2023 Western Australian Award Winner

Dr Hugo Olierook

Combatting man-made climate change is one of our biggest challenges. We need both better knowledge of how our climate is being affected and increased quantities of metals like lithium, nickel and copper to meet tomorrow’s demands for clean energy technologies. Dr Hugo Olierook uses novel age dating and geochemical tools to unravel the causes and…

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Dr David Gozzard

Lasers can carry much more data, and make higher-precision measurements, than radio waves can. This makes lasers extremely useful for science and communications, particularly with satellites. However, atmospheric turbulence causes the laser beams to twinkle like a star, ruining the fidelity of the data or measurement. Dr David Gozzard takes technologies developed for astronomy and…

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Dr Sarah Hellewell

One in five of us will have a traumatic brain injury in our lifetime. Most people will recover, but some will have long-term problems with their memory, thinking, and emotions. There are no tests or scans we can take to see exactly which areas of the brain are damaged, how severe it is, or how…

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Dr Dona Jayakody

Dr Dona Jayakody is the Head of Brain and Hearing at Ear Science Institute Australia. In addition, she is also a Career Advancement Fellow at the Royal Perth Hospital Research Foundation, an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at Curtin University and the University of Western Australia and a Director of the Australian Society for Medical Research….

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Dr Jessica Kretzmann

Dr Jessica Kretzmann’s research focuses on the design and evaluation of new materials for both the delivery of gene therapies, and for the rapid detection and diagnosis of disease conditions. Gene therapies have the potential to revolutionise treatment of diseases such as cancer, avoiding traditional chemotherapy side-effects, but currently there are no safe and efficient…

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A/Prof Andrew Woods

Andrew Woods is an Associate Professor at Curtin University where he manages the HIVE visualisation facility and is a Research Engineer at the Centre for Marine Science & Technology. He specialises in visualisation, stereoscopic 3D imaging, and 3D reconstruction with applications in many areas including maritime archaeology. He has BEng and MEng degrees in electronic…

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A/Prof Mingming Cheng

The social media landscape is complex and dynamic. Billions of users produce large quantities of social media data every day. Mingming’s research examines how we can leverage the power of social media to better address social issues, while also identifying and mitigating risks. Mingmins’ research uses advanced data science and visual analytics to better inform…

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Dr Marc Sim

1 in 3 older Australians living in the community experience a fall each year, with resulting fractures often compromising independence. While no pharmaceutical interventions can preserve muscle function and thus prevent falls, emerging evidence indicate an important role for nutrition that requires urgent investigation. Dr Marc Sim has demonstrated the importance of diet by identifying…

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Professor Chan Cheah

Blood cancers are collectively the third most common cancer in Australia and forecast to be the leader cause of cancer related death by 2030. Thousands of Western Australians are diagnosed with a blood cancer each year, and thousands more are living with the disease. While some patients are cured using chemotherapy, many are not. They…

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Dr Karen Lee-Waddell

The Universe is vast and mystifying. There are so many questions we want answered and phenomena that we want to discover and/or further understand. Dr Karen Lee-Waddell is the Director of the Australian SKA Regional Centre (AusSRC). The AusSRC is an equal partnership between CSIRO – Australia’s national science agency, Curtin University, the Pawsey Supercomputing…

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