problems like slope failures, dam collapses, pavement cracking and foundation failures since they may produce large deformation and even suddenly lose their strength in wetting events. Associate Professor Zhou has established a new modelling framework to tackle the most fundamental issues in unsaturated soil mechanics. Within this framework, many unanswered questions and seemingly conﬂicting behaviours related to strength, deformation, soil-water interaction of unsaturated soils can be reasonably explained and effectively modelled. Based on the novel constitutive modelling framework and robust numerical techniques, he has developed advanced numerical tools for better design and assessment of infrastructure involving unsaturated soils in Australia and worldwide.

2022 Le Fèvre Medal

Associate Professor Yuning Hong, La Trobe University

Associate Professor Yuning Hong develops chemical probes to detect dysfunctional cells. Proteins are the major component of cells in the human body and are essential for the maintenance of many of its functions. When the protein quality control process in the cell factory fails, the ensuing proteins that are not folded properly can not only lose their original functions, but also damage the cells. At worst this can lead to conditions such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and Huntington’s diseases. With the aid of her chemical probes, Associate Professor Hong studies how these proteins are generated and how they damage healthy cells. Her goal is to develop tests for the early diagnosis of, and treatments for, dementia and other neurodegenerative diseases.

2022 Pawsey Medal

Dr Keith Bannister, CSIRO

Dr Keith Bannister is an exceptional scientist who has led several projects at the forefront of radio astronomy, especially in the area of fast radio burst (FRB) research. His great strength is that he has a deep understanding of both astronomy and radio-science engineering. These qualities enable him to envisage novel and powerful techniques to advance key science goals, to bring systems based on these techniques to fruition, and then to harvest the scientific returns. By exploiting the unique wide-field capabilities of CSIRO's ASKAP radio telescope, Dr Bannister and his team doubled the number of FRBs known at the time. He then went on to devise and implement a scheme to determine their precise sky positions, thereby identifying their source location in distant galaxies. These results provided vital clues on FRBs’ astrophysical origin and also identified the location of 50 per cent of the missing baryons in the universe.

2022 Ruth Stephens Gani Medal

Dr Loic Yengo, University of Queensland

Dr Loic Yengo has developed novel theory and statistical analysis methods and applied those to 'big data' in human genomics to address questions about the causes and consequences of human behaviour. He has discovered thousands of DNA variants that are associated with human traits and showed that the pattern of those variants in the human genome are in part the consequence of people seeking partners who are like themselves, in terms of, for example, height and the level of education. This is direct evidence that human behaviour has an effect on the human genome in subsequent generations. In addition, Dr Yengo has developed better analysis methods to study the effect of homozygosity in the human genome and has shown that the larger the proportion of a person’s genome that is homozygous, the more detrimental effects it has on traits that are associated with disease.

About the honorific awards

Central to the purpose of the Academy is the recognition and support of outstanding contributions to the advancement of science.

2021 awardees

Outstanding contributions to science have been recognised by the Australian Academy of Science with 24 of Australia’s leading scientists receiving a 2021 honorific award.

2021 awardees — The Australian Academy of Science's 2021 honorific awardees

David Craig Medal and Lecture—Professor Thomas Maschmeyer FAA FTSE
Hannan Medal—Professor Mathai Varghese FAA
Jaeger Medal—Professor John Church FAA FTSE
Inaugural Suzanne Cory Medal—Professor John Endler FAA FRS
Inaugural Suzanne Cory Medal—Professor Susanne von Caemmerer FAA FRS
Thomas Ranken Lyle Medal—Professor David McClelland FAA

Mid career honorifics

Jacques Miller Medal—Professor Mark Dawson
Jacques Miller Medal—Associate Professor Michele Teng
Nancy Millis Medal—Professor Angela Moles
Nancy Millis Medal—Associate Professor Cathryn Trott

Early career honorifics

Anton Hales Medal—Dr Nicolas Flament
Christopher Heyde Medal—Dr Kevin Coulembier
Christopher Heyde Medal—Dr Vera Roshchina
Dorothy Hill Medal—Dr Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick
Fenner Medal—Associate Professor Eve McDonald-Madden
Gottschalk Medal—Associate Professor Francine Marques
John Booker Medal—Dr Bishakhdatta Gayen
Le Fèvre Medal—Associate Professor Debbie Silvester-Dean
Moran Medal—Professor Christopher Drovandi
Moran Medal—Dr Janice Scealy
Pawsey Medal—Associate Professor Xiaojing Hao
Ruth Stephens Gani Medal—Professor Joseph Powell

Premier honorifics

2021 Matthew Flinders Medal and Lecture

Professor Andrew Holmes AC FAA FRS FTSE, University of Melbourne

Professor Andrew Holmes is recognised for his world-leading contributions to the chemical synthesis of organic and polymeric substances for use at the interface with materials science and biology.

Plastics have traditionally been used as insulators or lightweight structural components. However, as a result of Professor Holmes’s contributions in developing plastics that emitted light when sandwiched between electrodes connected to a power source, the world now recognises that these materials can serve as semiconductors for flat screen TVs, for organic solar cells and in transistors.

Professor Holmes led the Victorian Organic Solar Cell Consortium that delivered highly efficient solar cells and showed that they could be printed on plastic.

In the area of cell biology, Professor Holmes’s research group collaborated with the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute to attach their synthetic signalling molecules to beads that could be used as fishing lines to identify many key proteins involved in colon cancer cellular signalling.

More information on the Matthew Flinders Medal and Lecture, and how to nominate

2021 Inaugural Ruby Payne-Scott Medal and Lecture

Emeritus Professor Cheryl Praeger AC FAA, University of Western Australia

Professor Cheryl Praeger’s work on the mathematics of symmetry has been in the vanguard of a mathematical revolution caused by the classiﬁcation of the ﬁnite simple groups, the atoms of symmetry from which all ﬁnite groups are built. She has elucidated the internal structure of these simple groups, and driven research on applying their immensely powerful classiﬁcation to study symmetric structures.

Professor Praeger has developed a theory of quasiprimitive groups which, via her innovative ‘normal quotient method’, established a new paradigm for working with symmetric graphs and exploited the simple group classiﬁcation.

Professor Praeger demonstrates an extraordinary ability to foster and inspire others, supporting women, advocating for mathematics in schools, and promoting mathematics in emerging economies.

More information on the Ruby Payne-Scott Medal and Lecture, and how to nominate

Career honorifics

2021 David Craig Medal and Lecture

Professor Thomas Maschmeyer FAA FTSE, University of Sydney

Professor Thomas Maschmeyer’s research vision is driven by a strong desire to help address the many urgent physical challenges we face due to climate change and global resource limitations in combination with a growing world population. In this context, he sees catalysis as a key science and technology and has made seminal contributions to catalytic research that have transformed how we design, interrogate (under operating conditions) and use catalysts in (petro) chemical processing as well as photo- and electrocatalysis.

His work has led to fundamental breakthroughs in catalytic materials, in-situ characterisation, green chemistry, hydrothermal processing, ionic liquids and energy materials.

He has translated many of his successes from his laboratory to scale, with his inventions adopted in various industry sectors globally, to enable a circular economy, including (petro) chemical re-processing of (plastic) waste, utilisation of renewable chemicals and energy storage through his emerging battery technology.

More information on the David Craig Medal and Lecture, and how to nominate

2021 Hannan Medal

Professor Mathai Varghese FAA, Adelaide University

Professor Mathai Varghese has made highly influential contributions to the field of geometric analysis, which relates geometric, analytic and algebraic properties of (possibly infinite dimensional) manifolds. Among these are his co-inventions of Fractional Index Theory and Projective Index Theory that have received international recognition for explaining the mystery of the analytic counterpart of the A-hat genus. His recent joint work extending the Fractional Index Theorem to infinite dimensional loop spaces is also of immense significance.

His joint body of work proves the conjecture that fundamental quantization commutes with reduction in the noncompact case. Also seminal is his joint work on twisted analytic torsion, where an analogue of the Cheeger-Muller theorem is proved, establishing the equality by using a new combinatorially-defined twisted torsion. A catalyst for much activity in the area is his joint work formulating the magnetic gap-labelling conjecture, which labels the spectral gaps of certain magnetic Schroedinger operators on Euclidean space. Evidence for the validity of the conjecture is given in 2D, 3D and for principal solenoidal tori in all dimensions, which is itself a breakthrough.

More information on the Hannan Medal, and how to nominate

2021 Jaeger Medal

Professor John Church FAA FTSE, UNSW Sydney

Professor John Church is one of Australia’s leading oceanographers whose theoretical and observational work on the dynamics of the oceans has led to a deep understanding of the physics of recent sea-level change, both globally and for the Australia–Pacific region. He has played a leading role in establishing a consistent and robust record of sea level change—integrating the traditional tide gauge records with satellite radar altimetry data; identifying its temporal as well as regional variability; developing a deep understanding of the processes driving this change; and providing quantitative projections of future change under different climate scenarios that he has been able to observationally test. His work has contributed to the assessments of the science of climate change by the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change and to the World Climate Research Program, and in the public debate on the evidence and underlying science of climate change.

More information on the Jaeger Medal, and how to nominate

2021 Inaugural Suzanne Cory Medal

Professor John Endler FAA FRS, Deakin University

Professor John Endler is a world leading evolutionary biologist. His research explores the interplay between ecological, behavioural and genetic factors, and how they affect geographic variation and the process of natural selection in natural populations. His contributions are wide ranging and seminal. His scholarly books on how geographical variation can develop despite movement between habitats and his hypothesis of Sensory Drive are classics. The latter proposes that the environment sets the direction of the combined evolution of senses and signals, as well as mate and microhabitat choice behaviour. He pioneered this new interdisciplinary field of sensory ecology. Professor Endler has worked with a variety of species, notably wild guppies and bowerbirds, and topics from population genetics and evolution through behavioural ecology and visual physiology. He defined the properties of bird and other animal eyes to understand visual perception and visual illusions and the importance of colour perception in mating success and sexual selection.

More information on the Suzanne Cory Medal, and how to nominate

Professor Susanne von Caemmerer FAA FRS, Australian National University

Professor von Caemmerer is the pre-eminent authority on modelling metabolic, physiological, structural and environmental aspects underpinning photosynthetic CO₂ fixation in plant leaves. She changed the way we think about photosynthesis and gas exchange in leaves and remains at the forefront of this research. Her ability to combine mathematical modelling with experimental approaches and her progressive exploitation of ever more powerful molecular engineering methods throughout an outstanding career have refined and deepened our understanding of biochemical, physiological and environmental limitations to photosynthesis. Her research from leaf chloroplasts to global models of plant production aimed at enhancing photosynthetic rates in crop plants to increase their yields and adapt to climate change is now applied world-wide.

More information on the Suzanne Cory Medal, and how to nominate

2021 Thomas Ranken Lyle Medal

Professor David McClelland FAA, Australian National University

Gravitational waves were predicted by Einstein’s general theory of relativity more than 100 years ago. After 40 years of sustained experimentation, on 14 September 2015, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) detected the death spiral of two stellar-mass black holes as the gravitational waves they emitted almost a billion years ago passed through two detectors in the US. Remarkably, the wave moved the mirrors in the 4 km-long detectors by a fractional amount equivalent to 1/1000th of the width of a proton, in so doing verifying one of the most challenging predictions of Einstein’s General Relativity.

Professor David McClelland carried major responsibility as the lead Australian investigator in LIGO and has made major contributions to this famous detector including work on ‘quantum enhancement’ which increased the observable volume of the Universe significantly.

More information on the Thomas Ranken Lyle Medal and Lecture, and how to nominate

Mid-career honorifics

2021 Jacques Miller Medal

Professor Mark Dawson, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre

Professor Dawson is a clinician-scientist whose research spans the breadth of basic discovery science to translational medicine and clinical trials. He is internationally renowned as a leader in epigenetics, which is the study of the processes that regulate access to the cell’s DNA template for gene expression, DNA repair or DNA replication. Epigenetic processes are conserved in all animals and plants and underpin normal development, tissue regeneration and ageing. When these processes are corrupted by DNA mutations, diseases such as cancer result. Professor Dawson’s ground-breaking research has provided several novel first-in-class cancer therapies which he has taken from laboratory discovery through to clinical application by leading several international clinical trials as Principal Investigator.

More information on the Jacques Miller Medal, and how to nominate

Associate Professor Michele Teng, QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute

Associate Professor Teng’s research aims to harness the immune system to fight cancer. Her group performed the first preclinical experiments demonstrating that scheduling of immunotherapy before surgery to remove a tumour (called neoadjuvant immunotherapy) was much more effective in eradicating metastatic disease, compared to giving immunotherapy (called adjuvant immunotherapy) after surgery. This seminal finding served as the rationale to set up new comparative trials of neoadjuvant and adjuvant immunotherapy in many human cancer types. Recent neoadjuvant clinical trials of various cancers have verified the translatability of her research.

More information on the Jacques Miller Medal, and how to nominate

2021 Nancy Millis Medal

Professor Angela Moles, UNSW Sydney

Professor Moles’ research is to understand the different strategies that plants have evolved to grow in ecosystems ranging from tropical rainforests to arctic tundra. She was the first to quantify global scale patterns in vital plant traits such as plant height, seed size and defences against herbivores. Her work has also revealed how quickly introduced plant species evolve when they are introduced to a new range with different environmental conditions. One such plant has changed so much since being introduced to Australia in the 1930s that it is becoming a new, reproductively isolated species. She is currently applying her understanding of the ways that environmental conditions shape plant ecological strategies to help understand the likely effects of climate change on Australian ecosystems.

Professor Moles is nationally and internationally regarded as a leader in global scale ecology, and is an outstanding mentor, advocate and role model for women in science.

More information on the Nancy Millis Medal, and how to nominate

Associate Professor Cathryn Trott, Curtin University

During the first billion years, the first stars and galaxies formed and died, bathing the Universe in light and evaporating the hydrogen fog that existed beforehand. By using low frequency radio telescopes, Associate Professor Trott hunts for this needle-in-a-haystack signal from the time of the first generation of stars. She has pioneered methods to observe this weak signal and separate it from all of the radio light from other galaxies that formed in the past 12 billion years. Observation of this signal requires advanced knowledge of our telescopes, and painstaking work to collect the thousand hours of clean data required to find it. Trott is a world-leader in the hunt for this exciting, important and fickle signal that will transform our understanding of the Universe.

