Executive Dean’s Message - November 2024
Dear colleagues,
As we are rapidly approaching the end of 2024, it’s a good time to reflect on a great year for the Faculty of Science and to thank you for your contribution.
On Wednesday, I signed off on approximately 30,000 grades, which is the culmination of a truly extraordinary amount of work of hundreds of amazing academic and professional staff across the Faculty of Science and beyond. I am greatly looking forward to celebrating this at the upcoming graduation ceremonies starting next Thursday at Gatton.
Thank you also to our fabulous researchers and research support staff who have again been recognised for their extraordinary talents and achievements through a range of recent rankings, awards and research grants, outlined in the congratulations section below.
In addition to being proud to be part of the Faculty of Science’s achievements this year, we should be immensely pleased to work at the #1 university in Australia for the second year in a row, as recognised in the AFR’s Best Universities Rankings 2024! This is a culmination of being #4 in the teaching rank, #4 in the research rank, #4 in the careers rank and #8 in the equity rank. We have also continued to rank well internationally, and currently sit at #40 globally in the QS rankings.
Congratulations
Awards
Congratulations to our winners, commendees and nominees of the UQ Awards for Excellence process, which recognises outstanding achievement, exemplary leadership and a strong alignment with UQ values. It was wonderful that many Faculty of Science staff excelled in this space, with two winners, one commendee, and many nominees.
Winners were:
- Service category: Gatton Critical Incident Response and Recovery Team (See below for names of team members)*
- Mental and Physical Health category: Science Q Fever Team (See below for names of team members)
Commendee was:
- Mental and physical health, safety and wellness category: Time Sensitive Chemicals Risk Mitigation Team (See below for list of team members from the Faculty of Science)
Nominees were:
- Innovation category: Dr Hung Hong, Laboratory Services Coordinator, School of Agriculture and Food Sustainability
- Service category: Mr Michael Mayrow, Coordinator, Electronics Workshop,
Faculty of Science - Service category: Agriculture Global Development Team (led by International Development)
- Leadership category: Associate Professor Daniel Dunn, Director of CBCS / Associate Professor, School of The Environment
- Leadership category: Professor Paul Young, Professor, School of Chemistry & Molecular Biosciences (managed centrally)
- Ally Award: Maarten Christenhusz, PhD Student, School of Mathematics & Physics
- Ally Award: Dr Andres Gambini, Senior Lecturer, School of Agriculture and Food Sustainability
Highly cited and ‘fast-moving’ researchers
This week and last week also saw the announcement of individual achievements of many of our researchers.
Clarivate have released their 2024 list of Highly Cited Researchers, including Bhesh Bhandari (AGFS), Scott Chapman (AGFS), Maria Chuvochina (SCMB), Rich Fuller (SENV), Phil Hugenholz (SCMB) in two discipline areas, Cath Lovelock (SENV), Pete Mumby (SENV), Donovan Parks (SCMB) also in two disciplines, Hugh Possingham (SENV), Avril Robertson (SCMB and FoS), and James Watson (SENV).
Also, ‘The Australian’ newspaper recognised the following Faculty of Science staff as ‘fast moving’: Bhesh Bhandari (AGFS), Brian Fry (SENV), Anthony Romilio (SENV) and Fred Roosta (SMP).
Rankings
‘The Australian’ also recognised UQ as the top research organization in Australia for the following disciplines that are represented in the Faculty of Science (and often also in other Faculties and Institutes at UQ): dispersion chemistry, inorganic chemistry, medicinal chemistry, organic chemistry, bioinformatics and computational biology, biotechnology, food science and technology, genetics and genomics, molecular biology, agronomy and crop science, biodiversity and conservation science, ecology, environmental sciences and microbiology.
Research grant success
The Australian Research Council Discovery project grant outcomes were announced on Tuesday this week. I am delighted to share that Faculty of Science staff were awarded 23 grants and counting, including those hosted by UQ and led by Faculty of Science researchers, hosted by UQ with contributions from Faculty of Science researchers and hosted by other universities with contributions from Faculty of Science researchers. Congratulations to the staff listed at the bottom of this message, and sincere apologies if I have missed anyone, please let me know!
Please note that this is in addition to 4 ARC DECRAs, 6 ARC Future fellows, 2 ARC Linkage grants announced earlier this year
NHMRC Ideas grants remain under embargo, but we hope to be able to announce these soon. This is in addition to the NHMRC Investigator and MRFF grants announced earlier this year.
Academic promotions
I am delighted to announce the outcomes of the 2024 Academic promotion process, resulting in 3 staff promoted to lecturer/research fellow, 13 staff promoted to senior lecturer/senior research fellow, 13 staff promoted to associate professor/principal research fellow and 7 staff promoted to professor. Congratulations to successful candidates who are listed below. And a huge thank you to everyone involved in the process including supervisors, Deputy Heads of School and Heads of School, members of the Faculty of Science Local Confirmation and Promotion Committee and the wonderful ‘capscience’ team!
Events
Thank you to everyone who attended our refreshed Faculty of Science All Staff Forum on Wednesday 6 November, either in person or online. I hope you all enjoyed the presentations and panel discussion. Please note that school reports, faculty reports, and PowerPoint slides are all available online via SharePoint. Please let me or a member of the Faculty of Science Executive know if you have any feedback on the event including suggestions for improvement.
