Vice Chancellor's Research Excellence Award winners for 2016
Research Leadership Award
The award for excellence in research leadership was awarded to Professor Paul Taçon, Director of Griffith University’s Place, Evolution and Rock Art Heritage Unit.
For more than 36 years, Professor Taçon has been exploring the rock art sites of Australia and south-east Asia, while collaborating with Indigenous people in archaeological research.
In 2016 alone, he helped establish the Australian Research Centre of Human Evolution, in the Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research, led a large field research team in northwest Arnhem Land which discovered 160 undocumented rock art sites and also published more than a dozen research papers, as well as a book.
Early Career Researcher Award
Dr Lyndel Bates from the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice won the award for excellence for an early career researcher.
Her research within road policing focuses on the high-risk group of young drivers and includes assault-related violence and traumatic brain injury including a project on the psychosocial impact on family and caregivers when an individual receives a brain injury from an assault.
As an early-career research Dr Bates has an outstanding record, author/co-author of 25 journal articles and book chapters. She has earned more than $400,000 in external research income and developed strong collaborations with both Australian and international agencies.
Mid-Senior Career Researcher Award
The award for excellence for an individual mid-career or senior researcher went to Professor Vicky Avery, from the Griffith Institute for Drug Discovery. She heads the Griffith University Drug Discovery Programme for the CRC for Cancer Therapeutics (CTx) and the Discovery Biology team.
Professor Avery was recognised for her outstanding research in drug discovery over the past 18 years. Her vision is to promote world class drug discovery, utilising advanced image-based platforms, ultimately impacting on access to quality therapeutics for all.
She aims to address fundamental basic research questions, to better understand the biology and to facilitate drug discovery in the search for novel lead molecules, particularly where drug resistance is apparent or the disease is neglected. Her objective is to improve and expedite drug discovery, and endeavour to provide platforms where currently they are non-existent, limited or of poor quality.
Research Supervision Award
Professor Cordia Chu from the Centre for Environment and Population Health, a part of Griffith’s Menzies Health Institute Queensland, was recognised for her distinguished record in research supervision.
Since 1996, Professor Chu has supervised to completion 34 PhDs, 3 MPhils, 6 Honours and more than 45 Masters theses.
Professor Chu has developed research expertise in areas integrating environment and health such as healthy cities, workplace health and safety risk management, gender and reproductive health, migrant and vulnerable populations, population and settings-based health promotion, climate change adaptation for health.
Research Group / Team Award
Laboratory for Vaccines for the Developing World - Team members: Professor Michael Good, Dr Michael Batzloff, Dr Manisha Pandey, Dr Mehfuz Zaman, Dr Danielle Stanisic, Dr Sharareh Eskandari, Dr Ashwini Kumar Giddam, Ms Victoria Ozberk, Ms Emma Langshaw, Mrs Ainslie Calcutt and Ms Jess Powell
The Laboratory for Vaccines for the Developing World team led by Professor Michael Good from the Institute for Glycomics won the award for Research Group/Team.
Professor Good’s team’s outstanding work led to a major translational outcome for the Institute in 2016, with the signing of a significant licensing agreement with major international vaccine manufacturing company, Olymvax Biopharmaceuticals in China.
Previous award winners
Research Leadership Award
| 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Professor Ron Quinn AM, Foundation Director of the Griffith Institute for Drug Discovery | Professor Huijun Zhao, Director of the Centre for Clean Environment and Energy, and Deputy Director of the Environmental Futures Research Institute | Professor Wendy Chaboyer, Centre of Research Excellence in Nursing | Professor Mark Von Itzstein, Institute for Glycomics | Professor Debra Bernhardt, Queensland Micro and Nanotechnology Centre | Professor Stuart Bunn, Australian Rivers Institute | Professor Patrick Weller, Centre for Governance and Public Policy Professor Ron Quinn, Griffith Institute for Drug Discovery |
Outstanding Research Achievement Award
| 2014 |
|---|
| Dr Maxime Aubert and Dr Adam Brumm |
Research Supervision
| 2015 | 2014 | 2013 |
|---|---|---|
| Professor Donna Pendergast, School of Education and Professional Studies | Associate Professor Michael Haugh, School of Languages and Linguistics | Professor Jane Hughes, Australian Rivers Institute |
Mid-Senior Career Researcher Award
| 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Professor Shanqing (Eddie) Zhang, Centre for Clean Environment and Energy, Environmental Futures Research Institute | Professor Diego de Leo AO, Director of the Australian Institute for Suicide Research and Prevention | Professor Geoff Pryde, Centre for Quantum Dynamics | Professor Adrian Wilkinson, Centre for Work, Organisation and Wellbeing | Professor David Lambert, Australian Rivers Institute | Professor Alfred Lam, Griffith Health Institute | Professor Lyn Griffiths, Griffith Health Institute |
Early Career Researcher Award
| 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dr Lauren Ball, Menzies Health Institute Queensland | Dr Kyra Hamilton, School of Applied Psychology | Dr Olivera Simic, Socio-Legal Research Centre | Dr Wendy Steele, Urban Research Program | Dr Jennifer Whitty, Population and Social Health Research | Dr Keith Townsend, Centre for Work, Organisation and Wellbeing | Dr Elena Marchetti, Socio-Legal Research Centre |
Research Group or Team Award
| 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Centre for Applied Health Economics | Advancing Life-Course Criminology, Queensland Linkage Project, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice | Applied Cognitive Neuroscience - Improving Human Functioning by Understanding Brain-Behaviour Relationships, Behavioural Basis of Health | Assessment, Literacy and Equity team | Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre | Quantum Information Science led by Professor Howard Wiseman, Centre for Quantum Dynamics | Health Places Healthy People research program, led by Professor Elizabeth Kendall |