More information on the Nancy Millis Medal, and how to nominate

Early-career honorifics

2021 Anton Hales Medal

Dr Nicolas Flament, University of Wollongong

Dr Flament works at the interface between geodynamics and geology by novel 4D mathematical modelling of flow deep in Earth’s interior. He makes significant contributions to understanding our planet by connecting the evolution of the deep Earth with the evolution of its surface. He shows Earth was largely a water world for the first half of its history with little emerged land, with important implications for the oxidation of the atmosphere and the evolution of early life. He linked the evolution of Earth’s topography, including the Australian landscape and the formation of the Great Dividing Range, to the motion of tectonic plates over Earth’s dynamic interior. He also recently used an innovative synthesis of global geodynamic models with geophysical data to show how the evolution of the deep Earth is dynamic and linked to past configurations of tectonic plates, which is of fundamental importance to understanding the evolution of our planet.

More information on the Anton Hales Medal, and how to nominate

2021 Christopher Heyde Medal

Dr Kevin Coulembier, University of Sydney

Dr Coulembier’s research is in the field of mathematics known as representation theory, which studies how abstract algebraic structures are manifested as the solutions to concrete systems of linear equations. This field retains a strong connection to its origin as the study of geometric symmetry both discrete and continuous, but more recently has developed far beyond this in tackling curved and infinite-dimensional spaces and arbitrary number systems. One of Dr Coulembier’s most important discoveries was of a way to detect the presence of the classical type of symmetry known as an affine group scheme in a more exotic setting known as a tensor category; this problem had defied the efforts of some of the world’s top mathematicians for almost thirty years. He has also solved several other important problems in infinite-dimensional representation theory, and has discovered new unified proofs of major theorems concerning the invariants of groups and supergroups.

Dr Vera Roshchina, UNSW Sydney

Dr Roshchina is an exceptional mathematician and emerging international leader in the field of non-smooth optimization. Her main interest lies in finite dimensional geometry, more specifically, open problems that originate from continuous optimization and related fields. Some significant problems of this kind are in the geometry of polytopes, for example the polynomial Hirsch and Durer conjectures, critical point problems (Fekete problem, Sendov's conjecture) and convex variational problems, such as asymmetric Newton's aerodynamic problem. Resolution of these challenges is critical for making progress with numerous applications, from engineering and economics to medical research and data analytics.

More information on the Christopher Heyde Medal, and how to nominate

2021 Dorothy Hill Medal

Dr Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick, UNSW Canberra

Dr Perkins-Kirkpatrick is a world-renowned expert on heatwaves. She has dedicated her career to studying key features of these high-impact events, including their definition, their observed trends, future changes, underpinning physical drivers, and the role of anthropogenic influence behind observed events. She has also been at the forefront of the emerging field of marine heatwaves.

More information on the Dorothy Hill Medal, and how to nominate

2021 Fenner Medal

Associate Professor Eve McDonald-Madden, University of Queensland

Associate Professor Eve McDonald-Madden aims to improve sustainable policy decisions in the face of inherent complexity in environmental problems – numerous, diverse interacting species, lack of knowledge about how systems work, the impacts of climate change and competing demands for energy, food, water, health, money and nature. The foundation of her work is to maximise the effectiveness of scarce resources while dealing with deep uncertainties. Associate Professor McDonald-Madden has pioneered new approaches to decision-making for key environmental concerns – deciding how to act under uncertainty about climate change, accounting for the reliability of predictions, evaluating the trade-offs in global land use planning to achieve sustainability goals and knowing when spending money to monitor or to learn about ecological systems is not helpful. Her work has far reaching implications for governments, NGO’s and others who manage the environment.

More information on the Fenner Medal, and how to nominate

2021 Gottschalk Medal

Associate Professor Francine Marques, Monash University

Associate Professor Marques is an emerging global leader in cardiovascular research, who has shown how more dietary fibre will improve our blood pressure and lower chances of serious disease. Uncontrolled high blood pressure, also known as hypertension, can frequently lead to cardiovascular disease, and is the main risk factor for death globally. Yet in too many cases, hypertension is a direct result of our low-fibre, high-sodium Western diet. Through a series of influential and award-winning studies, Associate Professor Marques and her team have shown how gut microbes ferment fibre to create ‘cardio-protective’ molecules, which lower blood pressure and improve heart stiffness.

These findings are important, because they mean we could treat or prevent cardiovascular disease through better diets and improved gut health.

More information on the Gottschalk Medal, and how to nominate

2021 John Booker Medal

Dr Bishakhdatta Gayen, University of Melbourne

Dr Gayen is highly recognised internationally for his cross-disciplinary research across fluid dynamics, environmental engineering and climate processes by addressing the basic physical mechanisms. His ground-breaking computer simulations of turbulent flow over ocean bottom topography have improved knowledge of the energy cascade from tidal motion to internal gravity waves and subsequent dissipation. He has provided the first turbulence-resolving simulations of the complex ice-ocean boundary layer and ablation of icesheets, leading to a new understanding of the mechanism controlling the submarine melting rates and accurate predictions for the dependence of melting rates on ocean conditions. His research also includes development of the first-ever ocean models with fully resolved turbulent convection and boundary layer processes, which provides important new insights to the role played in global ocean circulation by convection below the sea surface in polar seas.

More information on the John Booker Medal, and how to nominate

2021 Le Fèvre Medal

Associate Professor Debbie Silvester-Dean, Curtin University

Associate Professor Debbie Silvester-Dean is a global leader in the field of room temperature ionic liquids (RTILs), a new class of salt-like materials that are liquid at unusually low temperatures. Her research is focussed on their application as superior electrolytes in electrochemical reactions. Specifically, she has developed robust gelled sensor materials containing ionic liquids to detect toxic gases and explosives. These overcome the drawbacks of liquid-based electrolytes and will soon be tested in vehicles used in the WA mining industry. The sensors make people safer at home and work and can be used in various applications, including fumigation, refuelling, exhaust monitoring, and entering confined spaces. Associate Professor Silvester-Dean studies the fundamental behaviour of dissolved materials in RTILs. The results are used worldwide to understand electrochemical reactions, mechanisms, kinetics, and gas behaviour. They inform designs for batteries, capacitors, and transistors, as well providing smart materials for miniaturised, low-cost, high-performing sensors.

More information on the Le Fèvre Medal, and how to nominate

2021 Moran Medal

Professor Christopher Drovandi, Queensland University of Technology

Almost every field of science requires sophisticated data analysis, and this in turn requires increasingly sophisticated methods for intelligent data collection and efficient computation. Professor Drovandi's research contributes substantively to both of these areas. He has created new methods for optimal design of experiments that facilitate more cost-effective, data-substantiated decision-making. His innovative research into synthetic likelihood estimation have freed traditional constraints of likelihood-based statistical modelling and computation. His application of these methods to diverse problems in computational biology and exercise science have generated new insights for scientists and managers in these fields.

Dr Janice Scealy, Australian National University

Dr Scealy’s research focuses predominantly on developing new statistical analysis methods for data with complicated constraints including compositional data (vectors of proportions which sum to one), spherical data, directional data and manifold-valued data defined on more general curved surfaces. Her work has led to important new insights in a diverse range of applications. Her new flexible compositional model was applied to predict the proportions of total weekly expenditure on food and housing costs in Australia. Janice used a manifold data transformation to help identify geochemical processes acting on the surface of the Australian crust. She has developed multiple new statistical techniques for analysing noisy paleomagnetic datasets and her methods have led to improvements in uncertainty measurements of Earth’s magnetic field.

More information on the Moran Medal, and how to nominate

2021 Pawsey Medal

Associate Professor Xiaojing Hao, UNSW Sydney

Associate Professor Xiaojing Hao, is a world leader in next-generation kesterite photovoltaics; utilising green (earthabundant, environmentally-friendly) thin-film semiconductor materials to harvest sunlight.

Over the past four years she has led her group in setting four world records for sulfide kesterite solar cell efficiency as confirmed by the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

Her kesterite solar cell breakthroughs represent major advances in developing high bandgap thin film solar cells that are flexible, stable, cheap and non-toxic, showing clear societal impact as photovoltaics emerge as the front-runner in supplanting fossil fuels.

More information on the Pawsey Medal, and how to nominate

2021 Ruth Stephens Gani Medal

Professor Joseph Powell, Garvan Institute

An individual’s chance of developing a disease or health condition is due to differences in their DNA. These differences mean that some people develop diseases such as diabetes, while other do not. Professor Powell’s research is focused on understanding how these differences in DNA act at the level of individual cells – the building blocks of the human body. Gene expression – the mechanism by which information from DNA is translated into proteins – underscores the genetic risk for most diseases. Gene expression is controlled at an individual cell level, so ideally, analysis of gene expression should be performed using single cells. Professor Powell’s research uses single cell sequencing technology to investigate why diseases arise in different cell types, and how early-stage diseases can be diagnosed and treated by targeting the specific disease driving cell populations.

More information on the Ruth Stephens Gani Medal, and how to nominate

About the honorific awards

Central to the purpose of the Academy is the recognition and support of outstanding contributions to the advancement of science. The honorific awards were established to recognise distinguished research in three categories: awards of medals and prizes to early-career scientists up to 10 years post PhD, mid-career scientists 8 to 15 years post PhD, and the prestigious career awards which are made to scientists for life-long achievement. All honorific awards offer a medal, and some offer honorariums and/or lecture tour funding.

2020 awardees

Outstanding contributions to science have been recognised by the Australian Academy of Science with 18 of Australia’s leading scientists receiving a 2020 honorific award.

2020 awardees — The Australian Academy of Science's 2020 honorific awardees

Career honorifics

2020 David Craig Medal and Lecture

Dr Graeme Moad FAA
CSIRO

Dr Graeme Moad is recognised as a world leader in the field of polymer chemistry. His achievements range from fundamental chemistry, in the areas of polymer design and synthesis, and polymerisation kinetics and mechanism, to new materials for industrial uses, nanotechnology, organic electronics and bioapplications. His research has contributed substantially to the development of new synthetic methods for the controlled synthesis of polymers with defined architecture and composition that have revolutionised the field and resulted in highly cited publications and patent applications.

2020 Haddon Forrester King Medal and Lecture

Professor Ian Campbell
Australian National University

Professor Ian Campbell is widely recognised internationally as one of the world's leading experts in ore deposit geology. After graduating from the University of Western Australia he spent three years working for Western Mining Corporation at Kambalda where he found the Juan Shoot, one of the richest nickel deposits in Western Australia. He has had a long and distinguished career in mineral exploration and research relating to the origin of magmatic sulfide deposits, particularly platinum group element (PGE) deposits, and later, porphyry copper deposits. His hypothesis for the origin of PGE deposits was initially controversial but recent experiments have confirmed its key predictions. Several of his projects have been directed at discriminating between economically mineralised and barren bodies of rocks; the outcomes of these projects have direct application in exploration.

2020 Mawson Medal and Lecture

Professor Allen Nutman
University of Wollongong

Professor Allen Nutman has made some fundamental discoveries concerning the evolution of early Earth, through numerous field campaigns in arduous conditions. He has revolutionised our understanding of Greenland geology by applying necessary, detailed geological mapping and applying necessary geochronological dating obtained through state-of-the-art geochronological techniques which he personally obtained. He is considered to be one of the leaders in the understanding of early history of Earth. Professor Nutman also made significant contributions to ancient rocks through successful international collaboration.

2020 Macfarlane Burnet Medal and Lecture

Professor Marilyn Renfree AO FAA
University of Melbourne

Australia is home to a unique assembly of mammals—the marsupials and monotremes. Professor Marilyn Renfree has pioneered modern research on their reproduction, development, evolution, conservation, molecular and comparative genomics for 40 years, demonstrating their importance for biomedical research as well as providing novel conservation and management approaches for our iconic kangaroos and koalas. Her lifetime passion for these long-neglected Australian fauna has led to pioneering discoveries and insights that challenged assumptions and opened up new areas of biomedical research internationally. Professor Renfree’s research program has advanced our understanding of embryonic development and placentation, how the development of their embryos can be suspended, and how their extraordinary lactation is controlled. Her most important contributions have been to the field of sexual differentiation, overturning established paradigms and showing how genes and hormones interact during early development, providing new understanding of what makes a male and a female mammal—leading to new clinical guidelines and making a contribution to our understanding of human sexual development as well as that of other mammals.

Mid-career honorifics

2020 Gustav Nossal Medal for Global Health

Adjunct Professor Alexandra Martiniuk
University of Sydney

Professor Alexandra Martiniuk is a leader in global research in health systems in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) and remote Indigenous communities in Australia and Canada. Alexandra uses her pioneering research to identify and deliver solutions to enable better access to primary health care for disadvantaged populations. She has shed light on inequalities and inefficiencies in models of funding between high-income countries and LMICs, enabling greater transparency and informed decision making to build stronger health systems. Her innovative approach to solving global health problems, and her ability to partner with a wide spectrum of key stakeholders and work with the people on the ground have led to policy change for lay health workers in Malawi, revised referral practices in the Solomon Islands, a new educational approach to HIV prevention in all high schools in Belize, and co-development of a large primary care program for LMICs.

2020 Nancy Millis Medal for Women in Science

Associate Professor Kate Schroder
University of Queensland

Associate Professor Kate Schroder is an international leader in the field of inflammatory biology. Her innovative work is defining the molecular and cellular processes of inflammation. The protein complexes involved in inflammation and disease are known as inflammosomes. Her research has established that inflammasome signalling is crucial in antimicrobial defence and she has established that they drive pathological inflammation in diseases. Associate Professor Schroder’s laboratory seeks to use the understanding of fundamental cellular processes to develop therapeutics for a wide range of inflammatory diseases. Small molecule inflammasome inhibitors co-invented by Associate Professor Schroder are currently under commercialisation as novel anti-inflammatory drugs.

Professor Nicole Bell
University of Melbourne

Professor Nicole Bell is an outstanding theoretical astroparticle physicist who has made significant contributions in the areas of dark matter and particle theory, matter-antimatter asymmetries and neutrino astrophysics and cosmology. Her work has helped shape the interpretation of Large Hadron Collider searches for dark matter, using physically self-consistent descriptions of dark matter interactions. She has explored the link between dark matter and matter–antimatter asymmetries and examined whether the accumulation of dark matter in old neutron stars can result in gravitational collapse to black holes. She has also used cosmology and astrophysics to constrain the properties of neutrinos and has examined whether dark matter annihilation can account for unexplained galactic gamma ray and antimatter signals.