Earlier this month I had the pleasure of opening the Douglas Ormonde Butler Memorial Lecture at Customs House. The event, titled "Destiny vs disease”, featured a renowned panel of UQ experts who facilitated a rich discussion on the intertwined relationship between genetics and disease. Thanks very much to our panel members from across UQ including, Associate Professor Kirsty Short, Associate Professor Loic Yengo, Professor Gabrielle Belz and Professor Trent Munro for an evening of interesting discussion, and to our Advancement team for their excellent work developing and delivering the event.
I was also delighted to attend the 2024 Annual Nesbit Endowed Lecture “Experience symmetry”. This year featured a collaboration between Associate Professor Artem Pulemotov (SMP) who led us through a unique exploration of the mathematical principle of symmetry, together with Associate Professor Denis Collins from UQ’s School of Music who bought mathematics to life with a special performance from Topology. Again, thanks to Advancement for this fascinating event.
The SCMB Industry Breakfast event this week was also excellent and a great opportunity to catch up with friends and colleagues within and beyond UQ. Thanks to the school and Advancement for this event.
Opportunities
Nominations are currently open for the 2025 Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science across five categories: Prime Minister’s Prize for Science ($250,000), Prime Minister’s Prize for Innovation ($250,000), Malcolm McIntosh Prize for Physical Scientist of the Year ($50,000), Frank Fenner Prize for Life Scientist of the Year ($50,000) and the Prize for New innovators ($50,000). If you know of any researchers and innovators whose achievements align with the prize criteria, please provide details for any prospective candidates to grants@research.uq.edu.au by COB Tuesday 3 December 2024.
Kind regards,
Melissa Brown
Executive Dean – Faculty of Science
*UQ Excellence Award winners
WINNER: Gatton Critical Incident Response and Recovery Team
- Mr Rob Eccles
- Mrs Theresa Seru
- Ms Tanya McKenna
- Ms Trish O’Hara
- Miss Bec Archer
- Mr Olivier Cheneval
- Mr Travis Dance
- Mr Matthew Redmond
- Mr Steve Duncan
- Mr Mitch Coyle
- Mr Taylor Jefferies
- Mr Connor Harrison
- Mr Joel Frizzel
- Mr Rohan Segal
- Mr Naveed Saeed
- Mr Joshua Parker
- Mr Kerry Martin
- Mr Daniel Plumb
- Mr Matthew Stieler
WINNER: Science Q-fever team
- Mrs Amanda Cooke
- Ms Simone Fox
- Ms Trish O'Hara
- Miss Jade Copeland
- Mr Daiji Sato
COMMENDATION: Time Sensitive Chemicals Risk Mitigation Team (Faculty of Science members)
- Kelly Cosgrove
- Suzanne O’Hagan
- Jy Chartres
- Ian Lane
- Jasmyn Cridland
2025 ARC DP grant recipients
UQ hosted, Faculty of Science led grants
- Tyler Neely, Matthew Reeves, Halina Rubinsztein-Dunlop (SMP)
- Matthew Holden (SMP), Hugh Possingham (SENV)
- Jacinda Ginges, Benjamin Roberts (SMP)
- Phil Hugenholtz and Maria Chuvochina (SCMB)
- Phil Hugenholtz and Katherine Bowerman (SCMB)
- Fred Roosta (SMP)
- Peter Crisp (AGFS)
- Tamara Davis, Cullan Howitt, Samuel Hinton (SMP)
- Rowan Young (SCMB)
- Craig Williams (SCMB)
- Matthew Davis (SMP)
- Bernard Carroll, Anne Sawyer (SCMB)
- Mark Schembri (SCMB and IMB)
- Michael Montiero (SCMB and AIBN)
UQ hosted Faculty of Science contribution
- Gerard Milburn, Sally Shrapnel (SMP)
- Ricardo Soares Magalhaes (SVS)
- Timothy McIntyre (SMP)
- Katherine Bowerman (SCMB)
- Susanne Schmidt (AGFS)
- Paul Dennis (AGFS and SENV)
Hosted by another university, Faculty of Science contribution
- Masoud Kamgarpour (SMP)
- Greg Webb (SENV)
- Scott Beatson (SCMB)
Faculty of Science promotion outcomes
Promotion to Academic Level B
- Kenny Wolfe (SENV)
- Leslie Roberson (SENV)
- Tatiana Proboste Ibertti (SVS)
Promotion to Academic Level C
- Viviana Gonzalez Astudillo (SVS)
- Swaid Abdullah (SVS)
- Rebecca Cramp (SENV)
- Anne Beasley (AGFS)
- Lisette Pregelj (SCMB)
- Philip Sharpe (SCMB)
- Peter Jacobson (SMP)
- Slava Vaisman (SMP)
- Meagan Carney (SMP)
- William Defliese (SENV)
- Simon Hart (SENV
- Fabio Cortesi (SENV and QBI)
- April Reside (SENV and AGFS)
Promotion to Academic Level D
- Gry Boe-Hansen (SVS)
- Shane Campbell (AGFS)
- Anthony Young (AGFS)
- Severine van Bommel (AGFS)
- Mariusz Skwarczynski (SCMB)
- Paul Shaw (SCMB)
- Milos Tanurdzic (SCMB)
- Ramiro Lafuente (SMP)
- Tyler Neely (SMP)
- Aude Bernard (SENV)
- Tatsuya Amano (SENV)
- Matthew Luskin (SENV)
- Angela Dean (SENV and AGFS)
Promotion to Academic Level E
- Ammar Abdul Aziz (AGFS)
- Nidhi Bansal (AGFS)
- Kirsty Short (SCMB)
- Nicholas West (SCMB)
- Artem Pulemotov (SMP)
- Helen Bostock Lyman (SENV)
- Nigel Beebe (SENV)