Of the day

Noelene Buddle is the new chief executive of the Royal Institution of Australia. The Institution, “promotes public awareness and understanding of science.”

Stephen Muecke joins Flinders U as professor of creative writing. He moves from Uni Adelaide.

 Macquarie U announces academic staff awards

Research leadership: Roger Chung (Medicine-Health Sciences)

Research excellence: Deborah Schofield (Business), Kate Lloyd, Sandie Suchet-Pearson (Arts), Karu Esselle, David Bulger, Maria Kovaleva (Science and Engineering), Celia Harris (Human Sciences), Phillip Taylor (Science and Engineering)

Research supervision: Jennie Hudson (Human Sciences)

Early career researchers: Katrina Hutchinson (Arts), Bingyang Shi (Medicine-Health Sciences)

Higher degree research: Nicholas Everett (Human Sciences), Stephanie Rayner (Medicine-Health Sciences)

Student-nominated learning and teaching: Tiffany Mary Jones (Human Sciences), Alexandra Bhatti (Medicine-Health Sciences), Bruno Alves Buzatto (Science-Engineering)

Learning and teaching-sessional staff: Lauren Florentia Ehrenfeld (Human Sciences)

Learning and teaching-early career: Alexandra Bhatti

Teaching excellence: Matt Bower (Human Sciences)

Learning innovation: Kira Westaway (Science-Engineering), Michael Rampe (Arts), Matthew Cabanag (no affiliation listed)

Educational leader: Catherine Dean (Medicine-Health Sciences)

Of the week

 David Abramson wins the Pearcey Foundation’s (for ICT technologies) medal for life-long achievement. Professor Abramson is director of Uni Queensland’s Research Computing Centre. If there is award for IT theatricals he would win that too – in 2016 his play about research integrity, “Purely Academic”, was performed at the university (CMM October 25 2016).

Brian Anderson (ANU emeritus professor) is awarded Engineers Australia’s Peter Nicol Russell medal for career-contribution.

Anita Ho-Baillie is the inaugural John Hooke chair of Nanoscience at the University of Sydney. Dr Ho-Baillie is now an associate professor working in renewable energy engineering at UNSW. She appeared last night on the 2019 Web of Science Highly Cited Researcher list. The late Mr Hooke donated $5m to the university in 2011 for nanoscience research, including a chair.

The Victorian Government’s prizes for science and innovation (via VESKI) go to, Michael Berk (Deakin U) – mental health and Anthony Burkitt (Uni Melbourne) – bionic eye, artificial vision

Stacey Coates (Western Sydney U PhD candidate) is in-coming president of the National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Postgraduate Association.

Urban water researcher Peter Coombes joins Southern Cross U as chair of engineering.

Nick Crowley will become Macquarie U’s HR director today week, he is now deputy director. He replaces Nicole Gower who moved last month to VP, people and services.

Teresa Finlayson is confirmed as Monash U chief information officer. She has acted in the role since August, stepping up from her substantive position of director, strategic enablement.

Tracey Horton is named chair of the Commonwealth’s new Australian Industry and Skills Committee. Ms Horton is a former business dean at UWA and chair of Navitas.

Karl Kruszelnicki (Uni Sydney) wins UNESCO’s Kalinga Prize for popularising science.

Darren Pennay wins the inaugural industry leadership award from the Association of Market and Social Research Organisations. Mr Pennay is honoured for founding and leading for 19 years, the Social Research Centre, now owned by ANU. The SRC creates the excellent Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching.

Recent Uni Adelaide graduates Amber Smith and Anthony Cox​ win the South Australian Water Award student prize.

Ryan Tilley (RMIT) takes third place in the James Dyson Award for adapting a manual wheelchair for off-road access. The awards, from the British manufacturer are for undergrads/recent grads, (CMM October 24)

Jon Watson is appointed executive dean of UWA’s faculty of Health and Medical Sciences. He has been dean of medicine at Deakin U since 2014.

The Academy of the Humanities announced 2019 Fellows (CMM Tuesday) here.

Macquarie U announced six distinguished professors (CMM Thursday) here.

The National Library of Australia’s new research fellows (CMM Wednesday) are here.

Research Australia announced 2019 awards (CMM Monday) here.