Early career honorifics

2020 John Booker Medal

Associate Professor Britta Bienen
University of Western Australia

Associate Professor Britta Bienen’s world-leading research delivers innovative foundation solutions for the complex challenges associated with offshore oil and gas and renewable energy infrastructure. Through the development of practical predictive methods for soil-structure interaction problems, grounded in sound geotechnical science, her internationally recognised expertise translates scientific findings to significant impact in industry. Her major achievements include developing models that encapsulate foundation response in a way that is compatible with structural engineering and can be integrated into analysis software used by the majority of offshore engineers. This is critical for robust, reliable and cost-effective design of infrastructure one which the global energy supply depends. Her award-winning research on jack-up footing extraction has had marked impact in industry, enhancing safety of personnel and assets. Her contributions to this field are of major significance, have been incorporated in international industry guidelines and are of direct benefit to geotechnical practice in Australia and worldwide.

2020 Fenner Medal

Associate Professor Michael Bode
Queensland University of Technology

Associate Professor Michael Bode develops new mathematical theory and tools to better understand the Earth’s threatened ecosystems to more effectively conserve them into the future. His work has repeatedly overturned established beliefs about the best solution to common conservation problems and has used mathematical logic to convince scientists and managers to re-think conservation dogma and decision-making approaches to conservation across the world, especially of coral reef ecosystems. His marine science work has focused on developing new statistical tools to measure dispersal patterns, and new mathematical theories to understand the implications of these patterns. These new mathematical tools have given coastal marine science the first solid empirical understanding of how larval dispersal varies across space and species and have been highlighted in critical reviews of the field.

2020 Ruth Stephens Gani Medal

Associate Professor Marina Pajic
Garvan Institute of Medical Research and UNSW Sydney

Pancreatic cancer has an almost uniformly dismal outcome for patients, with only 7% surviving longer than 5 years. The survival rate has remained low for decades, highlighting the urgent need for innovative translational research into this disease. Dr Pajic and her group utilise rapidly evolving genomic technologies, innovative models of disease and patient tumour specimens to improve our understanding of how cancers develop, spread to distant sites (metastasise), and why so many of them are heavily resistant to treatment. This knowledge is used in turn to inform the design of novel, effective and personalised treatment options for pancreatic cancer, as well as other difficult-to-treat cancers, with the aim of patients getting the best treatment tailored based on the “molecular fingerprint” of their tumour.

2020 Gottschalk Medal

Associate Professor Muireann Irish
University of Sydney

Dementia is one of the most pressing concerns for our aging society. Despite significant advances in dementia research, it remains challenging to accurately screen for subtle changes in behaviour and cognition at the earliest stages of the disease.

Dr Muireann Irish’s research has systematically mapped how alterations in the brain’s grey and white matter contribute to memory dysfunction across different dementia syndromes. Her ground-breaking work has further uncovered that in parallel with loss of memory for the past, individuals with dementia have marked difficulties thinking about the future.

Dr Irish is now developing novel approaches to screen for the earliest signs of underlying brain pathology, long before overt signs of dementia emerge. Her research vision is to advance early detection and swift intervention in dementia to improve quality of life for all affected.

2020 Anton Hales Medal

Dr Jan Zika
University of UNSW Sydney

Dr Jan Zika is an outstanding young physical oceanographer with a clear view of the role and importance of the ocean in the global climate system. He’s revolutionised the quantitative approach to determining the ocean’s circulation and mixing by reformulating the problem in water mass properties (rather than in fixed geographical coordinates). This resulted in improved understanding and more accurate estimates of the ocean’s storage and transport of heat and freshwater.

Dr Zika’s ideas have found direct application in understanding changes in global-scale atmospheric processes and in using ocean observations to more accurately quantify increases in the global hydrological cycle. The combination of Dr Zika’s deep insight, record of innovation, leadership and collegial approach is being recognised globally.

2020 Christopher Heyde Medal

Professor Ryan Loxton
Curtin University

Professor Ryan Loxton is pioneering new mathematical algorithms for optimising complex systems in a wide range of applications such as mining, robotics, agriculture, and industrial process control. Such systems are typically of enormous scale in practice, with hundreds of thousands of inter-related variables and constraints, multiple conflicting objectives, and numerous candidate solutions that can easily exceed the total number of atoms in the solar system, overwhelming even the fastest computers.

Professor Loxton’s research provides new mathematical advances for overcoming this complexity and deriving fast algorithms for real-world use. He has collaborated with many companies with his work leading to innovative mathematical techniques for solving real-world problems such as providing algorithms for an award-winning Quantum technology platform that optimises the sequence and timing of maintenance activities in mine plant shutdowns.

Dr Jennifer Flegg
University of Melbourne

Drug resistance is a growing issue for malaria control. Dr Jennifer Flegg develops predictive statistical models in space and time for the level of drug resistance. These predictive models fill in the gaps where no information is available on drug resistance and have been used by health agencies to develop new polices about where and when certain drugs are appropriate to use.

Dr Flegg also develops mathematical models to describe and help understand the ways that cells and chemicals interact with each other during the healing of a skin wound. By building models that simulate the successful healing of a wound, she provides biological insight into the underlying healing mechanisms. In the case when a wound would not heal without intervention, she uses her models to predict how treatments can help the wound to heal.

2020 Dorothy Hill Medal

Dr Rebecca Carey
University of Tasmania

Dr Rebecca Carey is internationally recognised for her research in volcanology. She has contributed significantly to the understanding of eruption and hydrothermal processes on land and on the sea-floor. Her achievements in the field of submarine silicic volcanism include demonstration of the influence of confining pressure provided by overlying ocean in modifying the style of volcanic eruption on the seafloor, and pioneering quantification of volatile fluxes through the magma into the surrounding seafloor. Parallel work on basaltic volcanism has identified a previously unrecognised mechanism for explosive basaltic eruptions involving volatile supersaturation, bubble nucleation and explosive fragmentation, triggered by a compression-decompression wave within a shallow magma conduit, and the first quantification of the duration of magma convection using the microtextures of erupted clasts.

2020 Pawsey Medal

Associate Professor Adam Deller
Swinburne University of Technology

Associate Professor Deller uses high angular resolution radio imaging to study neutron stars and black holes, the most compact objects in the Universe. To do so, he has developed new instrumentation capable of jointly processing signals from radio antennas spread across the Earth and even on orbiting satellites, which has been adopted by major astronomical facilities world-wide.

His own usage of these facilities has led to breakthroughs including a time-lapse movie of the high-speed material launched by merging neutron stars in a galaxy 125 million light years away, which determined the orientation of the system first detected via the burst of gravitational waves emitted when they merged. Closer to home, he has pinpointed the location of neutron stars within the Milky Way galaxy with unprecedented precision, using radio observations so precise they could discern motion no greater than the width of a human hair at a distance of 2,000 km.

2020 Frederick White Medal

Professor Madhu Bhaskaran
RMIT University

Professor Madhu Bhaskaran is transforming how we imagine, use, and interact with electronic devices. Professor Bhaskaran’s signature advance is in the field of stretchable electronics where she has developed techniques to stretch devices to an unprecedented level – allowing them to be worn on the skin. This has realised a range of visionary applications, such as skin-worn sensors that alert miners to dangerous gas levels, or warn civilians about harmful UV levels. Professor Bhaskaran is currently working with industry partners to bring these sensors out from the laboratory into everyday life. These are in the form of sensors in bedding products for aged care which would non-invasively track presence and biometrics of aged people during night.

2020 Le Févre Medal

Associate Professor Ivan Kassal
University of Sydney

Associate Professor Ivan Kassal develops new theoretical and computational tools for simulating the dynamics of complex chemical systems, especially those where quantum effects make conventional calculations difficult and time consuming. He has designed algorithms that would allow future quantum computers to dramatically accelerate the simulation of chemical processes, as well as designing quantum simulators, purpose-built devices for solving particular difficult problems. His methods have been widely used and implemented experimentally, contributing to chemistry and materials science being recognised as the likely first applications of quantum computers. He has also studied the transport of energy and charge in disordered materials that lie at the boundary between quantum and classical behaviour, making them difficult to describe. Associate Professor Kassal’s contributions have included explaining quantum effects in light harvesting (and how to engineer them to improve performance), discovering significant quantum effects in photosynthesis, and clarifying fundamental mechanisms of how organic solar cells operate.

About the honorific awards

Central to the purpose of the Academy is the recognition and support of outstanding contributions to the advancement of science.

2019 awardees

Outstanding contributions to science have been recognised by the Australian Academy of Science with 20 of Australia’s leading scientists receiving a 2019 honorific award.

2019 awardees — The Australian Academy of Science's 2019 honorific awardees

Anton Hales Medal—Professor Isaac Santos
Christopher Heyde Medal—Professor Geordie Williamson FAA FRS
Dorothy Hill Medal—Dr Laurie Menviel
Fenner Medal—Dr Daniel Falster
Gottschalk Medal—Associate Professor Laura Mackay
John Booker Medal—Professor Changbin Yu
John Booker Medal—Associate Professor Anna Giacomini
Le Fèvre Medal—Associate Professor Elizabeth New
Le Fèvre Medal—Dr Lars Goerigk
Moran Medal—Dr Kim-Anh Lê Cao
Moran Medal—Associate Professor Stephen Leslie
Pawsey Medal—Professor Steven Flammia
Ruth Stephens Gani Medal—Dr Justin Wong

Career honorifics

2019 David Craig Medal and Lecture

Professor Peter Gill FAA, Australian National University

Professor Gill has made both fundamental and applied contributions to the progress of quantum chemistry. His models for three-electron bonding and dication dissociation have been widely adopted by experimentalists. His developments in efficient two-electron integral algorithms, perturbation analysis, linear-scaling methodology, DFT functionals, the theory of excited states, and Coulomb-splitting techniques have all become mainstream tools in his community and, by implementing many of his ideas within his Q-Chem software package, he has ensured that his advances are rapidly translated to other areas of computational science, including pharmaceutical research and the design of new materials. His recent insights into electron correlation and the nature of the uniform electron gas are changing the underlying paradigms of density functional theory (DFT).

More information on the David Craig Medal and Lecture, and how to nominate

2019 Hannan Medal

Professor Alan Welsh FAA, Australian National University

Professor Welsh has developed useful new methodology, derived the properties of these and other methods and clarified relationships between different statistical methods, all in a particularly wide variety of problems. He has developed innovative new models for count data with many zeros and compositional data, including for longitudinal and clustered forms of these data. He has made important contributions to inference, robustness, the bootstrap and model selection for mixed models. His research on applications of smoothing methods to clustered data demonstrated that remarkable improvements can be achieved by taking proper and careful account of the dependence structure when constructing a smoother. Professor Welsh contributed to resolving how to do maximum likelihood estimation for sample survey data and, in ecological survey analysis, he made especially important contributions to distance sampling and occupancy modelling. All this work, and more, has the characteristic of theoretical depth combined with substantial practical relevance.

More information on the Hannan Medal, and how to nominate

2019 Jaeger Medal

Professor Dietmar Müller FAA, University of Sydney

Professor Müller is internationally renowned for leading the construction of a Virtual Earth Laboratory to ‘see’ deep into Earth in four dimensions (space and time). This laboratory draws together custom software, workflows and data to produce open-access models of Earth’s dynamic history. It has been accessed by users from 183 countries and many disciplines. Novel applications led by Professor Müller include the development of a deep-time global sea level model and combined geodynamic, tectonic and surface topography models unravelling the origins and history of continental landscapes, environments and sedimentary basins. He showed how the uplift of the eastern Australian highlands is dominated by dynamic topography due to plate–mantle interaction. He recently developed an innovative approach for understanding the deep oceanic carbon cycle by showing how variations in ocean bottom water temperature and tectonic cycles drive fluctuations in seafloor weathering, crustal CO₂ storage and atmospheric CO₂ content.

More information on the Jaeger Medal, and how to nominate

2019 Matthew Flinders Medal and Lecture

Dr Richard Manchester FAA, CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science

Dr Richard Manchester is a world leader in pulsar research. Pulsars are rapidly spinning neutron stars with beams that sweep past Earth forming regular pulses of radio emission. These regular pulses can be used to investigate a wide range of astrophysical phenomena, including tests of Einstein's general theory of relativity, to search for gravitational waves from super-massive binary black holes in the early universe, to probe magnetic fields in our galaxy, and to explore the properties of supernova explosions. He has led the teams that have discovered more than half of all known pulsars, mainly using the CSIRO Parkes radio telescope, and used them to explore the universe around us. Among the pulsars they have discovered is the only known double pulsar which has given the best confirmation so far that Einstein’s General Relativity gives an accurate description of gravitational interactions in strong-field conditions.

More information on the Matthew Flinders Medal and Lecture, and how to nominate

2019 Thomas Ranken Lyle Medal

Professor Chennupati Jagadish AC FAA FTSE, Australian National University

Professor Jagadish has made pioneering contributions to semiconductor physics in particular materials physics and optical physics. He has developed semiconductor growth, processing and characterisation techniques to achieve many world firsts in terms of innovative optoelectronic devices such as semiconductor lasers, infrared and terahertz detectors based on quantum wells, quantum dots and nanowires. He has developed quantum well and quantum dot atomic intermixing techniques to develop integrated optoelectronics devices being used in industry. His work has led to the development of innovative optoelectronic and nanophotonic devices used in optical communication systems, biomedical imaging, defence and security applications. He has trained a large number of PhD students and early-career researchers and they are in leading positions in industry and academia.

More information on the Thomas Ranken Lyle Medal and Lecture, and how to nominate

Mid-career honorifics

2019 Jacques Miller Medal for experimental biomedicine

Professor Nicholas Huntington, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research and Monash University

Using cutting-edge screens whereby each gene of the genome is deleted individually in white blood cells, Professor Huntington established that the gene Cish impaired white blood cells from responding to the growth factor, IL-15. By deleting Cish in NK cells, his team made a breakthrough discovery that Cish acted as a ‘checkpoint’ or switch that shutdown the ability of NK cells to become activated and kill cancer cells. As such, ablation of this gene in pre-clinical models prevented melanoma, breast, prostate and lung cancer metastases from developing and reduced the onset and growth of solid tumours including sarcomas, breast and colon cancer. The discovery’s breakthrough status was sealed when inhibiting Cish function alone was more effective than the current gold-standard immunotherapies that have revolutionised cancer outcomes.

