Executive Dean's Message - November 2020
After the longest of academic years, we are approaching the end of Semester 2. Thank you all so much for the amazing effort that has gone into delivering our courses and programs under very challenging circumstances.
Thank you also to the 286 people who attended our Semester 2 Faculty Board meeting. It was great to have the opportunity to discuss the happenings in our schools, faculty, university and more broadly across the higher education sector. The highlight of course was announcing the recipients of our 2020 Teaching and Learning Awards: Teaching Excellence Award: Adam Piggott, Sonia Roitman and Frances Shapter; the Early Career Award: Renjie Zhou; the Programs that Enhanced Learning Award: Equine teaching team; and the COVID Above and Beyond Award: Barbara Maenhaut, Science Blended Learning Team and SCMB Teaching Admin team and Chair, T&L.
Congratulations go to many other staff as well this month, including the UQ COVID-19 vaccine project, and colleagues from Advancement and Marketing, who were awarded the Best Fundraising or Engagement Campaign in the Universities Australia Marketing, Communications and Development (UAMCD) awards (see the UQ award presented at 26 min timestamp), and the 11 recipients of the 2021 ARC Discovery Projects led by Faculty of Science researchers, noting that there are many additional projects on which Faculty of Science staff are chief investigators.
Congratulations also to our new Professors: Peter Kopittke (SAFS), Mark Turner (SAFS), Mike Furlong (BIOL), Alex Khromoykh (SCMB), Jack Clegg (SCMB), Yan Liu (SEES), Yongping Wei (SEES), Gideon Rosenbaum (SEES), and Bob Doneley (SVS); our new Associate Professors: Nidhi Bansal (SAFS), Masoud Kamgarpour (SMP), Cecilia Gonzales Tokman (SMP), Artem Pulemotov (SMP), Carissa Klein (SEES), Rebecca Dunlop (SVS), Katrina McGuigan (BIOL), Evan Moore (SCMB), Keith Chappell (SCMB) and Daniel Watterson (SCMB); and our new Senior Lecturers/Senior Research Fellows: Sarah Meale (SAFS), Sangeeta Prakash (SAFS), Till Weinhold (SMP), Sara Herke (SMP), Fabio Costa (SMP), Laura Sonter (SEES), Haralf Hofman (SEES) and Aude Bernard (SEES).
It was also fabulous to see the following 14 staff being recognised as a 2020 highly-cited researcher: Christine Beveridge (BIOL), Bhesh Bandari (SAFS), Richard Fuller (BIOL, CBCS), Ove Hoegh-Guldberg (BIOL), Phil Hugenholtz (SCMB), Cath Lovelock (BIOL), John Pandolfi (BIOL), Pete Mumby (BIOL), Donovan Parks (SCMB), Hugh Possingham (BIOL), Avril Robertson (SCMB), James Watson (SEES, CBCS), Scott Chapman (SAFS) and Nicole Webster (SCMB).
And in other news, the latest Graduate Outcomes Survey shows that UQ continues to be strong, improving in the national rank for overall employment (86% and #7) and further full-time study (21% and #7), amongst other measures.
Kind regards, Melissa.