Alumni Profiles

Robert Shellie Distinguished Chair

“Chemical measurement usually involves taking samples to a laboratory where an analyst makes measurements using specialized scientific instrumentation. However, a preferred tactic in many circumstances may be to employ miniaturized instrumentation, permitting the analyst to ‘bring the laboratory to the sample’.”

Associate Professor Robert Shellie, ARC Australian Research Fellow, with the University of Tasmania (UTAS) is this year’s winner of the Fulbright Tasmania Scholarship sponsored by the Tasmanian State Government and UTAS. Robert will go to Purdue University for three months to further his work in the development of an in-situ system for chemical measurement of environmental pollutants in remote locations. This could be used in locations such as Antarctica, the sub-Antarctic, and by extension industrial sites, and remote communities.

Robert has led research into developing instrumentation for environmental monitoring of fuel spills in Antarctica and the sub-Antarctic, and this is what sparked his interest in the development of this technology.

“Having performed work in the AAD laboratory at Macquarie Island as part of Australia’s 2007-2008 Antarctic Program, I became acutely aware of the need to develop readily transportable instrumentation for performing chemical analysis in remote locations,” Robert said.

“I have since developed a significant interest in miniaturized instrumentation and my research group is currently developing and testing field-transportable instrumentation. In the future I aim to intensify development of miniaturized instrumentation for chemical analysis of complex mixtures in my research group.”

Robert has a BAppSc and a PhD in chemistry from RMIT University. He has won awards and prizes including a Australian Research Council Australian Research Fellowship; a Royal Australian Chemical Institute Robert Cattrall Medal;  Australian Institute of Policy and Science Tasmanian Young Tall Poppy of the Year; and a University of Tasmania Vice Chancellor’s Award for Research Excellence. He has also published extensively. His interests include music, art, and renovating.

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.

Richard Collins Senior Scholars

“Nuclear energy will be a fundamental contributor to meeting global energy demand, with reduced CO2 emissions, into the medium-term future. Australia is a key supplier of uranium worldwide and it is in our interest to make the process of extracting it as efficient as possible.”

Dr Richard Collins, a Senior Research Fellow with UNSW Water Research Centre is the winner of the 2012 Fulbright Scholarship in Nuclear Science and Technology sponsored by the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO).

Through his Fulbright Richard will spend six months at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory developing his skills in computational modelling to improve the efficiency of acid leaching processes used in the extraction of uranium. His project aims to address a lack of knowledge into key processes in the interplay between iron and uranium in the extraction of the material.

“Australia’s uranium reserves are the world’s largest with the 2008-2009 exports of uranium exceeding $1 billion,” Richard said.

“There are significant developments in Australia to adopt acid leaching to maximise the extraction of uranium from low-grade uranium mine tailings and in situ mines. Fundamental knowledge on uranium redox chemistry is now required to transform these operations into an efficient world-class industry.”

Richard said that the extraction of uranium through these leaching techniques dominates activities at Australia’s Beverley, Honeymoon and 4-mile mines and are the focus for the future mining of a further 7 mine sites across Australia. Based on studies at Energy Resources Australia Ltd., a one per cent increase in uranium extraction at its proposed heap leaching facility at Ranger is equivalent to around $10-12 million net profit volume.

“Any modest improvement in the efficacy of these acid leaching processes derived from the outputs of this research project is of potential importance to the National Research Priority Goal of transforming existing industries.

Richard has a BSc in geology and a PhD in environmental science from the University of Adelaide. Richard is currently an Australian Research Council Future Fellow. The aim of Future Fellowships is to attract and retain the best and brightest mid-career researchers in Australia. He also worked at the French Atomic Energy Agency for a number of years after completing his PhD and was the inaugural UNSW-ANSTO Research Fellow, a joint position with the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia and the Institute for Environmental Research, Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO, Menai, Australia. In his spare time he likes to plan road trips, garden and attend to his young family.

Kevin Robert Gurney Senior Scholars

Kevin earned his BA in Physics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1986, an MS in Atmospheric Science from the Massachusetts of Technology in 1990, an MPP from the University of California, Berkeley in 1996, and a PhD in Ecology from Colorado State University in 2004. He has conducted research in carbon cycle science, climate science, and climate science policy. Recently, he has focused on a project called “Hestia” which calculates detailed maps of carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions, the most potent greenhouse gas causing climate change, for four US cities. Kevin hopes to collaborate with researchers at the University of Melbourne in creating a Hestia treatment for the city of Melbourne and thereby take a first step towards a global network of Hestia cities. Through collaboration with the city, the research will not only contribute to improved scientific understanding of urban CO₂ sources but enable practical emission reduction policy.

