The University of Queensland's Alumnus of the Year and Graduate of the Year will receive their awards at a Brisbane graduation ceremony next week.
o Professor Martin Green (telephone 02 9385 4018), co-winner of the 1999 Australia Prize is the ninth recipient of the annual UQ Alumnus of the Year award.
He will be honoured at a UQ graduation ceremony on Tuesday, August 29 at Mayne Hall, St Lucia at 6pm at which UQ's Graduate of the Year, computer scientist Karen Henricksen will also be presented. Professor Green will be guest speaker and Sebastian Rubinsztein-Dunlop of the Biological and Chemical Sciences Faculty, the student valedictorian. Sebastian is the son of Professor Gordon Dunlop and Professor Halina Rubinsztein-Dunlop, both UQ academics.
The Alumnus of the Year award was established in 1992, and honours University graduates who have achieved distinction in their chosen fields, outstanding reputations among their peers and support from and for their alma mater. Previous winners include Nobel Laureate Peter Doherty, Oscar winner Geoffrey Rush, radiation oncologist Dr Rodney Withers and liver researcher Professor Lawrie Powell. Professor Green and his colleague Professor Stuart Wenham, both of the University of New South Wales, developed solar cells which will generate electricity in each of the homes in the athletes' village for the Olympic Games.
The August 29 ceremony is one of three in Brisbane this week for 1400 graduates from seven UQ faculties.
o Guest speaker on Thursday August 31 at 6pm is Ken Smith, Director-General of the Families, Youth and Community Care Queensland and Director-General of Disability Services Queensland. Professor Smith is an adjunct professor in the University's School of Social Work and Social Policy. Student valedictorian is Social Work honours graduand Kerriann Dear.
o Guest speaker on August 31 at the 8.15pm ceremony is Roma pastoralist Jock Douglas AO, who first proposed (1988) to the National Farmers Federation that the term "Landcare" be used for a single national program to draw together the various State and Commonwealth programs targeting soil degradation. The student valedictorian is commerce graduand Christopher Peters.
o Karen Henricksen (telephone 3365 4310), currently a PhD student in the Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering and also the CRC for Enterprise Distributed Systems at UQ St Lucia, is only the second recipient of the Graduate of the Year Award. Last year the University's Alumni Association initiated the award for the University medallist with the highest Grade Point Average. Ms Henricksen graduated Bachelor of Information Technology with first class honours and a grade point average of 6.96 out of a possible 7. She achieved almost perfect scores throughout her University career, earning Dean's Commendations, and winning the MIM Holdings Limited Prize in Computer Science last year.
Graduates of media interest this week also include:
August 29 6pm:
o Antenna expert Associate Professor Marek Bialkowski of the Computer Science and Electrical Engineering Department (telephone 3365 3563) has been awarded only the third Doctor of Engineering degree in the School of Engineering's history for his dissertation entitled Modelling, Design and testing of Microwave Guiding and Radiatiang Structures. This was an assembly of 70 (out of 220) representative publications. Dr Bialkowski's research interests include antenna systems for mobile satellite communications, low profile antennas for reception of satellite broadcast TV programs, near-field/far-field antenna measurements, microwaves and computational electromagnetics.
August 31, 6pm:
o Lecturer in contemporary studies at UQ Ipswich Dr Toni Johnson-Woods (telephone 3381 1567), whose thesis supervised by Dr Chris Tiffin was on pulp fiction - serialised fiction in the popular colonial Australian magazines. Dr Johnson-Woods uncovered the work of many previous forgotten writers, including the first Australian detective mysteries by women authors. During the culling process she discovered 2000 novel length serials by about 400 authors - this index is to be published by Mulini Press. Her studies were undertaken in Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom. Dr Johnson-Woods also uncovered the first homoerotic Australian novel; an American plagiarisation of Marcus Clarke's novel, For the Term of His Natural Life; and "all manner of stories in which Australian writers wrote the nation - and a weird one it was too," she said. "Our stories were bloodier; our romances were unromantic (the hero was more likely to run off with his mate than the girl); and race meetings were a favourite courting site."
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