Alumni Profiles

Burdett Loomis Distinguished Chair

“Whether in Washington, D.C., Brussels, or Canberra, lobbying has become a growth industry over the past 20-30 years. The lobbying communities of national capitals (and of many state/provincial ones, too) have grown larger and more varied, not only in the number of clients served but also in the variety of services offered.”

Professor Burdett Loomis, Professor with the Department of Political Science at the University of Kansas, has been awarded one of two Fulbright Flinders University Distinguished Chairs in American Political Science. Burdett will come to Flinders University in Adelaide for five months to work on a project researching lobbying and its impact in Australia, which will provide a basis for comparative work.

“My research project for the Fulbright Chair tenure will first seek to understand the overall scope and nature of the Australian lobbying industry; this will include how the national government and the individual states/territories seek to regulate lobbying. The second, related research strand will address how lobbying affects agendas and policy outcomes,” Burdett said.

“President Obama has attacked the Washington lobbyists, seeking to place limitations on their interactions with government and their recruitment to it. Still, even in the United States, where this growth first emerged and has developed in the most sophisticated ways, we do not completely understand the scope of lobbying, to say nothing of its manifestations and impacts.”

“I will use a multi-dimensional approach (available data, interviews, surveys) to construct a detailed picture of the Australian sector of organized interests and their attendant lobbying. The differences between the American separation-of-powers government and the Australian parliamentary system will likely yield notable differences in how groups and lobbyists are arrayed to affect public policies.”

Burdett has an MA and a PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has been a Hall Center for the Humanities Fellow; a Fulbright Senior Specialist; and has won a Kemper Foundation Teaching Award and been an American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow. He has held many high-level administrative roles including being Director of Administrative Communication, Office of Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius; and he has also taught politics and published extensively, with more than 30 books in various editions. He is a founding co-editor of the new journal, Interest Groups & Advocacy. His interests include research on legislatures and interest group, and he teaches a cours on politics and literature. In addition, Burdett has lectured widely for the U.S. State Deparment in Asia and South America, most recently in Indonesia in 2012.

Dr Paul Mcgreevy Senior Scholars

Paul McGreevy is a veterinarian and ethologist. With expertise in learning theory, animal training, animal welfare science, veterinary behavioural medicine and anthrozoology, he is a co-founder and honorary fellow of the International Society for Equitation Science, an academic group that promotes evidence-based equestrian practice to advance horse welfare and rider safety. Paul and his team recently launched Equine Behavior Assessment and Research Questionnaire (E-BARQ), an ongoing global database of domestic horse behaviour, designed to reveal how horses’ training and management interact with their behaviour. Beyond immediate and direct research outcomes, E-BARQ promises profound benefits to horse owners, riders and trainers.

Paul will use his time at Colorado State University to ensure that US horses and their humans obtain maximal benefit from the EBARQ initiative.

Professor Naomi Sunderland Senior Scholars

Naomi is a proud descendant of the First Nations People of Australia alongside her family’s diverse European heritage. Naomi works at the interface of arts and health disciplines to develop internationally recognised theories, models and approaches for trauma-informed and arts-based research, teaching and practice. She is an Australian Research Council Fellow investigating First Nations music as a cultural determinant of health.

Naomi’s Fulbright Scholarship at the University of New Mexico aims to examine the potential of collective community music activities in responding to mass experiences of collective trauma in First Nations and other communities.

Travis Britton Postdoctoral Scholars

Travis is a plant eco-physiologist researching how ecological interactions influence tree growth and survival. His work is largely focused on how ecological interactions among neighbouring plants modify the direct effects of environmental change in forest communities. He is particularly interested in whether integrating broad-scale climatic conditions with local-scale ecological interactions increases our ability to accurately predict tree performance.

As a Fulbright Scholar, Travis will seek to improve our understanding of how plant physiology and various ecological interactions determine drought-driven tree mortality. The outcomes of his Fulbright research will inform models predicting future drought impacts on forest ecosystems and assist in maximising the success of future conservation efforts.

Kate Johnson Postdoctoral Scholars

Kate is a plant physiologist researching how drought kills trees through damage to the pipe-like cells that transport water in plants (called ‘xylem’). In drought conditions, rapid entry of air into the xylem results in air bubbles (embolisms) which block the flow of water leading to plant damage and death. Kate is particularly interested in how xylem arrangement and connectivity influence the way that air spreads through the water transport system and whether this is linked to the drought resistance/ vulnerability of trees.

As a Fulbright scholar Kate will use the latest techniques (which utilise x-rays and optical light) to visualise, map and model drought-induced air spread through the xylem of trees. In collaboration with experts in plant physiology, Kate will use this information to predict the timing of drought-induced death and damage in different tree species which will ultimately help to inform management of native and commercial forests in the face of increasing drought.

Donna-Marie Palakiko PhD, RN, APRN Postdoctoral Scholars

Donna-Marie is a Native Hawaiian mother, health strategist, community-based researcher, nurse, and Assistant Professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa’s Nancy Atmospera-Walch School of Nursing. She has over 20 years of community-based participatory research and non-profit experience including health care administration and workforce development. She is committed to addressing social determinants of health among indigenous people through the development of culturally safe health interventions. As a Fulbright Scholar, Donna-Marie will partner with experts in lung health and indigenous researchers to understand the role and influence culture has on asthma outcomes among indigenous people.