Ted Lefroy Senior Scholars

Ted graduated from the University of Western Australia with a degree in agricultural science in 1973. He spent the next 12 years working in agricultural extension and rural development in Queensland and Papua New Guinea. In Papua New Guinea he worked for the North Solomon’s Provincial Government through the Australian Volunteers Abroad program on a project to improve food self-sufficiency on four remote coral atolls. In 1987 he returned to Western Australia to work with watershed groups in a United Nations Man and the Biosphere project to improve environmental management on farmlands surrounding the World Heritage listed Fitzgerald River National Park. He has since held positions in agricultural and environmental research with the Western Australia Department of Agriculture, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and the Universities of Western Australia and Tasmania. For the last 15 years he has led interdisciplinary research teams working with land managers to solve problems in agriculture, natural resource management and nature conservation.  In 2003 he was awarded a Eureka Prize for research into the potential of the Australian native plant Weeping Rice Grass (Microlaena stipoides) as a perennial grain crop. In 2005 he was appointed Professor of Environment and Director of the Centre for Environment at the University of Tasmania. Since 2006 has led two national research projects Landscape Logic and the Landscapes and Policy Research Hub that brought together ecologists, geographers, economists and social scientists to work with land managers, planners and policy makers on environmental problems in agricultural landscapes and protected areas. This has included management of soil salinity, conservation of threatened species, control of invasive plants and animals, adaptation to climate change, development of alternative crops and adoption of conservation farming methods.

At the University of Washington Ted will conduct research for an illustrated book ‘The Myths of Nature and the Rise of Ecology”. The book will explore the gap between perceptions of nature in popular culture and concepts accepted within the scientific disciplines of ecology and conservation biology. Ted’s contention is that this gap is currently limiting our ability to develop and implement effective environmental policy. He plans to critically test the ideas behind the book with scholars from a wide range of fields including history, sociology, philosophy, ecology and conservation biology. Ted is also keen to learn about research methods used in environmental history and the history and philosophy of science.

Scott Stephens Senior Scholars

“Wildfires continue to cause great destruction in the US and Australia and changing climates will make a very serious situation worse. Whether it is the 2009 Black Saturday Fire in Victoria or the 2012 Whitewater Fire in New Mexico, wildfires continue to challenge natural resource managers, politicians, and the public.”

Prof Scott Stephens, Professor with the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management at University of California—Berkeley has won a Fulbright Senior Scholarship to come to the University of Western Australia for six months. He will work on the mitigation of large bush or wildfires.

“For over a century fire has been thought of as an arch-enemy with billions of dollars expended to eliminate it,” Scott said. “This policy has not worked because even though 96-99% of all ignitions can be suppressed when they are very small, the fires that get away burn huge areas and can damage natural resources, structures, and kill people.”

Scott says that instead of trying to eliminate fire from landscapes where it is ecologically critical a more appropriate goal would be to learn how humans can live with fire.

“One place in the world that has attempted to follow such a strategy is southwestern (SW) Western Australia. In contrast to SW Western Australia, the US continues to focus on the elimination of fire in most areas even though several recent US federal policies (National Fire Plan, Ten Year Comprehensive Strategy, Healthy Forest Restoration Act) have all attempted to diversify fire management to get away from only fire suppression,” Scott said.

This area has one largest fire management programs in the world and the largest in a Mediterranean climate. His project will analyze key characteristics of this novel program to take the knowledge back to the U.S. to see if it could be adopted there. In addition he will assist in the teacing of a gradute fire ecology class at the University of Western Australia.

Scott has a BS in electrical engineering and an MS in Biomedical Engineering from the California State University, Sacramento and a PhD in fire science from UC Berkeley. He has delivered testimony before the US House of Representatives on fires and forest and water protection. He has also been presented with an Undergraduate Teaching Excellence award from the ESPM Department. In his free time he enjoys hiking, backpacking and rebuilding old vehicles including a World War II military jeep.

Jill White Senior Scholars

Jill’s interest is in the influence of nursing on health policy. As Dean of the Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery at the University of Sydney until recently, Jill has been involved in encouraging greater contribution of nurses to health policy debate and influence. The focus of Jill’s work is to gain a better understanding of the consequences of a global move away from social justice as the underpinning framework for health policy decision-making, to health as an economic good, and the import of this move for nursing and its role in improving health outcomes and patients experiences of health and illness. Jill is a Registered Nurse and Registered Midwife, has a Bachelor and a Master degree in Education, a PhD and is currently completing a Master of Health Policy.