More information on the Jacques Miller Medal, and how to nominate

2019 Nancy Millis Medal for Women in Science

Professor Jacqueline Batley, University of Western Australia

Professor Batley has made major contributions to our understanding of the genetics and genomics of crops including canola (Brassica napus), a major source of edible oil. Her DNA markers have been critically important in the mapping and sequencing of genomes of canola, related Brassicas such as turnip and cabbage, and other crops including wheat, peas and lentils. In addition, she has developed new ways of looking at how pathogens interact genetically with crop plants. In these ways she has played a key role in pioneering biotechnological methods that are now being exploited by plant breeders worldwide. Examples of some successful commercial applications in canola include improvements in oil quality, reduced shattering of seed pods, and breeding for increased resistance to blackleg fungus infection. Her motivation to improve world food security and rural economies is being rewarded through such applications.

More information on the Nancy Millis Medal, and how to nominate

Early-career honorifics

2019 Anton Hales Medal

Professor Isaac Santos, Southern Cross University

Professor Santos works at the interface between coastal oceanography, hydrology and geochemistry. He is a world leader in groundwater-surface water connectivity research, and has developed innovative analytical approaches that put him at the forefront of the field. He has created disciplinary bridges to reveal that submarine groundwater discharge is a major hidden water pathway driving water quality and significant carbon fluxes in iconic Australian estuaries, mangroves, beaches, and coral reefs. His research linked water worlds that are often investigated separately but require integration for optimal management. His influential contributions and extensive engagement with research end users have real world applications, resulting in more effective management of coastal water quality. Isaac is not only a highly regarded Earth scientist, but also an outstanding mentor of students and a candid advocate on environmental issues of major public interest including water quality, carbon sequestration and draining of wetlands.

More information on the Anton Hales Medal, and how to nominate

2019 Christopher Heyde Medal

Professor Geordie Williamson FAA FRS, University of Sydney

Professor Williamson is a world leader in the field of geometric representation theory. Among his many breakthrough contributions are his proof, together with Ben Elias, of Soergel's conjecture—resulting in a proof of the Kazhdan-Lusztig positivity conjecture from 1979; his entirely unexpected discovery of counter-examples to the Lusztig and James conjectures; and his new algebraic proof of the Jantzen conjectures.

More information on the Christopher Heyde Medal, and how to nominate

2019 Dorothy Hill Medal

Dr Laurie Menviel, UNSW Sydney

Dr Menviel is an exceptional early career researcher who has made major contributions to our understanding of the oceanic circulation, its variability and its impact on global climate, the carbon cycle and the cryosphere. Widely considered as a leader in our understanding of abrupt climate change, Dr Menviel has made a series of ground-breaking discoveries in several topical areas of earth science: detecting past changes in oceanic circulation; understanding the role of ocean circulation in past and future abrupt climate change; evaluation of the impact of changes in oceanic circulation on the carbon cycle; and constraining the stability and variability of the Antarctic ice sheet.

More information on the Dorothy Hill Medal, and how to nominate

2019 Fenner Medal

Dr Daniel Falster, UNSW Sydney

Walking through any forest, one is struck by the variety of plant forms coexisting. Given that all plants compete for the same basic resources, why is there not a single winner? Through explicit modelling of community assembly, driven by physiological trade-offs and competition for light, Falster’s work shows how particular trade-offs in the functioning of leaves and allocation of energy to reproduction enable distinct species to coexist, even while competing for a single resource. Combining multiple trade-offs predicts correctly the proliferation of shade-tolerant species and enables forests of considerably greater diversity than was previously thought possible. By adding selection into vegetation models, Dr Falster is pioneering a framework that makes first-principles predictions for the combination of traits favoured under any given environment. Combined with the large-scale datasets he has compiled, this work promises to transform community ecology into a predictive and data-oriented science, underpinning effective ecosystem management and restoration.

More information on the Fenner Medal, and how to nominate

2019 Gottschalk Medal

Associate Professor Laura Mackay, Doherty Institute

Associate Professor Mackay’s work contributed to identifying a subset of immune cells, called tissue-resident memory T cells, which provide front-line defence for the body against repeated infection. Her work represented a paradigm shift in thinking about T cell immunity as these tissue-resident memory T cells reside permanently within body tissues and are distinct from the blood populations that are primed in lymphoid organs. Tissue-resident T cells have been found in a variety of tissues throughout the body and Associate Professor Mackay’s ongoing work has provided a new understanding of the body’s immune defences and their role in combating infectious disease. Associate Professor Mackay’s future research is directed toward harnessing these cells to create new therapies for infectious disease, cancer, and autoimmune diseases.

More information on the Gottschalk Medal, and how to nominate

2019 John Booker Medal

Associate Professor Anna Giacomini, University of Newcastle

Associate Professor Anna Giacomini has pioneered research in rock mechanics and rockfall analysis as applied to civil and mining engineering. She is committed to innovating, promoting and improving the safety in mining environments, and along our major transport corridors, by reducing rockfall hazards. Her nationally and internationally renowned work has significantly improved safety within the Australian mining industry, where rockfalls threaten human lives, the portal structures for underground entry, and damage to machinery. Her research is also essential for the safety and stability of Australia’s major highways and railways, and in stabilising cliff faces along our highly populated coastline. Based on excellent scientific engineering methodologies, Associate Professor Giacomini has translated her findings into innovative workplace interventions to provide safer working environments in Australian mining operations, across our coastline and in major civil transport infrastructure projects.

More information on the John Booker Medal, and how to nominate

Professor Changbin Yu, Curtin University

Professor Yu is the leader of a new generation of Australian researchers in applied/engineering mathematics whose research has yielded remarkable applications in networked autonomous systems and sensors. Theories and algorithms he developed for Defence Science and Technology (DST) have enabled unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs, or drones) to fly in formations to better safeguard our borders. His co-invention with DST scientists has led to development of a direction finder that improves multiple radio signal localisation and rejection of spurious signals within a complex electromagnetic environment, which have been cited as improving the effectiveness of the ADF’s direction finding systems. His Australia-originated research now enjoys a global impact. For example in China, his UAV allows a regulatory authority to monitor pollution levels associated with factory chimneys by hovering over a chimney to sample the exhaust; this means that falsification of data from chimney-mounted sensors can be detected.

2019 Le Fèvre Medal

Associate Professor Elizabeth New, University of Sydney

An understanding of the fundamental chemistry of the body offers new insights into many of the key questions in medical research, including the location of disease-causing chemicals or drug molecules, the perturbation of chemical environments in disease, and the role of chemical signalling molecules in health. Associate Professor New's research focusses on developing chemical tools that advance the understanding of the chemistry within cells. She prepares fluorescent sensors that emit light to visualise biochemical changes in the body caused by disease, lighting up where and how the body is experiencing oxidative stress. Her principal focus is on the diseases of ageing, where she explores the action of antioxidants in countering oxidative stress, but her sensors have found application across many fields of medical research. Associate Professor New has reported ten new sensors, one that is capable of indicating the effect of copper levels in Alzheimer's disease and another shows how oxidative stress is essential in fat breakdown and even in embryonic development. She has also developed sensors that observe how cancer treatments such as cisplatin have effect within the cell.

Dr Lars Goerigk, University of Melbourne

Dr Goerigk works in the field of Density Functional Theory (DFT), a major computational chemistry technique used routinely by chemists to support experiments and predict their outcomes. Currently, DFT suffers from the large dilemma that hundreds of methods with varying accuracy exist, which makes their reliable application difficult. Dr Goerigk's work helped solving this dilemma by providing new guidelines that enabled easier and more robust computational strategies. His methods now belong to the most accurate in the field. He used them to provide chemists with new insights into the role of how interactions between molecules affect the outcome of chemical reactions. His other contributions include the development of an improved way to determine biomolecular structures, more reliable analyses of reaction mechanisms, and predictions leading to the development of novel smart technologies. Dr Goerigk's work has had substantial international impact and will influence how chemists will use DFT in the future.

More information on the Le Fèvre Medal, and how to nominate

2019 Moran Medal

Dr Kim-Anh Lê Cao, University of Melbourne

The main focus of Dr Lê Cao’s research is to develop statistical and computational methods that are applicable to high-throughput biological data arising from frontier technologies. The emergence of these new platforms is generating a vast amount of data with enormous potential to help understand the functioning of the human body in health and disease, as well as the health of animals, plants and our environment more generally. Her expertise in multivariate statistics, combined with her deep understanding of molecular biology, put her at the forefront of cutting-edge biological research. Dr Lê Cao has a track record of success in biological data analysis, in developing novel statistical methods, in implementing them in efficient software, and in disseminating the software and encouraging its uptake by the relevant research community. She plays a critical role in several local, national and international collaborative studies with researchers from diverse bioscience disciplines.

Associate Professor Stephen Leslie, University of Melbourne

Associate Professor Leslie has made major contributions to mathematical genetics. The thrust of his research is developing methods for analysing modern genetic/genomic data, focusing on understanding the role of genetics in human disease and how genetics informs studies of human population history. He applies novel approaches to genetic data to understand the history of populations and infer past migration events. Stephen’s work on the British population is a landmark in the field, impacting history, archaeology, anthropology, and linguistics. It is a blueprint for studies in other populations and a benchmark for understanding natural genetic variation in human populations, crucial for disease studies. In other work he has revolutionised the study of immune-system genes, particularly those crucial to the body’s mechanism for detecting ‘self’ (one’s own tissues) from ‘non-self’ (such as viruses and bacteria), by enabling these genes to be included in large studies for the first time. This work has led to important discoveries associating these genes to serious diseases.

More information on the Moran Medal, and how to nominate

2019 Pawsey Medal

Professor Steven Flammia, University of Sydney

Quantum information science (QIS), a field born at the interface between physics and computation, has impacted all areas of physics. Increasingly it is impacting technology. By marrying the classical theory of compressed sensing with quantum tomography, Professor Flammia’s work has succeeded in drastically reducing the number of measurements required to learn the types of quantum states and processes commonly found in laboratory experiments aimed at building scalable quantum computers. This work was significant as, firstly, it has had a real practical impact, with numerous experiments already performed that show the advantages of the new approach, and secondly, the methods introduced have had an impact beyond physics back to the original machine learning community where the idea of compressed sensing originated. Professor Flammia’s work has impacted both theory and experimental practice in the field, with direct impact on Australian efforts in quantum technology.

More information on the Pawsey Medal, and how to nominate

2019 Ruth Stephens Gani Medal

Dr Justin Wong, Centenary Institute of Cancer Medicine and Cell Biology

Our DNA stores genetic information akin to an encyclopedia, and genes are the paragraphs. Like paragraphs, which are separated by spaces, our genes also contain spacer sequences known scientifically as introns. All of these features are important to ensure that messages are conveyed accurately in our cells. Dr Wong has made a significant discovery that the natural accurate positioning of spacers is important to control how genes are turned on or off. He has also discovered that a ‘punctuation mark’ called DNA methylation can instruct the accurate usage of spacer sequences. When these punctuation marks are applied, the spacer sequences are used to control what information is ‘whited out’, that is, which genes to turn off. The work by Dr Wong uncovers a novel way to control gene expression with vast therapeutic potential for cancers and other genetic diseases.

More information on the Ruth Stephens Gani Medal, and how to nominate

About the honorific awards

2018 awardees

Outstanding contributions to science have been recognised by the Australian Academy of Science with eighteen of Australia’s leading scientists receiving a 2018 honorific award.

Career honorifics

2018 David Craig Medal

Professor Douglas MacFarlane FAA FTSE

School of Chemistry
Monash University

Professor Doug MacFarlane’s research has focused on the discovery and development of novel liquid salt compounds that offer unique properties as media and solvents for a wide range of applications. Research into these ‘ionic liquids’ has experienced major expansion over the last 25 years. The discoveries of Professor MacFarlane’s group have contributed to the study and use of ionic liquids, helping to establish the area as a major field of chemistry. His group has explored application of ionic liquids in sustainable energy technologies, producing major advances in energy storage in advanced batteries, as chemical energy storage as hydrogen and ammonia, and as thermal energy storage materials for domestic use. The intellectual property arising from some of these developments has been spun out into several start-up companies. His group has also pioneered the use of biocompatible families of these liquid salts as media for therapeutic proteins and as novel pharmaceuticals. These developments have opened up new treatment modalities, including as a topical treatment for skin cancer.

2018 Haddon Forrester King Medal and Lecture

Professor David Cooke

ARC Centre of Excellence in Ore Deposits
University of Tasmania

Professor David Cooke’s main research theme is the geological, chemical and fluid processes that produce the world’s major copper-gold deposits, known as ‘porphyry copper deposits’. His recent research has focused on documenting changes in the chemistry of minerals surrounding these magmatic copper-gold deposits. Particular minerals retain trace elements in relative abundances which vary in patterns set by the temperature gradient and wall-rock compositions. Systematic, rapid sampling of a prospective area can define mineral chemical vector techniques that companies can employ to assist targeting of drill holes designed to discover deeply buried deposits. The importance of this work has been recognised by many companies that now employ the techniques as a routine procedure in exploration for magmatic copper–gold deposits. His other significant contribution has been the mentoring of a large number of PhD students who have gone on to fill important geoscience roles in many mineral exploration companies worldwide.

2018 Mawson Medal and Lecture

Professor Matt King

School of Land and Food
University of Tasmania

Professor Matt King has made seminal contributions to the understanding of the function and threat posed by the two great ice sheets, Greenland and Antarctica. With a commitment to meticulous field measurements, his research has opened new arenas of research and changed thinking on the timescales over which ice sheets and solid Earth beneath them are responding to external forces. He has made international contributions to at least three major areas of polar research: demonstration of the great sensitivity of the ice sheets to small changes in forces acting upon them; the first agreed estimate of the contribution of the Antarctic Ice Sheet to sea level change; and a dramatic revision to the understanding of the timescale of interactions between the Antarctic Ice Sheet and solid Earth beneath it. His work has had substantial influence on international practice, conventions and climate change assessments.

2018 Ian Wark Medal and Lecture

Professor Calum John Drummond FTSE

Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research and Innovation
RMIT University

Professor Calum Drummond has made outstanding contributions to advancing the fundamental understanding of the key factors governing molecular assembly, and particle and surface interactions in liquids. A hallmark of his research has been the use of sophisticated high-throughput preparation and characterisation techniques to fast track the creation of materials, and the determination of the structure and properties of materials, at the nanoscale. This fundamental research in chemistry has enabled the development and commercialisation of advanced high-performance materials for economic and societal benefit. The materials have been applied in diverse areas including energy storage, medical therapy and diagnosis, household consumer and industrial large-scale uses.

