Executive Dean’s Message - April 2021

Dear colleagues,

April has been a kaleidoscope of experiences for all of us, from the rapid transition back to working from home during the three-day COVID lockdown, to a well-earned break over Easter, to a spectacular amount of engagement with the multitude of internal funding schemes that are currently available.

On this, I was overwhelmingly delighted with the quality of applications from across the Faculty for our COVID Research Recovery Fund, the UQ Teaching Relief scheme, and the RSP Fellowship and Strategic funding schemes. I especially enjoyed reading all of the applications for research recovery funding from our early career researchers, which provided a very candid narrative on the impact of the pandemic on their research efforts, along with some impressively creative approaches to address this. Thanks to everyone who submitted applications, to our School leadership teams for supporting their staff and to Jenny Seddon, our Associate Dean Research, and the Faculty Research team for coordinating the process.

Congratulations to the more than 50 staff members whose excellent teaching in Semester 2, 2020 was recognised by a Dean’s commendation! This is especially noteworthy given the significant challenges faced by staff as a consequence of multi-mode teaching. Staff receiving the highest number of commendations were James Fraser (SCMB, six nominations), Gilbert Price (SEES, six nominations), Jack Wang (SCMB, five nominations), Alwyn Williams (SAFS, four nominations), Fred Roosta-Khorasani (SMP, four nominations) and Kelly Johnstone (SEES, four nominations).

Congratulations also to Natalie Jones (SBS) for winning the Elton Prize from the British Ecological Society for the best paper in the Journal of Animal Ecology written by an early career author, to Ove Hoegh-Guldberg (SBS), Hugh Possingham (SBS, CBCS), Anthony Richardson (SMP), James Watson (SEES, CBCS), Pete Mumby (SBS), John Pandolfi (SBS), and Jianxin Zhao (SEES) for being included in a list of the world’s most influential climate scientists, and to Bryan Fry (SBS), who was selected by the WHO to help tackle snakebite.

The next few weeks will be consumed with budget meetings with all our schools; it has been a challenging year for all of us with very restricted funds reflecting the COVID-associated reduction in revenue. Thanks to everyone for pulling together through these challenging times.

Best wishes to all for the remaining weeks of Semester 1, several looming grant deadlines, and for all the other wonderful work that you do. Please have a safe and enjoyable long weekend.

Kind regards,

Professor Melissa Brown

Executive Dean