Jill notes that she “fell into nursing and fell in love” – she knew immediately it was what she wanted to be involved in for the rest of her life and she has been fortunate enough for that to have happened. She states that “nursing is one of life’s best kept secrets which is both a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing in that people’s lack of real understanding of the work enables the nurse to work quietly and supportively to ensure extraordinary experiences are able to be coped with, that the unbearable is able to be helped to become bearable and that people are kept safe in unsafe situations. Expert nursing is often only recognized in its absence; when practiced well the hand of safety and support is virtually invisible. This is good for patients and their families but bad for the general population understanding and respect for what is done by nurses. It results in nurses being dismissed as valuable contributors to broad health care discussions and policy making. The lack of understanding and acknowledgement of this wonderful work is the genesis of all her career choices.”

Jill fought for and was engaged in the pilot programmes of nursing into the higher education sector – necessary in her opinion for understanding and articulating the work of nurses and for producing a research base for practise. She participated in government commissions into nursing and its future as the nominee of the Federal Minister of Health. Jill sought engagement within the universities to gain respect and profile for the profession and took progressively more senior positions to further this goal. She fought for legislative change and ended up as president of the New South Wales nursing and midwifery regulatory body, and with national regulation, as the inaugural chair of the Nursing and Midwifery Accreditation Council, the largest health professional accreditation council in the country.  Jill speaks on any occasion she believes will make a difference which has led to the joy of giving papers in 28 countries and providing workshops and undertaking projects in 15. Jill has been privileged by having been recognized in the Australian Honours system as a Member of the Order of Australia (AM).  She has come to believe in the inseparability of education, research, practice and policy and having fought for 35 years for the former three she is now crusading for the fourth – input into policy.

Jill believes the Fulbright Scholarship will assist her to make this next step of “voice into policy” thus completing the circle in her “quartet of concern” – education, research, practice and policy and providing a sustainable legacy of education and internships to develop articulate policy leaders in nursing. During her Senior Fulbright Jill proposes to work with senior health policy scholars at the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn), School of Nursing and Wharton Business School, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the World Bank, the American Academy of Nursing and the Institute of Medicine in Washington. Each of these institutions has a major role in either health policy development or in the capacity building of policy skills for senior nurses.

Clare O’Neill Professional Scholars

“Effective civil-military decision making to meet human insecurity challenges during conflicts and disasters is paramount due to the complexity of the security environment regionally and globally. Militaries will continue to take on humanitarian roles as part of combat and non-combat operations. When military commanders and field practitioners are equipped with the knowledge to quickly understand an environment and the implications of multiagency responses, they will be able to make effective decisions to best achieve strategic intent.”

Major Clare O’Neill, 2013 Chief of Army Scholar, Australian Army has won this year’s Fulbright Professional Scholarship in Australia-US Alliance Studies sponsored by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. She will go to Georgetown University for four months to carry out research that will propose developments to current military decision-making models for the execution of humanitarian action at the tactical level. The outcomes of the research will assist deployed forces make effective and strategically relevant decisions during the response phase of operations. Clare commences her research in Australia through the Land Warfare Studies Centre and University of Canberra’s National Security Institute.

“My research will present a civil-military decision making model for military commanders and field practitioners at the tactical level. The model will propose a set of organising principles intended to inform the development and improvement of processes already in use by United States and Australian government agencies. This will enhance civil-military cooperation and enable effective decisions to best achieve strategic intent,” Clare said.

“I will demonstrate where agencies’ decision making processes overlap, where external input is required and how they can apply identified best practices. It will include valuable analyses of methods decision makers can utilise when faced with human security considerations to address the needs of the individual whilst achieving strategic aims for regional and global security.”

Clare has a BEng from the University of New South Wales and an MA from Deakin University.  She is a Chartered Professional Engineer and has deployed with the Australian Army to Afghanistan and Padang, Indonesia after the 2009 earthquake. Clare has received prizes and awards including a Chief of Defence Force Commendation for her work in Afghanistan and the Australian Society for Defence Engineering Prize. Her interests include running and rowing.

Andrew W.M. Pomeroy Postdoctoral Scholars

Andrew is a Coastal Oceanographer and Engineer, and a Postdoctoral Researcher in coral reef studies at The UWA Oceans Institute.

For his Fulbright Postdoctoral Scholarship, Andrew will work with researchers at the Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center of the US Geological Survey in Santa Cruz to understand the dynamics of sediment transport in coral reefs. Elevated sediment volumes are the dominant local stressor to coral reef ecosystems around the globe, which may be affected by anthropogenic activities, differences in coral reef morphology (i.e., shape and size) and the prevalent forcing conditions (i.e., waves and currents). Andrew’s project aims to develop quantitative methods to estimate baseline sediment volumes. Understanding these baselines is fundamental to distinguish the contribution of natural processes to the volume of sediment in reefs, which will inform management decisions, as well as enable targeted interventions to better protect coral reef eco-systems.