2018 Macfarlane Burnet Medal and Lecture

Professor Geoffrey Burnstock FAA FRS

Autonomic Neuroscience Centre
University College London
and
Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics
Melbourne University

Professor Geoffrey Burnstock is internationally recognised for the discovery of purinergic neurotransmission, a novel signalling system between cells that is of central importance for many biological processes. His 1976 discovery challenged established concepts of the biology of cell messengers and neurotransmission. More recently, he has focused on a cell communication process that takes place in metabolism known as purinergic signalling. This research has had an impact on the understanding of pain mechanisms, bone formation and skin and bladder cancer and kidney disease. He continues to be an inspiration for many and his vision and creativity have enabled and driven the research of a very large number of laboratories around the world. He has had a very large impact on this field by his initial discovery and its elaboration, involving challenge to Dale’s principle of ‘One nerve terminal—one transmitter’.

Mid career honorifics

2018 Gustav Nossal Medal for Global Health

Professor Anushka Patel

George Institute for Global Health
University of New South Wales Sydney

Professor Anushka Patel, Chief Scientist at The George Institute for Global Health,is an international leader in our understanding of cardiovascular disease management in global populations. With her focus on low‐ and middle‐income countries, she has not only made ground‐breaking research discoveries that have overturned conventional thinking about cardiovascular disease risk factor management, she has also made a significant impact on disruptive low‐cost strategies to deliver effective care. As one of the few clinician scientists globally working in this area, Professor Patel’s work is inspired by the epidemic of chronic non‐communicable diseases affecting populations around the world, but particularly disadvantaged groups in Asia.

2018 Jacques Miller Medal for experimental biomedicine

Professor Killugudi Swaminathan Iyer

School of Molecular Sciences
The University of Western Australia

Professor Swaminathan Iyer in the School of Molecular Sciences at the University of Western Australia, leads an internationally recognised research program in the field of bionanotechnology. His transdisciplinary research program focuses on integrating fundamental concepts of cell and molecular biology with bioengineering to develop innovative nanoformulations that are designed for the treatment of currently untreatable medical emergencies like traumatic brain injuries, cardiovascular diseases, placental disorders in pregnancy and cancers (breast, cervical, colorectal). The nanoformulations developed by Iyer’s research group are able to track the localisation of the drug and pathological process simultaneously during treatment: a single procedure potentially leads to both diagnosis and therapy in one hit. The ultimate goal of his research is to enable an overall increase in quality and length of life for patients, through informed decisions about timing, dosage, drug choice, and treatment strategies for personalised medicine, with improved efficacy and lower off-target toxicity.

2018 Nancy Millis Medal for Women in Science

Dr Marie-Liesse Asselin-Labat

Stem Cells and Cancer Division
The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research

Dr Marie-Liesse Asselin-Labat is internationally recognised as a leading researcher in cancer biology, tissue-specific stem cells and development and is emerging as one of Australia’s young leaders in medical research in the lung stem cell and cancer research field. Using multiple strategies combining genetic approaches as well as computational studies, her team has demonstrated that some lung cell types are efficient in repairing their DNA following exposure to DNA damaging agents while others are not so proficient. These results provide novel insights into the pathogenesis of lung diseases such as lung cancer and emphysema. She also identified key regulators of basal stem cell production in the embryonic lung. Her work sheds lights on the molecular events that are critical in normal lung formation and maintenance that may be altered in lung disorders and impacts therapeutic applications.

Early career honorifics

2018 John Booker Medal

Associate Professor Shanyong Wang

School of Engineering
University of Newcastle

Associate Professor Shanyong Wang’s research focuses on the development of novel computer codes and advanced engineering testing, and his expertise actively bridges the gap between academia and industrial practice. His major achievements include developing an innovative, flexible, cost-effective and environmentally friendly technique of dynamic compaction grouting (DCG), and an efficient soil nailing system for enhancing its pull-out resistance for soil improvement. He also developed a new 3D finite element code which features advanced methods to model the failure mechanism of geomaterials. These achievements have been used to tackle numerous coupled multi-physics problems in untreated fill slopes, tunnels, retaining walls and other civil infrastructure. His contributions to his field are of major significance and of direct benefit to geotechnical practice in Australia and worldwide.

2018 Fenner Medal

Dr Ceridwen Fraser

Fenner School of Environment and Society
Australian National University

Dr Ceridwen Fraser’s research combines genetic with environmental and ecological data to discover the processes that drive biodiversity patterns. She has contributed extensively to our understanding of how plants and animals can travel long distances to colonise new lands, and to our knowledge of how species responded to past climate change. For example, her work has revealed evidence that, during past ice ages, many shallow-water marine species were scoured from sub-Antarctic shores by sea ice, while land-based Antarctic species sheltered near warm volcanoes. Her research has also helped us to understand how established populations can block immigrants, and how large-scale disturbances (such as earthquakes) that wipe out communities can thus create opportunities for immigration and change. Her research is grounded in assessment of how past processes have influenced contemporary biodiversity patterns, but has important implications for management of biodiversity into the future, particularly in the face of rapid environmental change.

2018 Ruth Stephens Gani Medal

Dr Irina Voineagu

School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences
University of New South Wales Sydney

Dr Irina Voineagu's research has made significant contributions to the genetics of neurodevelopmental disorders, including work on molecular mechanisms of DNA instability, autism genomics and transcriptomics. Among her many research achievements to date, she has elucidated the role of DNA repeat expansions in neurodevelopmental disorders as well as identified a novel syndrome of intellectual disability caused by mutations in the CCDC22 gene. Most notably, in the first landmark large-scale transcriptome study of autistic brain, Dr Voineagu identified networks of genes that showed altered expression in autistic brain tissue.

2018 Gottschalk Medal

Associate Professor Alex Fornito

School of Psychological Sciences
Monash University

Associate Professor Alex Fornito’s research aims to understand what the extraordinarily complex network of nerve cells connected by trillions of fibres means for human brain function, and how disruptions of brain connectivity can lead to mental illness. His innovative research combines brain imaging with techniques from psychology, psychiatry, neuroscience, genetics, physics and mathematics to map and model the brain as an interconnected system. The ultimate aim is to understand how brain network function supports behaviour and track how disruption to this process causes disease.

2018 Anton Hales Medal

Dr Rhodri Davies

The Research School of Earth Sciences
The Australian National University

Dr Rhodri Davies has made outstanding contributions to understanding solid Earth structure and evolution through the development and implementation of powerful computational tools for simulating geodynamical processes. His work builds on a multi-disciplinary base, combining a keen geological insight with a clear understanding of geophysical processes and exploitation of advances in mineral physics under conditions of high temperature and pressure. He has made fundamental contributions by testing controversial hypotheses relating to the nature of the variations in material properties in the Earth's mantle and the way in which these interact with the patterns of flow, showing that purely temperature effects can explain more of the behaviour than hitherto recognised. His recent work on intra-plate volcanism in eastern Australia and the evolution of Pacific hot-spot chains has achieved a very high profile around the world, by its innovative synthesis of careful geodynamic modelling with geophysical and geochemical input.

2018 Christopher Heyde Medal

Dr Zdravko Botev

School of Mathematics and Statistics
University of New South Wales Sydney

Dr Zdravko Botev has developed innovative methodologies that aim to understand the probability structures underlying the occurrence of high-cost, hard-to-predict events. The novel rare-event simulation algorithms he has derived have not only advanced the fields of computational statistics and applied probability, but have been applied in multiple domains, including communication and computer network design, digital watermarking, safety assessment of debris collision in space and chemical geology. His well-cited research further demonstrates the significant influence of his work in his field of applied probability, as well as applications in many areas. His work has also had significant influence in the field of computational statistics, where his methods have been used in innovative ways to develop very fast algorithms for fitting flexible, smooth models to noisy data.

2018 Dorothy Hill Medal

Associate Professor Tracy Ainsworth

School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences
University of New South Wales Sydney

Associate Professor Tracy Ainsworth’s research aims to determine the impact of environmental stress on reef-building corals, their host-microbe interactions, symbioses and disease outbreaks. Her studies on the bacterial associates of corals have led to an improved understanding of how coral diseases occur and progress. She has also identified a variety of novel intracellular bacteria that appear to play a key role in the success of corals. She has found that the same bacteria can be found within the tissues of corals in Hawaii and Australia, from the shallows to depths of over 100 metres. She has also extensively researched how increased temperatures affect coral now and will into the future. She has discovered that while small increases in sea temperatures can negatively impact the health of corals, under the right circumstances some corals appear to be able to acclimate to higher temperatures.

2018 Pawsey Medal

Dr Paul Lasky

School of Physics and Astronomy
Monash University

Dr Paul Lasky has dedicated his career to furthering our understanding of the most exotic regions of the universe. He is an active member of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration that, in 2016, transformed the very foundations of astrophysics by announcing the first detection of gravitational waves—tiny ripples in the fabric of spacetime—coming from two colliding black holes over one billion light years from Earth. He has identified new ways of studying the interiors of neutron stars using their gravitational-wave signatures, as well as new ways of testing Einstein’s theory of gravity in regions of the universe where new physics is most likely to occur—at the surfaces of black holes. He has also recruited and led an international team that provided direct, empirical measurements that deepen our understanding of the universe from when it was less than one second old.

2018 Frederick White Medal

Dr Alex Sen Gupta

School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences
The University of New South Wales Sydney

Dr Alex Sen Gupta is one of Australia’s foremost experts in large‐scale climate variability and change with a particular focus on the Southern Hemisphere ocean and atmosphere. His work spans a large array of areas and has led to a greater understanding of large‐scale climate variability and change. His world‐class research achievements have provided new insights into improving seasonal forecasts; identifying and correcting errors in modern climate models, improving climate projections, and improving our understanding of how physical changes to our oceans affect marine biology and important fisheries.

2018 Le Févre Medal

Associate Professor Amir Karton

School of Molecular Sciences
The University of Western Australia

Due to major advances in theory and high-performance supercomputer technology computational quantum chemistry has become one of the most powerful means for examining chemical processes at the molecular and atomic levels. Today computational chemistry is working hand-in-hand with experimental techniques to tackle challenging chemical problems. Associate Professor Amir Karton has played a leading role in the development of quantum chemical methods for highly accurate calculations of chemical properties such as reaction barrier heights. These methods have been thoroughly tested and demonstrate a high level of applicability over a wide range of chemical systems and their properties. Due to their unprecedented predictive capabilities, these methods have been widely used over the past decade to understand and predict chemical processes. He has applied these methods in his own research for explaining the mechanisms of challenging reactions, predicting molecular properties, and designing new molecules.

About the honorific awards

For more information on these and other Academy awards and funding schemes please visit the Academy's awards and opportunities page.

2017 awardees

Career honorifics

2017 David Craig Medal

Professor David St Clair Black AO FAA

School of Chemistry
UNSW Australia

Professor Black is recognised as one of the world's leading heterocyclic chemists, having made major contributions to organic chemistry in the general fields of heterocyclic chemistry, coordination chemistry and natural products.

His research has focused on the deliberate design and synthesis of new structural types of organic molecules and the discovery of new synthetic methodologies, especially in heterocyclic chemistry, which is the field responsible for the generation of the overwhelming majority of pharmaceutical agents and drugs in use today. While many of these new structures have a link to important natural products, especially in the area of indole chemistry, they are designed to display deliberate reactivity variations that are not found in nature.

2017 Hannan Medal

Dr Frank Robert de Hoog FTSE

CSIRO Data61

Dr de Hoog is recognised internationally as having made highly original and insightful contributions to the advancement of applied, computational and industrial mathematics, and has contributed substantially to the mathematics profession. The importance and significance of his theoretical and applied contributions, and their flow‐on contributions to the advancement of science and to improving the efficiency of industrial processes, have been recognised by various awards.

The impact of his industrial research has been exceptional in terms of the speed of implementation by industry and the subsequent contributions to Australia’s export economy.

2017 Jaeger Medal

Emeritus Professor Ross William Griffiths FAA

Research School of Earth Sciences
The Australian National University

Professor Griffiths’ influential research in fluid dynamics has focused on the fundamental physics of phenomena of importance in geophysics. He has contributed to the understanding of thermal and multi-component convection, the dynamics of rotating density-stratified flows, the instability of ocean currents, the formation and interactions of ocean eddies, and the global overturning circulation. He has influenced solid-earth geophysics through studies of convection in the Earth’s solid mantle and its interactions with the Earth’s surface, and provided dynamical insights in physical vulcanology through studies of cooling, solidifying lava flows. His contributions to oceanography, geophysics and geology have been made using careful theoretical and laboratory studies of the fluid dynamics and have involved collaboration across multiple disciplines.

2017 Matthew Flinders Medal and Lecture

Professor Barry Ninham AO FAA

Research School of Physics and Engineering
The Australian National University

Professor Ninham’s discoveries have had a revolutionary impact on the field of colloid science, a discipline that underpins chemical engineering, cell and molecular biology and nanotechnology.

He is the developer of the accepted theory of amphiphilic molecular self-assembly, a process that underlies modern materials science. It is a fundamental principle of self-assembly in nanotechnology, impacting on modern molecular-based technologies, and slow-release technology for in-vivo pharmaceutical drug- delivery. Five decades of work by Professor Ninham has revealed that the discipline of physical chemistry that informed our intuition on a myriad of processes was flawed to the extent that it failed to take account of key “ion specific effects” and dissolved atmospheric gas.

He was Founder and Head of the Applied Mathematics Department at the Australian National University (ANU) and presently works with Professor Richard Pashley and a team of graduate students at the Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA). They discovered and are implementing simple new technologies for purification of recycled water, desalination, low temperature chemical reactivity, catalysis, and removal of pollutants such as arsenic.

2017 Thomas Ranken Lyle Medal

Professor Joss Bland-Hawthorn FAA

School of Physics
University of Sydney

Professor Bland-Hawthorn has excelled in both astronomical research and cutting-edge instrumentation, helping to keep Australia at the forefront of optical astronomy over the past 25 years. His legacies include establishing two astronomical fields – galactic archaeology and near-field cosmology (with Professor Kenneth Freeman FAA FRS) and astrophotonics, resulting in awards in astronomy, optics, and photonics. His innovative contributions to astronomical technology and instrumentation have been very influential and have been widely adopted in experimental astronomy and have also been applied to other fields, such as telecommunication, food safety and the farming industry.

