Executive Dean’s Message - June 2022

Dear colleagues

Wasn’t it great to have such lovely weather last weekend and earlier this week? Hopefully, this will continue, especially for those of us going on leave. I know many staff have already departed for conferences or holidays and I wish you all a well-deserved break after a tumultuous first 6 months of the year.

Events

Thanks to the more than 180 staff and students who attended the Faculty of Science Board Meeting earlier this month. It was great to share so many good news stories and to workshop strategies for implementing our new strategic plan. The slides, school reports and minutes of the meeting are now available on Sharepoint.

It was also a pleasure to celebrate 20 years of CoralWatch at UQ, and to hear how much has been achieved and the impact on coral health and community outreach and engagement.

Thanks to Patrick Testa (Faculty Executive Manager and Interim Director of the UQ Gatton campus) for hosting a visit from the Governor-General to the Gatton campus last week. Attendees included representatives from the Lockyer Valley Regional Council, local growers and farming companies.

A number of exciting events are planned for the next few weeks, including a VC-led visit to our Hidden Vale Research Station, and the 125th Anniversary of the Gatton campus.

This month we also held a workshop with representatives from across the Faculty of Science, Medicine, EAIT and QAAFI to explore the distribution of environmental science disciplines in SAFS, SEES and BIOL. A steering committee has since been established to explore a number of recommendations from the workshop. A website is being established to enable all staff to keep up to date on the progress of this project, review FAQs and provide feedback and advice to the steering committee.

Congratulations

Congratulations to Emeritus Professor Shu Fukai (SAFS) for being awarded a Member (AM) in the General Division of the Queen’s Birthday Awards, in recognition of his significant service to agriculture and food science research, and to education. Congratulations to Louise Kuchel (BIOL) for being appointed as the Deputy Associate Dean Academic (Students) in the Faculty of Science. And congratulations to Neal Menzies (SAFS) for being appointed as the next Pro-Vice Chancellor (Sciences) at Griffith University.

Congratulations to Ulrike Kappler (SCMB) for being awarded a 2022 David White Excellence in Teaching Award and a Distinguished Service Award by the Australian Society for Microbiology. And to Mikael Boden (SCMB) for being awarded a $2.997 million MRFF Genomics Health Futures Mission as co-CI. And to Andrew Barnes (BIOL) and Ricardo Soares Magalhães for being chief investigators on the recently announced $154 million CRC SAAFE (The Cooperative Research Centre for Solving Antimicrobial Resistance in Agribusiness, Food, and Environments). Congratulations also to Chiara Palmieri (SVS), who has received the Cavaliere dell’Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana (Knight of the Order of the Merit of the Italian Republic). And congratulations to Valerie Hagger (BIOL and CBCS), who is one of eight AXA and UNESCO Fellows, who will work to advance science on coastal livelihood preservation and resilience. Further information on the fellowship recipients is now available online.

And congratulations to the following recipients of the 2021 Faculty of Science Teaching and Learning Awards:  Steve Salisbury (BIOL) (Teaching Excellence), Elizabeth Krenske (SCMB) (Commendation for Teaching Excellence), Louise Kuchel (BIOL), Paul Mills (SVS) and Poh Wah Hillock (SMP) (Sustained Teaching Excellence) and Gurion Ang (BIOL) (Early Career Teacher).

Congratulations to Mark Walker (SCMB) and colleagues for being awarded a UQ Health Research Accelerator (HeRA) grant to pursue research and development of mRNA vaccines, and to Faculty of Science staff who are part of two other successful HeRA grants, entitled ‘Operational Research and Decision Support for Prevention, Control and Elimination of Infectious Diseases’ and ‘UQ Digital Health SMART Institute’.

News

The State government recently announced an investment of $35.5 million to establish a translational manufacturing facility at the Translational Research Institute on the Princess Alexandra Hospital site, to support the development of a locally-based vaccine manufacturing industry in Queensland.

And The University of Queensland was recently recognised with a prestigious Pride in Diversity national award for our commitment to inclusivity and support for LGBTQIA+ communities. UQ received a "Gold Employer" award for 2022 in the Australian Workplace Equality Index (AWEI), which is Australia’s definitive national benchmark on LGBTQIA+ workplace inclusion.

Kind regards,

Professor Melissa Brown
Executive Dean - Faculty of Science