It’s been an impressive month for the Faculty, with three academics awarded Future Fellowships, two early career researchers awarded DECRAs, and several award recipients.

GRANTS

ARC Future Fellowships

Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah, from the School of Social Sciences, received a Future Fellowship. Dr Abdel-Fattah’s research project will be the first study of a neglected but constitutive part of Australia’s social movement history: Arab/Muslim Australian social justice activism. It aims to recover previously untapped oral histories and rare archival collections of Arab/Muslim Australian activists working in anti-racism, anti-war and feminist social movements from the 1970s to date.

Dr Emily O’Gorman, from the School of Social Sciences also received a Future Fellowship from the Australian Research Council. Dr O’Gorman’s project will provide the first in-depth environmental history of international wetlands conservation post-World War II. The project expects to generate new theoretical and applied insights about wetlands conservation and expertise, and nurture exciting new directions in environmental history.

Dr Greta Hawes has received a Future Fellowship from the Australian Research Council to complete at Macquarie University. Dr Hawes’ project aims to investigate how communal crises impact storytelling through an analysis of Greek myth in Antiquity. The project expects to generate new knowledge about the impact of natural disasters, epidemics, migration and war and show how narratives work as strategies for resilience.

ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) 2023 outcomes

Dr Daozhi Xu, from the Department of Media, Communications, Creative Arts, Language and Literature, has been awarded $371,402 in funding for her project ‘Chinese Australian Writing on Indigenous Country’. This project will produce the first major study of Chinese Australian writing about Indigenous people, culture and country from the 19th century to the present. Drawing on literary, historical, and cultural studies approaches, it will provide insights into the enduring Indigenous-Chinese relationships from Chinese perspectives.

Dr Emma Burns, from the School of Education, has been awarded $410,723 in funding for her project ‘The Power of Teacher-Student Relationships to Optimise Student Outcomes’.This project aims to determine how teacher-student relationships support adolescents’ motivation, engagement, and achievement in Mathematics, Science, and English via three hypothesised dimensions: socio-emotional support, instructional help, and conflict. Expected outcomes include an online practice-driven toolkit and scalable intervention to enhance teacher capacity to build positive relationships. This knowledge will have significant benefits for students, teachers, and policy by identifying how to enhance the relationships most critical to adolescents’ academic success.

AWARDS

2022 International Association of Bioethics Award for ‘Bioethics Service in the Face of Challenges

Distinguished Professor Wendy Rogers, Department of Philosophy, who was recently awarded the 2022 International Association of Bioethics Award for ‘Bioethics Service in the Face of Challenges’.

Professor Rogers has been recognised for her ground-breaking work in raising public, industry and government awareness of forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience in China, as part of her role as Chair of the International Advisory Committee of the International Coalition to End Transplant Abuse in China (ETAC).

Professor Rogers led an international team who examined transplant research publications and identified papers that used organs sourced from prisoners, resulting in the retraction of more than 20 publications. Rogers’ work and advocacy has made a significant contribution to increased public awareness, greater journal rigour, and government action on a previously ignored human rights abuse.

“I am deeply honoured to receive this award, recognising the work that has been done to draw attention to forced organ harvesting from prisoners in China. However, there is still work to be done in generating additional public awareness so that further action can be taken by governments to end this human rights abuse,” says Professor Rogers.

2022 Macdonald Holmes Medal

Dr Susan Caldis, School of Education, has been awarded the 2022 Macdonald Holmes Medal by The Geographical Society of New South Wales for outstanding contributions to geographical research and education in Australia and internationally.