Mid career honorifics

2017 Gustav Nossal Medal for Global Health

Professor Barend Marais

Professor of Paediatrics and Infectious Diseases
University of Sydney
and
Deputy Director, Marie Bashir Institute for Infectious Diseases and Biosecurity
University of Sydney

Professor Marais’ research has helped to measure and characterise the Tuberculosis (TB) disease burden suffered by children, and to highlight the absence of care in places where it is needed most. His work has been acknowledged by the WHO and UNICEF, through renewed commitments to find pragmatic solutions to prevent and treat TB in children. He has also raised awareness that multidrug-resistant (MDR)-TB is actively transmitted within communities, which puts children at risk and requires urgent containment strategies. He wrote the first “survival guide” for paediatricians caring for children with MDR-TB, and contributed to global and regional initiatives to limit its spread.

2017 Jacques Miller Medal for experimental biomedicine

Professor Jian Li

Department of Microbiology
Monash University

Professor Li’s research targets multidrug-resistant bacterial ‘superbugs’. At a time of “Bad Bugs, No Drugs”, his work is of fundamental importance to global health and saves patients’ lives. He is a world-leading expert on last-line antibiotics called polymyxins. His research has generated the majority of modern polymyxin pharmacological data and the first scientifically-based dosing recommendations.

His research has significantly changed clinical practice world-wide and represents scientific excellence in an urgent global medical challenge.

2017 Nancy Millis Medal for Women in Science

Professor Kerrie Ann Wilson

Faculty of Science
The University of Queensland

Professor Kerrie Wilson has made significant discoveries in the environmental sciences that have resulted in more effective conservation practices. She identified how significant funds for conservation can be saved and investments could be more equitable through incorporating socio-economic principles into setting priorities for conservation investments. This has resulted in new theory and novel decision support tools to inform how limited conservation funds should be allocated to achieve multiple objectives, further enhancing the legacy and impact of her influential applied research program. Her research has led to innovative ways to efficiently protect and restore natural ecosystems and her ability to translate this new knowledge into practical applications has positioned her as a global, national and local leader in conservation science.

Early career honorifics

2017 Anton Hales Medal

Associate Professor Juan Carlos Afonso

Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences
Macquarie University

Associate Professor Afonso is at the forefront of revolutionising the way that geoscientists interpret the signals they obtain from deep in the Earth by geophysical methods. Up until now, each individual method was treated separately and the results were often incompatible with each other. His approach follows a long-term interdisciplinary program to develop a rigorous computational model that unifies diverse sub-disciplines of the solid earth sciences. This method irons out anomalies that may occur in the individual sub-disciplines, producing a self-consistent whole picture of the physical and chemical state deep in the Earth.

2017 Dorothy Hill Award

Dr Joanne Whittaker

Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies
University of Tasmania

Dr Whittaker has made several fundamental contributions to understanding the structure and evolution of the Earth by examining the relationships between deep and surface processes. Her work has provided a new framework for understanding the history of the planet after the breakup of supercontinent Pangaea, particularly the evolution of the ocean basins surrounding Australia.

2017 Fenner Medal

Professor Simon Ho

School of Life and Environmental Sciences
University of Sydney

Professor Ho has transformed the use of ‘molecular clocks’ in biology – a way of estimating evolutionary rates and timescales from DNA sequences using statistical models. Professor Ho’s most important and influential work has been on models of evolutionary rate variation through time. His research has critically changed the way in which biologists use molecular clocks, especially when studying the timescales of recent events in evolution and human prehistory. This has had important impacts on a broad range of studies in conservation genetics, speciation and diversification, domestication of animals and plants, and the population dynamics of pathogens.

2017 Gottschalk Medal

Associate Professor Kathryn Elizabeth Holt

Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
University of Melbourne

Associate Professor Holt’s current research tracks the evolution and spread of deadly infectious diseases and the development of antibiotic resistance in Australia and developing countries. Her in-depth studies on the evolution of specific pathogen populations use the most advanced DNA sequencing technologies that allow detailed comparisons of the genomes of hundreds of closely related isolates of the same pathogen. These have revealed how pathogens are evolving in response to exposure to antibiotics, vaccine-induced immunity, or natural host immunity. Her work has provided important advances in understanding disease transmission, control of infection and informs public health policy and practice.

2017 John Booker Medal

Distinguished Professor Dayong Jin

School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences
University of Technology Sydney

Professor Jin is a world leader in engineering time-resolved photonics devices, and luminescent nanoprobes which can up-convert low-energy infrared photons into more useful visible light for high-contrast detection. While his research opens up many opportunities in biomedical devices, early diagnosis, and light triggered nanomedicine, his nanodots can also be made into an ‘invisible ink’ to protect pharmaceuticals, medical courier supplies, passports, banknotes and more.

2017 Le Fèvre Memorial Prize

Associate Professor Deanna M. D'Alessandro

School of Chemistry
The University of Sydney

Associate Professor D'Alessandro's research is delivering new insights into an exciting area in nanoporous molecular materials, namely, their electronic and conducting properties. These fundamental advances have enormous potential as the basis of new technologies for a diverse range of applications including electrocatalysis, sensing and solar energy conversion. In addition to her work in the area of theoretical and experimental aspects of electron transfer, for which she has gained international recognition, she has played a major role in the development of new nanoporous materials for the capture and conversion of greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide. A common theme of her research has been a desire to tackle significant scientific challenges by probing fundamental chemical questions.

2017 Moran Medal

Associate Professor Joshua Ross

School of Mathematical Sciences
The University of Adelaide

Associate Professor Ross has made important and influential contributions to Applied Probability and Statistics, and through application to Conservation Biology and Public Health. His research has focused predominately on addressing problems arising in infectious disease epidemiology and conservation biology, though the methodological developments that he has provided to solve such problems are more widely applicable. These application topics are of great importance, and his contributions to these fields are significant.

2017 Pawsey Medal

Associate Professor Igor Aharonovich

School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences
University of Technology Sydney

Associate Professor Aharonovich is delivering breakthrough research that underpins next generation light-based technologies spanning energy, communications and quantum information processing. His work is original, has motivated wider research and focuses on novel single photon sources, one fundamental building block in quantum information science. He has demonstrated new materials with record-setting properties which assist the further development of quantum communication systems and their deployment in real world applications. His work contributes to one of the pressing issues in the modern era – ensuring that private information and sensitive data can be secured through unbreakable encryption.

2017 Ruth Stephens Gani Medal

Associate Professor Sarah Medland

QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute
Queensland

Associate Professor Medland is a Statistical Geneticist working on Neuroimaging genetics, Child & Adolescent Psychopathology and Women’s health. She plays a leading role and was instrumental in the formation of the ENIGMA brain imaging genetics consortium, which is currently the largest brain imaging study in the world. Her work in this area has significantly advanced our understanding of the ways that genetics influences the structure and function of the human brain.

Sarah Medland Ruth Stephens Gani Medal Winner 2017

2016 awardees

Career honorifics

2016 David Craig Medal

Professor Jeffrey Reimers FAA

School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences
University of Technology, Sydney
and
International Centre for Quantum and Molecular Structure
Shanghai University

Professor Reimers pioneered the application of the chemical quantum theory of coupled electronic and nuclear motions to large systems of biochemical and technological relevance. His work explains how during photosynthesis the protein structure manipulates the complex light-matter interaction around the ‘special-pair’ solar-to-electrical conversion apparatus to control energy harvesting. He has also developed ways of interpreting the chemical signatures manifested when single organic molecules conduct electricity, and he has evaluated the role of chemical quantum effects in manifesting consciousness.

2016 Haddon Forrester King Medal and Lecture

Professor Murray Hitzman

Department of Geology and Geological Engineering
Colorado School of Mines

Professor Hitzman is one of the world’s leading mineral-deposits scientists. He has distinguished himself as a first class researcher, an outstanding educator, a successful mine discoverer and developer, and an influential scientific advisor to government. The foundation of his achievements has been careful field studies of many different types of mineral deposits and insightful interpretations based on an excellent understanding of the physics and chemistry of mineral formation. His outstanding record of success includes the discovery and development of the Lisheen lead-zinc mine in the Republic of Ireland, his leadership role in the recognition and characterisation of a new type of mineral deposit—the iron-oxide copper gold or IOCG type—and his new ideas on the origin of the sediment-hosted copper deposits of Central Africa. His work is having a growing impact globally on 21st century mineral exploration.

2016 Mawson Medal and Lecture

Professor Colin Vincent Murray-Wallace

School of Earth & Environmental Sciences
University of Wollongong

Professor Murray-Wallace has conducted outstanding, multidisciplinary research in the field of coastal science. He investigated past sea level changes using a variety of dating techniques, including the progressive changes in the amino-acid composition of marine mollusc shells to date past environmental changes. This work is particularly relevant today to understand coastal evolution under a progressive sea level rise. His coastal research in southern Australia has revealed evidence for neotectonism during the Quaternary in a continent traditionally regarded as tectonically highly stable.

2016 Ian Wark Medal and Lecture

Scientia Professor Martin Green AM FAA FRS FTSE

Australian Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics
UNSW

Professor Green is an acknowledged world‐leader in field of photovoltaics. He has published extensively and influentially, made many highly significant contributions to the knowledge base of the field, and successfully established a world‐class research hub that is responsive to Australian needs in the photovoltaics industry. Several generations of his group’s technology have been successfully commercialised including, most recently, the Passivated Emitter and Rear Cell (PERC) that produced the first 25% efficient silicon cell in 2008 and accounted for the largest share of new manufacturing capacity added worldwide in 2014. His fundamental and applied research has led to, and will continue to lead to significant economic benefits both in Australia and worldwide.

2016 Macfarlane Burnet Medal and Lecture

Professor Graham D Farquhar AO FAA FRS

Research School of Biology
The Australian National University

Professor Graham Farquhar is an outstanding plant scientist whose innovative work has had far reaching impact on our understanding of plant function in a changing world. Combining mathematical rigour and biological insight, his highly cited research has been applied at vastly different scales, from how plants partition their resources between water use and photosynthesis to global interactions between vegetation and the atmosphere. His work has enabled development of crop varieties that are better equipped to cope with changing environmental conditions, particularly those associated with drought.

Mid career honorifics

2016 Gustav Nossal Medal for Global Health

Professor David Wilson

Infectious Disease Modelling, Centre for Population Health
Burnet Institute

Professor Wilson is recognised internationally for his work in mathematical modelling, impact evaluation, surveillance and public health strategy development by developing innovative approaches to HIV epidemiology, including monitoring and reporting HIV, viral hepatitis and sexually transmitted infections. Professor Wilson has translated his research into high impact, real‐world outcomes, providing the essential evidence base, including cost-effectiveness, to make decisions that affect global health: the epidemiological equivalent of ‘bench-to-bedside’.

2016 Jacques Miller Medal for experimental biomedicine

Associate Professor Katherine Kedzierska

Department of Microbiology and Immunology
The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity

Associate Professor Kedzierska combines cutting-edge basic research with unique clinical studies to define how to generate protective immunity against pandemic and newly emerged influenza viruses. Her research identifies key factors that drive the severe and fatal influenza disease in high-risk groups, including the young, elderly, pregnant women, immunosuppressed individuals and Indigenous Australians. Her findings on the optimal human immunity to influenza viruses have implications for vaccine design and development, and are applicable to other infectious diseases and tumours.

Associate Professor Katherine Kedzierska

2016 Nancy Millis Medal for Women in Science

Dr Elena Belousova

ARC National Key Centre for Geochemical Evolution and Metallogeny of Continents, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences,
Macquarie University

Dr Belousova has achieved international renown for her TerraneChron® method for analysing trace elements in zircon and applying this technology to studying crustal evolution. Her discoveries have greatly influenced understanding of the geological development of the Australian continent and has major significance for mineral exploration.

Early career honorifics

2016 John Booker Medal

Professor Paolo Falcaro

Graz University of Technology

Professor Paolo Falcaro engineers nano-materials to bring materials with exceptional functional properties to our everyday life. He makes nano-particles and ultra-porous crystals for medicine and the environment, targeting applications where other materials fail. His research team engineer these materials down to the molecular level, which allows for fine-tuned control over the functional properties. By tailoring the characteristics of these materials, specific applications can be met. For example, Professor Falcaro has developed magnetic materials for the decontamination of water from carcinogens and heavy metals. He has pioneered new carriers for the encapsulation, preservation and release of pharmaceuticals, addressing a major problem facing biotechnology, especially for treatment in developing countries. He is also developing miniaturized portable chips for the detection of deadly pathogens, useful for preventing viral outbreaks.

2016 Fenner Medal

Associate Professor Jane Elith

School of BioSciences
University of Melbourne

Associate Professor Elith specialises in developing and evaluating species distribution models, statistical models that describe relationships between the occurrence and abundance of species and the environment. These models are used to predict where species occur in the landscape, or where they might occur in the future. Associate Professor Jane Elith has rapidly become one of the world’s most influential researchers in applied ecology. In addition to her major academic impacts, her guides and novel tools for modelling species and ecological communities have been used by government and environmental management agencies in Australia and internationally. The interface between environmental management and science makes extensive use of her research to plan management of invasive species, improve conservation of biodiversity, and contribute to strategic land-use planning. In this way, Associate Professor Elith has substantially influenced academic research, but also impacted environmental management nationally and internationally.

Associate Professor Jane Elith — Photo credit: Joe Armao/The Age

2016 Ruth Stephens Gani Medal

Associate Professor Geoffrey John Faulkner

Mater Research Institute
University of Queensland

Associate Professor Faulkner is a leading researcher in the field of genomics, where computers can be combined with high-throughput machines to analyse the DNA found in individual human cells. In recent work, Dr Faulkner and his team have discovered unusual genetic changes in neurons associated with the activity of mobile DNA, a type of ‘jumping gene’. This variation means that each neuron in the brain presents a unique genome that is slightly different to every other cell in the same person’s brain. Interestingly, the parts of the genome most important for neurons to function normally are the most likely to carry changes associated with mobile DNA activity. Associate Professor Faulkner’s work has major implications for how we view healthy brain function, and may provide opportunities to better understand mental health and neurodegenerative conditions.

