2024 Victorian Award Winner

Dr Kate Lycett

Dr Kate Lycett’s research aims to identify key measures of health and wellbeing to help us collectively understand the state of the nation beyond traditional economic metrics. This focus will help us decide whether decisions are in the nation’s best interests. Locally, she uses citizen science through community volunteers to collect their own data, empowering…

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Dr Kylie Soanes

Dr. Kylie Soanes is an Australian scientist on a mission to save nature in our cities and towns. Urban environments are a fantastic opportunity to tackle the biodiversity extinction crisis and reconnect people with nature. But space for nature in cities is scarce, full of bright lights, noisy cars, and hard, hostile surfaces.   Kylie’s…

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Dr Laura Brannelly

Amphibians are experiencing dramatic declines worldwide – in large part due to the fungal disease chytridiomycosis. Yet, some species are persisting with disease. Dr Laura Brannelly’s work aim to understand how and why some species survive while others continue to decline. She is passionate about merging scientific research with active management to increase conservation success….

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A/Prof Ben Beck

Associate Professor Ben Beck is at the forefront of transforming how we move through our cities, focusing on enhancing the safety and promoting the uptake of active travel. As an engineer working in public health, he has pioneered interdisciplinary approaches that brings together public health, urban and transport planning, engineering, complex systems science, behaviour change…

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A/Prof Shuai Li

Associate Professor Shuai Li’ research uses studies of families with or without genetic data to answer questions such as why certain cancers, such as breast cancer, run in families, what factors increase the risk of getting cancer, and how to more accurately predict a person’s risk of developing cancers based on their risk factors and…

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Dr Michelle Wille

  Dr. Michelle Wille’s research has been instrumental in revealing the ecology and evolution of not only avian influenza viruses, but a huge diversity of viruses found in wild birds. To understand how HPAI H5N1 may arrive, and what may happen if does, Dr. Wille has been studying low pathogenicity avian influenza virus (LPAI), or…

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A/Prof Susan Baidawi

Youth crime is a highly politicised and emotive topic that regularly captures media and public attention. However, the complex life circumstances of most young people who come to police attention are poorly communicated to the public, and government responses to youth crime are often not aligned with current research evidence.   A/Prof Susan Baidawi’s research…

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A/Prof Kelly-Ann Allen

A central aim of A/Prof Kelly-Ann Allen’s work is to establish belonging as a fundamental psychological need in educational settings and beyond. Her research examines the positive impacts of belonging on wellbeing, academic outcomes, and long-term success through empirical longitudinal data. Her program encompasses testing and evaluating belonging interventions, building new theoretical frameworks, providing empirical…

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