2020 South Australian Award Winner

Dr Yuval Yarom

UNIVERSITY OF ADELAIDE Research Field: Computer Security Over the last decades our society has become increasingly reliant on computers’ ability to store and process our data. At the same time, these computers have become a prime target for malicious agents aiming to exploit the computers’ access to personal or confidential data. Yuval’s research evaluates the…

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Dr Yan Jiao

UNIVERSITY OF ADELAIDE Research Field: Chemical Engineering Imagine an unlivable planet earth with depleted fossil fuels and severe greenhouse effects, which will happen in the future if we do nothing. We need to act early to address the dwindling supply of fossil fuels, and the climate change caused by these fuels. Dr Jiao’s research is…

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Dr Rhiannon Schilling

SOUTH AUSTRALIAN RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT INSTITUTE Research Field: Applied Agronomy Soil constraints, such as high levels of sodium, affect 68 % of cropping land in Australia. Sodic soils with high levels of sodium have multiple chemical and physical properties that restrict root growth and subsoil water use leading to reduced overall crop growth and grain…

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A/Prof Maria Inacio

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA Research Field: Epidemiology As our population ages the need for services that help us live at home longer or transition to aged care homes (when needed) will grow. This demand needs to be met with good quality aged care services. Unfortunately, concerns about the services provided to Australians are so significant…

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Dr Margaret Shanafield

FLINDERS UNIVERSITY Research Field: Hydrology Although most Australian rivers go dry each year, the frequency and duration of those dry periods is changing, bringing hardship to the environment and communities. We don’t fully understand what physical hydrologic processes contribute to the generation of streamflow after rain events, and how much of that streamflow recharges our…

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Dr Kylie Dunning

UNIVERSITY OF ADELAIDE Research Field: Reproductive Biology One of the greatest challenges for IVF clinics is identifying which embryos are suitable for transfer back into the patient’s womb. The current gold-standard technologies include taking a small number of cells from the embryo (a biopsy), then sequencing the DNA to confirm that the embryo has the…

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Dr Janet Sluggett

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA Research Field: Aged Care People living in aged care homes take an average of 10 different medications each day. Medications can improve our wellbeing, but can sometimes cause side effects such as drowsiness, confusion or falls. Janet analyses big data to understand what medications are prescribed to people living in aged…

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Dr Ian Moffat

FLINDERS UNIVERSITY Research Field: Archaeology Humans and our ancestors have lived through many periods of dramatic climate change, which have unquestionably influenced our evolution. Unfortunately, high quality climate records are often not available from archaeological sites making it difficult to directly measure the impacts of changing temperature, sea level and rainfall on how humans have…

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Dr Grace Vincent

CENTRAL QUEENSLAND UNIVERSITY Research Field: Sleep Health Two million Australian’s regularly work at night. Those that work at night are twice as likely to make an error, get injured, or have an accident, compared to day workers. Dr Vincent investigates novel ways to protect night workers. She is currently exploring how short bursts of exercise…

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Dr Alice Clement

FLINDERS UNIVERSITY Research Field: Evolutionary Biology Dr Clement is an evolutionary biologist and palaeontologist, who studies fish and tetrapods (the first terrestrial vertebrates), and the changes that occurred in their bodies over deep geological time. This spectacular transition from water to land is arguably the greatest step in evolution, and occurred close to 400 million…

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