Alumni Profiles

Richard Eccleston Senior Scholars

“While tax policy can be both technical and dry, there is a clear need to enhance our understanding of the tax policy process…”

Richard Eccleston is a Professor in Political Science at the University of Tasmania, with a PhD from the University of Queensland. His research focuses on economic governance, specifically the politics of taxation and public finance. He will study at the Centres of the Public Service in the Department of Public and International Affairs at George Mason University, Virginia.

He will study the changing nature of fiscal federalism in the U.S. and Australia in the aftermath of the financial crisis, specifically considering implications for state finances and the broader political economy of federalism.

“While tax policy can be both technical and dry, there is a clear need to enhance our understanding of the tax policy process amid the increasing financial and political threat being posed by growing public debt. There is a good deal of  scope to reflect on and learn from the U.S. experience but, owing to the complexity of U.S. federalism, this process can only occur with detailed collaboration.”

Dr Patrick Kilby Senior Scholars

Patrick is the Coordinator of the Masters in Applied Anthropology and Participatory Development Program at the Australian National University, and carries out research in gender and development, foreign aid policy, and NGOs.

Patrick’s Fulbright project will see him working with Feed the Future Innovation Labs at Kansas State University to analyse their agricultural research in aid and development programs, and in particular how local communities (particularly women) can adapt this research to their local needs. From this research Patrick will gain an insight into the future directions foreign aid-supported agricultural research may take. The focus will be on the implications for U.S. and Australia’s agricultural development assistance in a rapidly changing world, and most importantly, how this research can have the greatest impact on local communities.

Sally Lamping Senior Scholars

Sally currently serves as an associate professor and joint appointment in the College of Liberal Arts and the College of Education and Human Services at Wright State University. She is currently the director for the undergraduate English: Integrated Language Arts program at WSU, where she often collaborates with her teacher education candidates, local schools, and nonprofits to design experiential undergraduate and graduate courses. Sally believes that these diverse contexts offer candidates, schools, and university faculty opportunities to learn through dialogue, action, and reflection with each other. They also offer candidates invitations to develop practical applications for theoretical frameworks. Her students often present on these experiences at local, regional, and national conferences.

Sally is a returned Peace Corps TEFL volunteer (Guinea-Bissau, West Africa), where she taught high school English as a foreign language, worked with local literacy nonprofits, and offered English classes to practicing teachers on Bolama Island. Prior to joining the faculty at Wright State, Sally taught high school English and worked with newcomer populations in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Cincinnati, Ohio. Sally spent several years of her teaching career at Clark Montessori High School in Cincinnati Public Schools. Clark continues to be an excellent example of socially democratic public schooling in urban districts. She completed her Master of Arts in Teaching at Columbia University’s Teachers College. She earned her Ed.D. in Urban Educational Leadership from the University of Cincinnati. Her dissertation research followed the complex journeys of five adult newcomers from oral language backgrounds as they transitioned into a new culture and language based in written literacy. Sally and her former teaching partner Dean Blase are the coauthors of the book Trust Me I Can Read: Building from Strengths in the High School English Classroom, which was published by Columbia University’s Teachers College Press in 2012. The book explores the importance of trust in creating classroom foundations for lifelong literacy; it offers practical applications for building trust through independent and group reading programs in secondary English classrooms. Sally’s research publications, presentations, and interests include trust in secondary classrooms, adolescent literacy, multi-modal literacy instruction, and language and literacy acquisition, specifically with adolescent English Language Learners (ELLs) who have limited or interrupted formal educations. She is actively involved in public schools with high populations of mainstreamed ELL students, where she works collaboratively with teachers and administrators to reimagine classroom practices that privilege learning through language for all students. Sally lives with her family in the greatest small town in the United States.

