Executive Dean's Message - February 2019
Dear Colleagues,
February has been a huge month for the Faculty, with new awards, new partnerships, new appointments and new students, to name just a few of our many diverse activities!
Congratulations to Tim McIntyre from the School of Mathematics and Physics, who has just received an Australian Award for University Teaching for developing new approaches to teaching, enriching programs and creating online engaging and informative interactive modules that allow physics students to prepare for his classes.
Congratulations also to Jacqui Romero from the School of Mathematics and Physics, who was selected as a L’Oréal-UNESCO International Rising Talent for 2019 - one of 15 promising young women internationally highlighted as future game changers in science.
The campus has certainly come back to life last week with an early O-week. It has been wonderful to engage with hundreds of parents, partners and friends of new students and over a thousand new students in various sessions this week. It was also fantastic to meet with the first class of SCIE3050 to hear about their summer industry placements and also with the first graduates of the Faculty Leadership and Mentoring program (LaMPS) to hear them pitch excellent ideas for making the student experience in Science even better. Thanks to Michael Drinkwater, Melissa Fitzgerald and Susan Rowland for their leadership, the many academic staff who presented to or met with our new students, and to Talia Sellars and Julia Wright from the Faculty student experience team and our undergraduate Science Mentors for the fantastic support.
Two important new partnerships were formalised this month, one between UQ and the Quandamooka Yoolooburrabee Aboriginal Corporation (QYAC), facilitating collaboration in teaching and research and community engagement on the Quandamooka coast, including Minjerribah (North Stradbroke Island); and the other between UQ and QUT enabling shared access of the UQ Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis and the QUT Central Analytical Research facility.
I am delighted to announce the appointment of Bernie Degnan to the role of Director, Centre of Marine Science and would like to warmly thank Ian Tibbetts for his excellent leadership of this centre over the past five years. Congratulations also to Paul Young and Joe Grotowski for being reappointed as the Heads of the School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences and the School of Mathematics and Physics respectively.
I was also delighted to attend the inaugural Faculty of Science Teaching and Learning Forum a few weeks ago and to hear the ‘good, bad and ugly’ from our academic and professional staff, and our students. I was so impressed with the various teaching innovations across the Faculty and the involvement of students in several teaching projects. An amazing day and some great take-homes and actions for 2019.
The Faculty of Science Awards event was awesome. It was so wonderful to celebrate the amazing achievements of our finalists and our winners:
- Alicia Kelly
- Michelle Hunter
- Gayathri Rajagopal
- Samuel Hinton
- Dr Yin Xiang Setoh
- Gary Fitzgerald
- Professor Melissa Fitzgerald
- Samantha Kempster
- The Wilson Lab and Anindilyakwa Team
- Associate Professor Joerg Henning
Thanks to the Faculty Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee for the challenging task of selecting the finalists and winners, to Leonie Small, Dominic Jarvis, Shanice Seeto and Chantel Veldhoen for coordinating the awards event and a special thanks to Evan Foster and the workshop team for making the very creative trophies.
We are in award nomination season and just a reminder that the Faculty Equity Diversity and Inclusion committee has developed a list of awards that can be found on our intranet. Upcoming opportunities - many of which are listed in this e-newsletter - include the UQ Excellence Awards, UQ Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning, Young Tall Poppy Science Awards, Fresh Science Queensland, Prime Minister’s Science Prizes, and the L’Oreal-UNESCO For Women in Science Australia & NZ Fellowship.
Kind regards,
Professor Melissa Brown
Executive Dean