Alex Carter Postgraduate Students

“My research has discovered the influence of the Black Arts Movement in America on Australian cultural and political activists, and I have found a tangible link at a 1970 conference hosted by the cultural-nationalist Congress of African People (CAP) in Atlanta, Georgia.”

Mr Alex Carter, a PhD candidate in Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst has won a Fulbright Scholarship to come to Monash University in Australia to further his PhD research in Afro-American Studies.

“In 1970 Robert Maza, Aboriginal Australian activist and actor embarked on a journey to the United States to attend the Congress of African People conference and study black drama at the National Black Theater of Harlem,” Mr Carter said.

“During his stay, he was highly influenced by black drama and its appeal to the real and lived conditions of oppressed people.”

Mr Carter’s study traces Maza’s time in the United States and his subsequent work in Aboriginal drama in Australia.

“Maza was part of a delegation of Aboriginal activists from the AAL that attended that conference. This event was pivotal to the development of international cultural and political exchanges between African Americans and Aboriginal Australians because it linked hundreds of activists that sought to connect politics and performing arts.”

“After leaving the conference, Maza traveled to Harlem and observed the workings of the NBTH under the guidance of its founder Barbara Ann Teer. In Teer and the NBTH, Maza found a model that suited his political and aesthetic sensibilities of merging performing arts and politics as, in his words, “the best way that black people can protest effectively.” Guided in part by his experiences in Harlem, Maza later cofounded the National Black Theatre of Sydney and this institution served as a platform for actors and community members to develop distinct politically-driven art forms to critically engage and assess their lived social and political experiences as Aboriginals.”

Alex has a BA in political science from the University of Alabama State University and an MA from the University of Iowa in African-American World Studies. He has won awards including University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Distinguished Teaching Award Finalist, 2012, the Student Choice Award from the Center for Multicultural Advancement and Student Success and being on the dean’s list twice. His interests include Transnational and African-Diaspora Studies along with research on the influence on Black Feminisms throughout the world.

Vanessa Turnbull-Roberts Postgraduate Students

Vanessa is a proud Bundjalung Widubul-Wiabul woman who is passionate about human rights and law. She is a survivor of statutory Out of Home Care and continues to drive national discourse in this area. Vanessa’s passion stems from understanding the way the law has disproportionally impacted her community and herself. Vanessa is an advocate for Human Rights, and a storyteller and writer; and has completed a Bachelor of Law degree and a Bachelor of Social Work degree at the University of New South Wales, graduating with First Class Honours. Vanessa won the Australian Human Rights medal in 2019, with her acceptance speech receiving global recognition. She is a PhD candidate at the University of Technology Sydney where her research is centred around decolonising the child protection regime in the lives of First Nations people, and ensuring the rights of children and families are protected and supported. Vanessa is currently writing her first book entitled Long Yarn Short: We Are Still Here, for the children that didn’t get to come home, those yet to come home and the ones who saw neither. Vanessa comes from a long line of activists, and continues this work with all she does.

Vanessa’s Fulbright research aims to develop new, revolutionary ways of changing the child protection system we have here in Australia.

Benjamin Turner Postgraduate Students

Ben is an engineer with experience delivering sustainable infrastructure throughout Australia and is currently pursuing a PhD with the UWA Oceans Graduate School. His research uses a range of field data, laboratory testing and numerical modelling, and has spanned across various fluid-structure interaction problems from subsea pipeline design to open water swimming performance.

Ben’s current research will form a timely connection between Australia and the U.S., with the Bureau of Ocean and Energy Management recently awarding the Carolina Long Bay with an offshore wind energy lease, set to become the first offshore wind development constructed in a region with calcareous sediment. The prevalence of calcareous sediments throughout Australia also means that offshore wind development planned in Victoria and Tasmania will likely be installed into these soils too.

As a Fulbright Scholar, Ben will collaborate with the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth on experimental investigations of offshore calcareous sediments collected from the Northwest shelf of Australia and North Carolina. These tests, in conjunction with imaging analyses, will be used to calibrate Ben’s model of calcareous sediment, which aims to reduce design uncertainty and improve reliability of offshore foundation design.

Sydney Vach Postgraduate Students

Sydney hold an A.B. (Artium Baccalaurens) in Astrophysics and Physics (Joint) from Harvard University. Her research thus far has focused on the detection and characterisation of exoplanets as a part of NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite mission. As a part of the first year of her PhD at the University of Southern Queensland’s Centre for Astrophysics with Dr. George Zhou, her Fulbright project, titled Exploring the Origins and Evolution of Exoplanets via Transit Observations, will build on this research, now focusing primarily on the detection of young planets in order to understand the processes of evolution within a planet’s youth.