Sally plans to work with the University of South Australia’s Multiliteracies and Global Englishes Research group and area public schools to conduct a comparative study involving newcomer populations in Adelaide secondary schools and the United States. Specifically, she plans to develop a better understanding of how both countries train teachers for work in schools with high populations of ELL or English as an Additional Language or Dialect (EALD) students. In addition, she hopes to better understand the ways in which Australian teachers are working with the Australian National Curriculum to design experiences that further the language and literacy development of EALD students, specifically those from limited or interrupted formal educational backgrounds. Sally hopes that her work in Australia will provide both countries with new perspectives on the specific needs of these students and the ways in which both the Australian National Curriculum and the Common Core Standards can be used to guide best practices in culturally and linguistically diverse contexts.

Charles Meneveau Senior Scholars

“What is the best distance between wind turbines in a wind farm that maximizes power extraction? How far apart should organic crops be planted from genetically modified crops to avoid cross-pollination? How can we reduce the power lost due to frictional drag forces acting on airplanes, ships and cars?—The answers to these and many other questions depend crucially on a branch of fluid dynamics called turbulence research.”

Professor Charles Meneveau, a professor in mechanical engineering at Johns Hopkins University, has won a Fulbright Senior Scholarship to spend six months at the University of Melbourne. Professor Meneveau is an internationally recognised expert on a field of engineering researching turbulence, and he will use his Fulbright to explore a new dimension of this field.

“Turbulent fluid motions affect many important processes, such as power production in wind farms, pollen dispersal, and drag on airplanes,” Charles said.

“A most challenging aspect of turbulence is its dual nature combining ordered and random fluid motion.”

Charles’ past research has focused on models inspired by the random nature of turbulence. Australia’s Melbourne group is at the international forefront studying turbulence’s coherent nature. His time with the Melbourne group will give him the opportunity to develop and test new hybrid turbulence models, combining both random and coherent elements.

“The new models will enable more trustworthy computer predictions of turbulent flows in (e.g.) wind farms, pollen dispersion, etc.,” Charles said.

Charles has a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering: Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María, Valparaíso (Chile), a Master of Science from Yale University, a Master of Philosophy from Yale University and a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering: Yale University. He has been the recipient of the Julian D. Cole Award from the AIAA, the Stanley Corrsin Award from the American Physical Society (APS), is a Fellow of APS, the American Academy of Mechanics and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and was elected foreign corresponding member of the Chilean Academy of Sciences in 2005. He is the Deputy Editor of the Journal of Fluid Mechanics and the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Turbulence. In his spare time he enjoys music, film and travel.

Carly Rosewarne Professional Scholars

“Technologies to mitigate methane emissions from anthropogenic sources have the potential to significantly reduce the rate of climate change.”

Carly Rosewarne is a Research Scientist from CSIRO Animal, Food and Health Sciences and the Sustainable Agriculture Flagship. Her research is focused on reducing methane emissions from livestock. She will study at the United States Government Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute in California during 2015. Her project will focus on using sequencing technologies to study the genetics of methane producing microbes, commonly known as methanogens.

“Technologies to mitigate methane emissions from anthropogenic sources have the potential to significantly reduce the rate of climate change. Methane production is also under increasing scrutiny for use as an alternative energy source. My scholarship contributes to this field by allowing me to analyse genomes of methanogens that are underrepresented in current studies. By understanding how methanogens are able to survive and proliferate, we can develop targeted strategies to control their growth.”

Dr Stephanie Gilbert Postdoctoral Scholars

Stephanie is the Coordinator of Teaching Quality and Development at the University of Newcastle’s Wollotuka Institute. Her research focuses bringing disparate communities together through the provision of culturally minded social spaces, literature and tertiary curricula.

Stephanie’s Fulbright project, Living as Indigenous: Inside the Dysmorphic Body, provides a major opportunity to build on research into the creation of bodily informed identity particularly for Indigenous populations. She will explore the way body dysphoria might also be etched into psyche, body, and genetics across generations, and work with researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz to understand and articulate the ways that body dysmorphic concepts might exist in indigenous populations in the U.S.

Steven Tong Postdoctoral Scholars

“Staphylococcus aureus (golden staph) is a major cause of severe community and hospital acquired infections.”