2016 Gottschalk Medal

Professor Ostoja Steve Vucic

Westmead Clinical School, University of Sydney

Professor Vucic is a translational researcher, whose pioneering research has uncovered novel mechanisms that underlie the development of neurodegeneration in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). He has identified important processes that contribute to the triggering of ALS, leading to the identification of novel therapeutic targets and therapeutic approaches. In addition, Professor Vucic has invented a much needed diagnostic technique for ALS, enabling an earlier diagnosis of ALS at a point where the disease may be amenable to neuroprotective therapies, and this technique has also enabled an earlier recruitment of patients into clinical trials. Professor Vucic has also made significant research contributions in the understanding of molecular and genetic processes underlying relapsing and progressive forms of multiple sclerosis, leading to development of novel treatments for these chronic diseases.

2016 Anton Hales Medal

Professor John Paterson

School of Environmental and Rural Science
University of New England

Professor Paterson is a world-leading researcher on the earliest animals in the fossil record, using exceptionally preserved Australian fossils to answer major questions relating to evolution, biogeography and palaeoecology during the two greatest radiations in the history of animal life – the Cambrian explosion and the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event. He has made major contributions to the relative dating and correlation of strata around the globe in order to refine the geologic timescale for the Cambrian Period. He has published innovative research on how exceptional fossils come to be preserved. His rigorous field-based investigations of Cambrian rocks on Kangaroo Island and in the Flinders Ranges, South Australia, have brought Australian fossils to the forefront of understanding the evolutionary significance of Burgess Shale-type fossil assemblages and “small shelly” fossils, two of the most informative toolkits for identifying the roots of modern animal diversity in the Cambrian.

2016 Christopher Heyde Medal

Dr Luke Bennetts

School of Mathematical Sciences
University of Adelaide

Dr Bennetts is an applied mathematician who models how waves of various kinds, e.g. acoustic waves, electromagnetic waves and waves at the surface of the ocean, are affected by solitary objects or assemblages of objects in their path. A major focus is on how ocean waves interact with ice floes in the polar seas, as this phenomenon appears to be a key contributor to the changes the Earth is experiencing in the Arctic Basin and the Southern Ocean due to the onset and furtherance of global climate warming. Because the polar regions are so important to the world’s atmosphere and oceans, the methodology that Dr Bennetts has created is also immediately applicable to the refinement of hemispheric-scale, coupled, operational climate forecasting, as well as contemporary research schema. His fusion of analytical technical mathematics with sophisticated computational methods allows real world problems, including nonlinear modes of behaviour, to be tackled and solved.

2016 Dorothy Hill Award

Dr Andréa Sardinha Taschetto

Climate Change Research Centre
UNSW

Dr Taschetto is internationally recognised as a leader in the field of climate systems science. She has made major contributions to our understanding of large‐scale oceanographic/atmospheric phenomena in the tropical Pacific and Indian Oceans, and their subsequent impact on regional climate. In particular, based upon her research findings, Dr Taschetto is widely considered as a leader in the development of our understanding about regional climate dynamics and global modes of climate variability, including the El Niño Modoki phenomenon. Her research has significantly and substantially advanced our understanding of the role of the oceans on regional climate variability from seasonal to multi‐decadal timescales and future projections. For these and other high-impact achievements, Dr Taschetto has made a major contribution both within and beyond her field.

2016 Pawsey Medal

Associate Professor Ilya Shadrivov

Nonlinear Physics Centre, Research School of Physics and Engineering
Australian National University

Associate Professor Shadrivov is developing new forms of metamaterials, with future use in photonics and communication technologies. Metamaterials are composite structures with carefully designed properties that are not found in nature. They can manipulate light and other electromagnetic waves in many unusual ways. For example, they can be tuned to absorb some ‘colours’ of light, which is useful for the next generation of security cameras which use invisible long wavelength, or Terahertz, radiation. Alternatively, metamaterials can be used in novel antennas, which will beam electromagnetic waves in carefully chosen directions and rapidly scan the surrounding environment. This is useful for many applications in modern industry, such as for car radar-type sensors in order to increase car safety.

2016 Frederick White Prize

Associate Professor Michael James Ireland

Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics
Australian National University

Associate Professor Ireland develops and applies the latest optical and infrared technologies to build innovative astronomical instruments to probe the lifecycles of stars and planets. A central aim of his research has been to develop instrumentation and techniques capable of finding out how planets form and evolve. One example of this research has been the discovery of the first planet orbiting another star to be caught in the process of formation. He has also shown, both from theory and from observations using innovative astronomical instruments, just how dying solar-type stars shed their outer layers in a wind of molecules and tiny transparent dust grains. He is currently building innovative astronomical instrumentation for detecting planets around other stars, both for Australian telescopes and the largest international telescopes.

2016 Le Févre Memorial Prize

Associate Professor Cyrille Boyer

Australian Centre for Nanomedicine, Centre for Advanced Macromolecular Design
UNSW

Associate Professor Boyer has established himself as an authority in the field of polymer science, responsible for the development of innovative new methods of polymerisation as well as new materials for therapeutic and diagnostic application. Amongst his many research achievements in polymer chemistry, he demonstrated that chlorophyll and light could mediate and control the polymerisation of functional macromolecules. This is an important step-forward for the synthesis of macromolecules using bio-resources. He has also developed multimodal nanoparticles capable of delivering therapeutic molecules (such as chemotherapy drugs) that could be tracked using magnetic resonance imaging.

2015 awardees

Career awards

Matthew Flinders Medal and Lecture for scientific research of the highest standing in the physical sciences
David Craig Medal for outstanding contributions to chemical research
Hannan Medal for research in pure mathematics
Jaeger Medal for research in Earth Sciences
Thomas Ranken Lyle Medal for research in mathematics or physics

Early- and mid-career awards

Anton Hales Medal for research in earth sciences
Christopher Heyde Medal for research in pure Mathematics
Dorothy Hill Award for female researchers in the earth sciences
Fenner Medal for research in biology (excluding the biomedical sciences)
Gottschalk Medal for outstanding research in the medical sciences
Inaugural Gustav Nossal Medal for Global Health
Inaugural Jacques Miller Medal for Experimental Biomedicine
Inaugural John Booker Medal in Engineering Science
Le Fèvre Memorial Prize for research in basic chemistry
Moran Medal for research in statistics
Nancy Millis Medal for Women in Science
Pawsey Medal for research in physics
Ruth Stephens Gani Medal for research in human genetics

Career awards

2015 Matthew Flinders Medal and Lecture for scientific research of the highest standing in the physical sciences

Professor K Lambeck AO FAA FRS

Research School of Earth Sciences
The Australian National University

Professor Lambeck is a globally pre-eminent geophysicist who has made fundamental contributions to understanding Earth’s rotation, the strength of Earth’s mantle and its role in plate tectonics, and the complex global geometry of sea level variations associated with ice sheet melting. His work has fundamentally influenced a range of disciplines from geophysics to oceanography, glaciology and archaeology.

2015 David Craig Medal for outstanding contributions to chemical research

Professor Denis J Evans FAA

Research School of Chemistry
Australian National University

Professor Evans has made outstanding contributions to extending classical statistical mechanics to modern systems. He is regarded internationally as the originator of the Fluctuation Theorems, which extend our understanding of the thermodynamics of small systems observed over short time. His work resolves unsettled foundations in thermodynamics that persisted over 100 years, unifies the field of thermodynamics, and provides rigorous simulation methods that are widely used today.

2015 Hannan Medal for research in pure mathematics

Professor Gustav I Lehrer FAA

School of Mathematics and Statistics
The University of Sydney

Professor Lehrer has made highly influential contributions to algebra and geometry. Among the highlights are his co-invention of the theory of cellular algebras in the decade’s most highly cited Australian mathematical work, his development of “Howlett-Lehrer theory” to solve decomposition problems in algebra and geometry, and his development of “Springer-Lehrer theory”, with geometric and algebraic applications. His recent joint solution of the second fundamental problem of invariant theory has resolved a question of 75 years standing.

Professor Alan G R McIntosh FAA

Mathematical Sciences Institute
Australian National University

Professor McIntosh works at the boundary between harmonic analysis and partial differential equations, two pillars of modern mathematics and physics. He is famous for having given with his collaborators the final answer to the Kato conjecture, a question raised in 1961 which puzzled specialists for 40 years. The techniques that he and his co-workers have developed have revolutionised the way we analyse the fundamental operators of physics.

2015 Jaeger Medal for research in Earth Sciences

Professor Trevor J McDougall FAA FRS

School of Mathematics and Statistics
University of New South Wales

Professor McDougall is internationally renowned for his ground-breaking work on ocean mixing processes and the thermodynamics of seawater. He has identified new mixing processes; defined neutral density surfaces along which mesoscale eddies mix; shown how lateral mixing processes should be included in ocean models; and redefined all the thermodynamic variables used in oceanography. His discoveries have improved ocean climate models and changed the way oceanographic data are analysed, increasing the accuracy of the science and confidence in models of the coupled atmosphere-ocean-ice climate system.

2015 Thomas Ranken Lyle Medal for research in mathematics or physics

Professor Michelle Y Simmons FAA

ARC Centre for Excellence for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology
University of New South Wales

Professor Simmons has pioneered a radical new technology for creating atomic-scale devices producing the first ever electronic devices in silicon where individual atoms are placed with atomic precision and shown to dictate device behaviour. Her ground-breaking achievements have opened a new frontier of research in computing and electronics globally. They have provided a platform for redesigning conventional transistors at the atomic-scale and for developing a silicon-based quantum computer: a powerful new form of computing with the potential to transform information processing.

Early- and mid-career awards

2015 Anton Hales Medal for research in earth sciences

Dr Yingjie Yang

Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences
Macquarie University

Dr Yang is responsible for a major breakthrough in the treatment and interpretation of seismic data, which has opened up the use of ambient noise signals to decipher structures in Earth’s crust and upper mantle. Up to now, earthquakes or explosions had been necessary to generate seismic data; with Dr Yang’s method the background creaks and groans of Earth can be used to make images of the internal structure of Earth.

2015 Christopher Heyde Medal for research in pure Mathematics

Associate Professor Catherine Greenhill

School of Mathematics and Statistics
University of New South Wales

Associate Professor Greenhill is internationally recognised as a leading expert in asymptotic, probablilistic and algorithmic combinatorics, undertaking research at the interface between combinatorics, probability and theoretical computer science. By studying fundamental combinatorial objects, such as graphs, she tackles problems of major significance to pure mathematics. Her highly-cited research achievements include new formulae and algorithms that have found broad application in many areas, from statistics to computer science, physics and cryptography.

Dr Scott Morrison

Mathematical Sciences Institute
Australian National University

The interaction of quantum particles or quasi-particles in two dimensions involves a so-called “fusion category” which describes the possible outcomes of collision between the quasi-particles. Diagrams describing the fusion category are analogous to the Feynmann diagrams well known in quantum field theory. Dr Morrison has made remarkable discoveries especially in this diagrammatic description of such low-dimensional processes. In particular he has classified the least complicated such theories that mathematics permits.

2015 Dorothy Hill Award for female researchers in the earth sciences

Dr Nerilie Abram

Research School of Earth Sciences
Australian National University

Dr Abram’s pioneering research addresses the past behaviour of the Earth’s climate system, and implications for anthropogenic climate change. Her outstanding research portfolio has generated unique new records of past climate and environmental impacts from regions spanning the tropics to Antarctica, and assessing these alongside state-of-the-art climate models. Her high- impact work has led to groundbreaking advances in understanding how climate change is impacting Southern Ocean winds, Antarctic temperatures and Australian rainfall patterns.

2015 Fenner Medal for research in biology (excluding the biomedical sciences)

Dr Ian Wright

Department of Biological Sciences
Macquarie University

Plants grow by investing in leaves, which return revenue by photosynthesis. In Australian field studies and also through international collaborations, Dr Wright has elucidated major patterns governing investment in leaves. He has found there is an economic spectrum for leaves running from cheap to expensive leaf construction, with returns correspondingly running from quick to slow. On low nutrient soils, there is more expensive construction which confers a longer leaf lifespan. In dry environments, there is more nitrogen invested in leaves which economises on water use.

2015 Gottschalk Medal for outstanding research in the medical sciences

Dr Peter Czabotar

Structural Biology Division
Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research

Dr Czabotar’s research is delivering new insights into the molecular control of programmed cell death, an important biological defence mechanism that removes dangerous cells from the body including those involved in tumourigenesis. He has played a key role in the development of therapeutics that induce cell death in tumours and his recent work provides new strategies for developing agents to treat disorders characterised by excessive cell death such as neurodegeneration.

2015 Inaugural Gustav Nossal Medal for Global Health

Professor Nicholas Anstey

Head, Global and Tropical Health Division
Menzies School of Health Research

Professor Anstey has undertaken clinical research on malaria and tuberculosis with partners in the Asia–Pacific. He has identified new ways that the malarial parasite causes severe infections, translating these findings to clinical trials of agents that improve blood supply to vital organs. He has also undertaken clinical trials of drugs to treat all three major species causing malaria in the Asia–Pacific region. He is using his results to contribute to policy change nationally, regionally and globally.

2015 Inaugural Jacques Miller Medal for Experimental Biomedicine

Professor Michael Cowley FTSE

Monash Obesity & Diabetes Institute
Monash University

Professor Cowley has discovered how the body informs the brain about the amount of body fat we have and how much sugar there is in our blood. Through his understanding of these metabolic pathways in the brain, he has devised new drugs to treat obesity. He has also recently discovered why obesity causes high blood pressure. He has received several awards for his research, and now leads a global effort to find new drugs to treat diabetes.

2015 Inaugural John Booker Medal in Engineering Science

Associate Professor Kylie Rose Catchpole

Associate Professor Kylie R Catchpole

ANU College of Engineering and Computer Science
The Australian National University

Associate Professor Catchpole's research focuses on using nanotechnology to make solar cells cheaper and more efficient. Associate Professor Catchpole’s major achievements include showing that the efficiency of thin solar cells can be improved using tiny metal particles, which act like antennas to direct light into the solar cell. This has opened up a range of new possibilities for reducing the cost of solar electricity.

2015 Le Fèvre Memorial Prize for research in basic chemistry

Professor Chengzhong Yu

Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology
The University of Queensland

Professor Yu is an internationally recognised materials scientist who has made significant contributions in the innovation, design, preparation and application of novel nanomaterials.

