Anita Bowman (CQU) is the Australasian Sonographer Association educator of the year and sonographer of the year. As learned readers (but until now) not CMM know, sonography uses ultrasound for medical diagnostic examinations. Both honours double as lifetime achievement awards as Aspro Bowman, along with husband CQU VC Scott Bowman are leaving the university at the end of the year to travel.

Vanessa Pirotta from Macquarie U won the Australian round of FameLab, the British Council’s explain-your-research-in-three-minutes competition. She goes on to the world finals, at the Cheltenham Science Festival, which starts today. Ms Pirotta uses drones to collect whale-blow, which she uses to check their health. She follows UTS microbiologist Nural Cokcetin who was last year’s world runner-up.

RMIT researcher Hannah Badland is the Australian Health Promotion Association’s new thinker in residence.