Dr Steven Tong, a Consultant Physician at Royal Darwin Hospital and Postdoctoral Fellow at the Menzies School of Health Research is the winner of the inaugural Fulbright Northern Territory Scholarship, supported by the Northern Territory Government, Charles Darwin University and corporate sponsor Blackboard Asia Pacific. The first project will examine the relationship between the bacterium and infection of the lining of the heart muscle. The second will build on Dr Tong’s existing work on a certain strain of the bacterium to assess its virulence and assist with management of infections. The projects will have benefits both for the medical profession generally and for the Top End in particular.

“The Menzies School of Health Research is establishing an internationally and nationally recognized role in staphylococcal research. This project will further enhance this reputation and establish an ongoing collaborative link with one of the world’s leading centres for staphylococcal research,” Steven said. Steven has an MBBS with honours from the University of Melbourne, is a fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians and has a PhD in Biomedicine from Charles Darwin University.  He has received various awards and prizes including the Australasian Society of Infectious Diseases travel award: best advanced training project, American Society of Microbiology Student and Post Doctoral Fellows Travel Grant, and the Australian Society for Antimicrobials travel award, and he has also published extensively.

In his spare time he enjoys reading, bike riding and assuming the role of the prince in various games with his two young daughters. 

The prestigious Fulbright program is the largest educational scholarship of its kind, created by U.S. Senator J. William Fulbright and the U.S. Government in 1946. Aimed at promoting mutual understanding through educational exchange, it operates between the U.S. and 155 countries. In Australia, the scholarships are funded by the Australian and U.S. Governments and corporate partners and administered by the Australian-American Fulbright Commission in Canberra. Steven is one of 26 talented Australians to be recognised as a Fulbright Scholar in 2011.

Courtland Adams Postgraduate Students

Court is a U.S. Army Officer and recent graduate of the United States Military Academy where he graduated first in his class with a Bachelor of Science in environmental science. As a Cadet, Court was the captain of the Men’s Varsity Rowing Team and was awarded the 306th Infantry Award for achieving the highest aggregate fitness scores over four years. Court is also the recipient of numerous foreign military awards including the completion of Brazilian Mountain Warfare School, which he accomplished while studying abroad for six months at Brazil’s Military Engineering Institute. In August 2015, Court was nominated to participate in the Australian-American Young Leaders Dialogue and was the youngest delegate in the program’s history.

Court’s academic interests include climate change mitigation, climate change adaptation, and environmental policy. His passion to serve and protect people and the environment originates from his upbringing in Colorado Springs, Colorado where his family was forced to evacuate their home in response to the infamous Waldo Canyon Wildfire. Upon returning to the United States, Court will serve a minimum of four years of active duty service in the U.S. Army Infantry. As an infantry officer, Court hopes to gain leadership skills that will directly transition to a lifetime of service to humanity and the environment.

As a Fulbright Scholar, Court will pursue a coursework-based Master of Environment degree at the University of Melbourne to gain the necessary knowledge and skill set required to take on an influential leadership role in the multilateral effort to mitigate the impacts of climate change. The Master of Environment program offers him a unique opportunity to study climate change mitigation because of the similar environmental challenges experienced by both the United States and Australia.

Court is thankful for the opportunity to study in Australia as his program is supported by both the Australian-American Fulbright Commission and the United States Army.

Molly Clemens Postgraduate Students

Molly knew she wanted to learn everything she could about plants after spending a year at Fordham University researching the invasive species, Brassica rapa. Fordham stimulated her interest in the moral and spiritual aspects of climate change research, and she began to explore what our roles as stewards of the Earth are. Molly’s first international research project was a DAAD RISE Fellowship to Germany to research the ecological effects of climate change. There, she began a series of research projects under the guidance of the Disturbance Ecology research team. Eventually, Molly headed a project to determine whether Beech trees have an adaptive measure to deal with the stressors they repeatedly experience, like drought. Molly’s German mentors also involved her in the international Frazier Project collaboration, which catalogues biodiversity of grasses from various terrains at the same time every year. This project was personally rewarding because it allowed Molly to spend hours with expert ecologists and the piles of grasses they collected. Molly thoroughly enjoyed feeling for grooves, sniffing, bending, and even tasting each grass to separate the species blade-by-blade. Molly realized from the diversity of her research team that studying environmental science is always going to be an international effort.