He has developed new strategies to design functional nanostructured composites and is working on a diverse range of applications for these materials including novel platforms for the delivery of vaccines, genes and drugs for human and animal healthcare, innovative approaches for biomolecule enrichment and the synthesis of functional materials for water treatment and lithium ion batteries.

2015 Moran Medal for research in statistics

Associate Professor Yee Hwa Yang

School of Mathematics and Statistics
University of Sydney

Associate Professor Yang is an applied statistician who has made significant contributions to the development of statistical methodology for analyzing molecular data arising in contemporary biomedical research. Her work on removing extraneous variability for microarray data has been incorporated in major software packages used worldwide to identify gene expression patterns. She has also developed novel methods for integrating molecular and clinical data and has already made an impact on Melanoma research by identifying potential genes that help with predicting survival outcome.

2015 Nancy Millis Medal for Women in Science

Associate Professor Tamara Davis

School of Mathematics and Physics
University of Queensland

Associate Professor Davis uses astrophysics to test our fundamental laws of physics, and study the nature of dark energy and dark matter. She is one of the most highly cited astrophysicists in the world. Her contributions include testing advanced theories of gravity, measuring time-dilation of distant supernovae, using galaxies to measure the mass of the lightest massive particle in nature (the neutrino), and discovering that active galaxies fuelled by black holes can be used as standard candles.

2015 Pawsey Medal for research in physics

Professor Naomi McClure-Griffiths

Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics
Australian National University

Dr McClure-Griffiths is an internationally recognised radio astronomer, who has used “The Dish” at Parkes and other Australian telescopes to make stunning new discoveries about our home Galaxy, the Milky Way. Her research has provided unprecedented insights into how the Milky Way is structured, lives its life, and interacts with its neighbours. She has unravelled the complicated pinwheel-like structure of our home Galaxy and has helped explain how the Milky Way keeps finding fresh gas to make new stars.

2015 Ruth Stephens Gani Medal for research in human genetics

Dr Jian Yang

Queensland Brain Institute
The University of Queensland

Dr Yang has developed novel statistical analysis methods to show that individual differences between people for many characteristics are due to the cumulative effect of many genes. He solved the problem that genes identified from recent large-scale genetic studies explained only a small part of the genetic basis of characteristics such as height or susceptibility to disease. He has distributed his software tools widely and many researchers now apply his statistical genetic methods to their data.

2014 awardees

Career awards

2014 Macfarlane Burnet Medal and Lecture for research in the biological sciences

Professor Jerry Adams FAA FRS

Molecular Genetics of Cancer division
Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research

Professor Adams has advanced understanding of cancer development, particularly of genes activated by chromosome translocation in lymphomas, through molecular analysis and transgenic mouse models. By clarifying how the Bcl-2 protein family controls the life and death of cells, he and his colleagues have galvanized the development of a promising new class of anti-cancer drugs that directly engage these cell death regulators.

David Craig Medal for outstanding contributions to chemical research

Emeritus Professor Curt Wentrup FAA

School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences
The University of Queensland

Numerous chemical reactions take place via so-called ‘reactive intermediates’, i.e. short-lived molecules that are undetectable under ordinary reaction conditions. In order to understand chemical reactions, it is necessary to understand the role of these reactive intermediates. Curt Wentrup has pioneered methods to study them and observe them directly by combining the technique of flash vacuum thermolysis with low temperature spectroscopy. The resulting knowledge is of fundamental importance for theoretical chemistry as well as practical applications in the synthesis of new types of compounds.

Mawson Medal and Lecture for outstanding contributions to earth sciences

Dr Gavin C Young

Research School of Earth Sciences
Australian National University

Dr Young is an international leader in the field of early fossil vertebrates and the application of paleontology to solving problems in biostratigraphy, biogeography and historical geology. His field work in Antarctica in the 1971 Victoria University of Wellington Antarctic Expeditions resulted in a new biostratigraphy and age determination for much of the central Transantarctic Mountains, with robust correlations to strata on the Australian mainland. His field work and mapping in central Australia (Amadeus Basin) resulted in the discovery of the oldest known vertebrate fossils on the planet, and many new sites rich in vertebrates that enabled detailed correlations throughout Australia and Gondwana.

Haddon Forrester King Medal and Lecture

Professor Neil Williams PSM

Honorary Professorial Fellow
University of Wollongong

Professor Neil Williams' career across academia, the minerals exploration industry and government epitomises a lifelong commitment to the role geoscience can play in our society, but particularly to the discovery, evaluation, and exploitation of mineral deposits including hydrocarbons. Professor Williams' leadership of the national geoscience agency from 1995 to 2010 represents an original and sustained contribution to earth sciences and has placed Australia in a global leadership position in the use and application of high quality science to manage natural resource issues.

Ian William Wark Medal and Lecture

Professor Min Gu FAA

Centre for Micro-Photonics
Swinburne University of Technology

Modern technology has supported the growth and prosperity of global economies but it presents significant challenges including the information explosion, energy security and provision of cost-effective healthcare. Since it relies on light rather than electronic signals, photonics can help meet many of these challenges. As a pioneer in photonics at the nanoscale, Professor Min Gu has developed green nanophotonic innovations which have significant benefits including low energy consumption big data centres, early cancer detection and environmentally-friendly solar cells.

Early- and mid- career awards

Anton Hales Medal for research in earth sciences

Dr Julie Michelle Arblaster

Australian Bureau of Meteorology

Julie Arblaster has been involved in, and initiated, distinguished research in the Earth sciences. Her research focuses on many aspects of the workings of the global climate system and its sensitivity to changes. The importance of her research lies in, amongst other things, how it serves to explain many of the causes of climate variability and change. Much of her research pertains directly to the climate of the Australian region, particularly with respect to the ozone hole, El Niño, the monsoon, and Australian rainfall variability.

Christopher Heyde Medal for research in probability theory, statistical methodology and their applications

Associate Professor David Warton

School of Mathematics and Statistics
University of New South Wales

Associate Professor David Warton has made a series of highly significant contributions to data analysis in ecology - new methods for studying size variation, ecological communities and their climatic response, and the spatial distribution of species. Associate Professor Warton's contributions have had substantial influence on statistical practice across disciplines - used in a very large number of articles, in statistics, ecology, other areas of biology, the Earth sciences, agriculture, medicine, chemistry, psychology, engineering, and physics.

Dorothy Hill Award for female researchers in the Earth sciences including reef science, ocean drilling, marine science and taxonomy in marine systems

Dr Maria Seton

School of Geosciences
The University of Sydney

Dr Seton has made significant contributions to the areas of global plate tectonics, longterm sea-level change, global geodynamics and back-arc basin formation. Her work on global tectonics has redefined the way that traditional plate reconstructions are achieved, through the development of an innovative workflow that treats plates as dynamically evolving features rather than the previous paradigm, which modelled the motion of discrete tectonic blocks. She has been part of ground breaking studies on the effect ocean basin changes have had on global long-term sea-level and ocean chemistry.

Frederick White Prize

Professor Christian S M Turney

School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences
University of New South Wales

Professor Turney is an internationally recognised earth scientist and research leader in both climate and environmental change, from the tropics to the poles. By pioneering new ways of combining climate models with records of past climate change (spanning from hundreds to thousands of years), he has discovered new links between variability mechanisms in the Australian region and global climate change.

Le Fèvre Memorial Prize for outstanding research in chemistry

Associate Professor Richard James Payne

School of Chemistry
The University of Sydney

Associate Professor Richard Payne is internationally recognised for his contributions to peptide chemistry and drug discovery for neglected diseases. He has pioneered the development of important new synthetic methodologies that have enabled access to modified peptides and proteins of considerable complexity. He is also recognised for his contributions to medicinal chemistry where he has discovered, through innovative research advances, a number of lead compounds for the treatment of tuberculosis, malaria and cancer.

Pawsey Medal for outstanding research in physics

Professor Geoffrey John Pryde

Centre for Quantum Dynamics
Griffith University

Professor Pryde's research investigates the fundamental properties of the quantum world and how these can be harnessed for radical advances in information technologies, sensing and measurement. Working with quantum states of light, Geoff has demonstrated the first quantum measurement scaling at the absolute quantum limit of measurement precision, and has realised key steps on the path towards optical quantum computing. His recent investigations of quantum entanglement and the quantum limits of amplification are providing new resources for realising ultra-secure long-range communications.

Fenner Medal for research in biology (excluding the biomedical sciences)

Professor Katherine Belov

Faculty of Veterinary Science
The University of Sydney

Professor Belov's research on immunity in marsupials and monotremes provides new understanding of mammalian immune systems and has great potential for managing wildlife diseases. She overturned the paradigm that Australian mammals have primitive immune systems and demonstrated they have immune gene complements similar to our own. She discovered that it is low diversity in the major histocompatibility complex that allows the spread of Tasmanian devil facial tumour disease, and has identified novel antimicrobial and venom peptides of potential biomedical relevance.

Gottschalk Medal for outstanding research in the medical sciences

Associate Professor Kieran F. Harvey

Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre
Cancer Research Division

Associate Professor Kieran Harvey’s research findings are important for understanding species diversity and development, and are directly relevant to human diseases such as cancer. Organ size-control is a fundamental aspect of biology and varies greatly among animals. Signalling networks that control organ size are only beginning to be unravelled. Foremost among them is the recently discovered Hippo pathway. Greater knowledge of size control will potentially have a huge impact on human cancer and degenerative diseases, and provide fertile ground for therapeutic interventions. Associate Professor Harvey was an integral member of the team that discovered the Hippo pathway. He was also was the first to show that the Hippo pathway is evolutionarily conserved, and that it is mutated in human cancer. More recently, Associate Professor Harvey' s laboratory discovered that the Hippo pathway controls organ regeneration.

Inaugural Nancy Millis Medal for Women in Science

Professor Emma Johnston

School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences
The University of New South Wales and
Sydney Harbour Research Program
Sydney Institute of Marine Science

Professor Johnston is Australia’s leading young investigator of human impacts on marine systems. Her research has broken new ground by combining traditional laboratory studies with novel field-based experiments in Antarctica, the Great Barrier Reef, and temperate Australian estuaries. Her work has earned respect in both the international ecological and ecotoxicological fields.

Professor Johnston’s work has generated critically important findings on the causes and consequences of bio-invasion. As a result, she has not only found the first evidence that pollution facilitates the invasion of marine systems, but also discovered that heritable pollution tolerance promotes invader dominance, published the first studies of marine invasion that control exposure to marine invasive larvae, and identified the potential for translocation of non-indigenous species via small-scale disruptions to antifouling surfaces.

Director of the Sydney Harbour Research Program for SIMS, Professor Johnston has demonstrated outstanding leadership in the field – all the more remarkable given that her PhD was received just 11 years ago.

Ruth Stephens Gani Medal for distinguished research in human genetics

Winthrop Professor Ryan Lister

School of Chemistry and Biochemistry
The University of Western Australia

Professor Ryan Lister studies the epigenome, the millions of molecular signposts added to the genome to regulate the activity of the underlying genetic information. His development of key techniques to map the epigenome has enabled major advances in our understanding of its role in gene regulation in both plants and animals. Professor Lister’s investigation into epigenome dynamics during mammalian brain development has provided the first comprehensive maps of epigenome dynamics through mammalian brain development, in both humans and mice. His discoveries provide an essential foundation to understanding the role of the epigenome in mammalian gene regulation and brain development.

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2023 awardees

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Premier honorific awards

Career honorifics

Mid-career honorifics

Early-career honorifics

Premier honorifics

2023 Matthew Flinders Medal and Lecture

Professor Lidia Morawska FAA, Queensland University of Technology

2023 Ruby Payne-Scott Medal and Lecture

Professor Jennifer Graves AC FAA, La Trobe University

Career honorifics

2023 David Craig Medal and Lecture

Professor David Craik FAA FRS, University of Queensland

2023 Hannan Medal

Professor Richard Hartley FAA, Australian National University

2023 Jaeger Medal

Professor Matthew England FAA, University of New South Wales

2023 Suzanne Cory Medal

Professor Terence Hughes FAA, James Cook University

Professor Catherine Lovelock FAA, The University of Queensland

2023 Thomas Ranken Lyle Medal

Professor Susan Scott FAA, Australian National University

Professor Nick Wormald FAA, Monash University

Mid-career honorifics

2023 Jacques Miller Medal

Professor Di Yu, University of Queensland

2023 Nancy Millis Medal for Women in Science

Professor Renae Ryan, University of Sydney

Early-career honorifics

2023 Anton Hales Medal

Dr Teresa Ubide, University of Queensland

2023 Christopher Heyde Medal

Dr Valentina Wheeler, University of Wollongong

2023 Dorothy Hill Medal

Associate Professor Raffaella Demichelis, Curtin University

2023 Fenner Medal

Associate Professor Emily Wong, Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute

2023 Gottschalk Medal

Professor Si Ming Man, Australian National University

2023 John Booker Medal

Dr Amelia Liu, Monash University

2023 Le Fèvre Medal

Associate Professor Rona Chandrawati, University of New South Wales

Professor Tianyi Ma, RMIT University

2023 Moran Medal

Associate Professor David Frazier, Monash University

Dr Rachel Wang, University of Sydney

2023 Pawsey Medal

Professor Yuerui Lu, Australian National University

About the honorific awards

2022 awardees

On this page

Premier Honorific awards

Career honorifics

Mid-career honorifics

Early-career honorifics

Premier honorifics

2022 Macfarlane Burnet Medal and Lecture

Professor Steve Simpson AC FAA FRS, University of Sydney

2022 Ruby Payne-Scott Medal and Lecture

Dr Liz Dennis AC FAA FTSE, CSIRO

Career honorifics

2022 David Craig Medal and Lecture

Professor Christopher Barner-Kowollik FAA, Queensland University of Technology

2022 Haddon Forrester King Medal

Dr Kathy Ehrig, BHP Billiton

Professor Richard Henley, Australian National University

2022 Ian Wark Medal and Lecture

Professor Tim Senden, Australian National University

2022 Mawson Medal and Lecture

Professor Andrew Roberts, Australian National University

2022 Suzanne Cory Medal

Professor Georgia Chenevix-Trench FAA, QIMR Berghofer

Mid-career honorifics

2022 Gustav Nossal Medal for Global Health

Professor Rebecca Guy FAHMS, UNSW Sydney

2022 Nancy Millis Medal for Women in Science

Professor Vanessa Peterson, Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation

Early career honorifics