Some 60 University of Sydney staff are honoured in the vice chancellor’s awards including;

Bec Plumbe, educational designer in the School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry who wins the Outstanding Contribution to Educational Excellence.

Tara Murphy, aspro in the Faculty of Science receives the Outstanding Educational Engagement and Innovation award and the Outstanding Teaching and Research award.

Leanne Togher is honoured for outstanding research helping people with severe traumatic brain injury.

Annette Tredrea is recognised for her Outstanding Contribution to Research Excellence as trials officer at the university’s plant breeding institute.

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The shortlists for the WA premier’s science awards are announced and the individual researcher category is a Curtin and UWA show. Of the state’s four public universities only Murdoch U has no nominees.

Scientist of the year: Phil Bland (Curtin U) planetary science, Peter Newman (Curtin U) sustainability, Robert Newton (Edith Cowan U) exercise medicine, Stephen Zubrick (UWA) methodology of child and youth health and development.

Early career scientist: Wensu Chen (Curtin U) lightweight composite structures, Adam Cross (Curtin U) restoration of mined areas, Haibo Jiang (UWA) cardiovascular disease, Katarina Milijkovic (Curtin U) planetary geoscience, Melissa O’Donnell (UWA) child abuse and neglect,

Student scientist: Lucy Furfaro (UWA) microbiology and obstetrics, Fernando Perez (UWA) energy transportation and processing, Claire Ross (UWA) coral geochemistry, Arman Siahvashi (UWA) natural gas process engineering, Ryan Urquhart (Curtin U) black holes.

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The WA innovator of the year semi-finalists are also out. Nobel Prize Winner Barry Marshall and UWA colleagues are nominated for their Noisy Gut Project, which wants to use an acoustic belt to record and analyse gut noises, which correlate with disorders.

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The University of Queensland has 40 new fellows of the (UK) Higher Education Academy “in recognition of their dedication to teaching and learning.” There are four new principal fellows, Paul Mills and Susan Rowland (Faculty of Science) Polly Parker (Faculty of Business, Economics and Law) and Christine Slade (Institute for Teaching and Learning Innovation).