Molly had an amazing time going for walks with one of the botanists, where he would point out indigenous German wildflowers, invasive species, fascinating fungi, and different flowers she could use to make teas and cook with. While Molly was in Germany she also worked on a separate project studying the effect of solar radiation on experimental greenhouses to evaluate controlling precipitation. Molly passionately believes in the power of science to unite researchers to find solutions to the ecological threats we face today. She returned to the United States with a profound understanding that global collaboration truly leads to a mutual respect for differing views.

As Molly completed her studies at Fordham University, she worked on Combinatorial Fusion Analysis (CFA) with Dr. Frank Hsu, a project that taught her the framework for CFA can be applied to any system or model. The concept of CFA mirrors her goal with genetic translocations at the University of Melbourne, utilizing diversity to build a combined system. At Fordham Molly had the pleasure of working with incredibly talented women scientists, and she was able to share their passion for research by creating a Women In Science annual event for students to learn about historical achievements and present day pioneers. We live in a time of empowerment, and Molly hopes she can contribute to the movement of women into scientific research now and in the future.

Research in Australia will provide Molly with the foundation to become an expert in her field and establish bonds with one of the world’s leading research universities. The experience gained in Australia will attest to her capability of designing, leading and carrying out an innovative and significant research project, which she will use as the foundation on which to apply to a Ph.D. program. One thing Molly can’t wait to do once she has moved to Australia is run the Melbourne marathon in October, which is going to be a great part of her adventure. Molly has been working towards the Fulbright throughout her entire academic career, conducting fieldwork, genetics work, combinatorial fusion, and bioinformatics. Molly hopes to return to the U.S. with novel methodologies to be used in her graduate work and to share with the next generation of environmental scientists.

Robert Mason Postgraduate Students

“Coral reefs are a “critically endangered” ecosystem, but one that also supports the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people globally. Due to climate change, they are expected to suffer severe degradation over the coming century, a challenge that I hope to address in my current and future career.”

Mr Robert Mason, a PhD candidate in Marine Biology at The University of Queensland has won the Fulbright Queensland Scholarship sponsored by the Queensland Government and Universities. He will go to the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa for a year to further his research in coral bleaching.

“The research which shows a link between ocean acidification and coral bleaching is new. Therefore, it is not known why this effect occurs at the physiological level or the conditions under which this effect will occur,” Robert said.

“My aim is to determine why this effect happens, because this knowledge will help us to take ocean acidification into account when we are attempting to predict coral bleaching and to understand its ecological impacts. This line of enquiry is very important as ocean acidification will steadily increase in severity over the next 50 years,” Robert said.

Robert will work with Dr. Ruth Gates, an internationally-renowned expert on coral physiology and bleaching at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, which has a strong research tradition examining biological and physical processes on coral reefs. He will use an experimental aquaria system purpose built for modifying ocean acidification and temperature. The results of the project will be useful for understanding and managing the threats facing areas such as the Great Barrier Reef and the Coral Triangle of Southeast Asia.

Robert has a BSc with Honours in biology from Macquarie University. He has won awards and prizes including a Macquarie University Honours Scholarship, a Wildlife Preservation Society of Australia University Grants Award and recognition of outstanding scholastic achievement and excellence from the Golden Key International Honour Society. His interests include travelling, hiking, wildlife watching, and Indonesian Gamelan music.

Craig William McCormack Postgraduate Students

Craig is a PhD candidate at The University of Western Australia (UWA), in Perth, Australia. He holds an Australian Postgraduate Award, allowing him to research the discipline of Space Architecture and how the built environment in outer space is situated within and impacts the terrestrial discipline of architecture. Craig received an NVQ Level IV in Music from The London Music School in 1999, a Bachelor of Arts (Art) from the Curtin University of Technology in 2006, a Bachelor of Environmental Design from UWA in 2009, and a Masters of Architecture with High Distinction from UWA in 2011. As well as teaching and lecturing at UWA for the past six years Craig is also a director of felix. laboratories, a multi-disciplinary architecture and design practice that, as part of Felix, Giles, Anderson & Goad, were creative directors of the Australian Pavilion at the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale. The exhibition, Augmented Australia 1914-2014, utilised augmented reality technology to realise significant, yet unbuilt contemporary and historical Australian architecture.

When not teaching and researching at university or designing within felix., Craig enjoys the outdoors leading an active lifestyle, and is an avid runner and climber. Widely travelled, he has climbed Mont Blanc and Mount Kilimanjaro in recent years. He believes that as an academic and a designer it is important to be active and involved in the world in order to design for it and write about it. Recently Craig has taken up the sport of motorcycle racing where he intends to qualify for his race license in the near future and add a little adrenaline to his weekends.

For his Fulbright Postgraduate Scholarship, Craig will conduct research at the University of Houston, in the Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture. The project will examine the feedback loop between the space industry and popular culture, such as film, through a study of relevant institutional and private archives, to articulate the cultural role that space exploration has played upon modern culture, and reciprocally, the impact that ideas stemming from popular culture as the ‘imagining’ of a future, or multiple futures has had upon programs of scientific research into manned exploration of space, and which has spawned new fields of research, such as ‘space architecture’. Combining archival, primary, and contemporary research through an ambitious theoretical framework, Craig intends to conceptualise the ‘space project’ within Western culture’s tradition of utopian thought.

David Ian Rawson Postgraduate Students

David graduated from the University of Queensland in 2012 with dual degrees in Arts and Secondary Education, majoring in English and French. His Honours study in the field of Communication and Cultural Studies saw him named valedictorian and a recipient of a University Medal.

Now in his fourth year of teaching at St Ursula’s College, Toowoomba, a Catholic girls’ school in the Ursuline tradition, David’s passion for education has seen him make a significant impact in the learning and lives of his students. He coaches debating, works to promote the status of language learning and cultures within the school and mentors the student leadership council. He has marked the Queensland Core Skills (QCS) Test for tertiary admission and moderates Senior French Work Programs and assessment on his district’s review panel. He furthered his language study in the south of France as part of an Endeavour Language Teacher Fellowship, awarded by the Commonwealth Government (2014).

David’s research into adolescent brain development and Middle Schooling Philosophy was instrumental in providing a theoretical underpinning for his school’s Year 7 Program ahead of Queensland’s shift to Year 7 into secondary in 2015. For these endeavours, he was awarded the Dr Roger Hunter Excellence in Beginning to Teach Award (2014). David was selected to have his pedagogy showcased as part of the Queensland College of Teachers’ ClassMovies Project. His finished documentary serves as a fine model for other early-career practitioners with clear strategies identified for addressing The Australian Professional Standards for Teachers.

David is the Chairperson of his College’s Assessment Review Steering Committee, which enables him to explore his special interest area of, and deep passion for, assessment. He leads a team of six teachers to review current practice and to develop a College-wide blueprint that will present more effective ways of assessing students’ learning.

David’s research in the United States of America aims to better understand how re-conceptualising assessment might bring about broader school improvement. In particular, he wishes to develop more engrained and sustainable mechanisms for fostering effective teacher collaboration in Queensland schools. In this way, David hopes to develop a strategy for supporting teachers to engage more routinely with peer-reviewed research and integrate it into their praxis. He sees it as important to address the disjunct between educational theory and practice, which has emerged alongside the growing demands on teachers and their time.

David is looking forward to engaging in cross-cultural conversations with other engaged and dynamic teachers, developing a deeper knowledge of curriculum and educational leadership.