Dr Vi Khanh Truong Postdoctoral Scholars

Khanh completed his PhD at Swinburne University of Technology in 2012. Following his PhD, he commenced a postdoctoral position working with the Cooperative Research Centre for Polymers, where his focus was on the development of novel biopolymers to assist with sustainable agricultural in Australia. His current fellowship (ARC Research Hub for Australian Steel Manufacturing) develops antifungal materials used for steel. His knowledge extends from the design of smart and functional materials to the understanding of cellular interactions with nanomaterials.

Microbial infections are a threat to human health. Microbes can rapidly develop resistance to common market-ready drugs, hence novel approaches are required to complement these drugs. This Fulbright Scholarship allows Khanh to work with Professor Michael Dickey at North Carolina State University, developing novel non-drug-based approaches using liquid metals. These materials are known to produce shape-transformable, microbiocidal properties.

Daniel Duke Postgraduate Students

“Sprays are everywhere, but very little is understood about how they work. Sprays result from the disintegration of a flowing liquid due to turbulent hydrodynamic and surface tension forces and as such are extremely complex. They may be one of the most challenging problems facing scientists today.”

Daniel Duke, PhD candidate at Monash University has won the inaugural Fulbright Scholarship in Nuclear Science and Technology sponsored by the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO). Through his Fulbright, Daniel will go to Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois to use pioneering Synchrotron X-ray techniques developed in the US in combination with the methods he has been developing during his PhD to attain a better understanding of the formation of sprays.

“As well as being an enticing intellectual challenge, I want to study sprays because they are important to so many areas. Sprays are employed to deliver drugs, coat surfaces with chemicals and paints, apply pesticides to crops, and to mix air and fuel in internal combustion engines and jet engines, to name just a few areas,” Daniel said. “Ever-increasing demands for efficiency in delivering the appropriate dose of a chemical via spray are pushing the limits of our understanding. Consider the delivery of pesticides to agricultural crops. Limited supply of expensive chemicals is a huge factor in the cost of food production. Yet a large portion of the pesticide never reaches the crop and is blown away because the applicators cannot deliver an optimum droplet size.”

“An improved understanding of sprays will allow us to make a seismic shift in thinking; from design by chance to design for a purpose. This will lead to world-changing innovations in so many areas. We can reduce pollution and greenhouse emissions through the development of cleaner diesel engines. Millions of people in developing nations will also benefit directly from more affordable and available food and medicine. More than ever we need to make this shift, and it is now within our grasp.” Daniel has a BE (Honours)/BTech (Aero) from Monash University, and is in his 3rd year of postgraduate study at the Laboratory for Turbulence Research in Aerospace & Combustion. He is a member of the Golden Key Academic Honour Society, and has won awards including Dux of School, School Captain of Music, an Outstanding Academic Achievement Award, and the Monash Prize. His interests include playing trumpet, writing jazz music, cooking, art and politics.

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. Daniel is one of 26 talented Australians to be recognised as a Fulbright Scholar in 2011.

Matthew Norris Postgraduate Students

“There is an ongoing need to discover new pharmaceutical agents, medicines and vaccines to combat the ever increasing number of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and cancerous cell lines that threaten human health on a global scale.”

Mr Matthew D. Norris, a PhD candidate at Flinders University in Adelaide, is the 2013 winner of the Fulbright Australian Alumni (WG Walker) Scholarship which is funded through donations by Fulbright Alumni and is awarded to the highest ranked Postgraduate Scholar each year. Through his Scholarship, Matthew will go to Princeton University for 12 months to further his research into the synthetic preparation of rare and highly complex natural medicines.

“The need for new pharmaceutical agents has driven the chemical search to remote biological ecosystems with a rich diversity of organisms that have been found to produce a plethora of highly complex and unique organic (carbon-based) molecules,” Matthew said.

“Interestingly, many of these naturally occurring compounds, often with bizarre and somewhat mysterious structures, show promising attributes as potent antibacterial and anticancer medicines.”

These natural products are only produced in trace quantities and hence, their preparation by synthetic means is required to enable further research and development in the pharmaceutical industry, Matthew says.

“Owing to the unusual architecture of many natural drug candidates, their construction is typically too difficult, ineffective or costly using methods currently established in modern synthetic chemistry. The primary motivation of my research is to develop new methods of synthesis in which chemists can rapidly access highly complex structures in a cost-effective manner from simple, cheap starting materials.”

Matthew has a BSc (Hons) Chemistry from Flinders University. Matthew was the recipient of the MF & MH Joyner Scholarship in Science, Flinders University Medal, The Malcolm Thompson Prize for Research in Organic Chemistry, Royal Australian Chemical Institute SA Branch Prize and The Max Clark Prize in Science and Engineering. Outside of his research he enjoys university teaching and playing the guitar.

Alison Ong Postgraduate Students

Alison comes from a multidisciplinary background, drawing from economics, policy, and technical analysis to solve complex environmental problems. Her experiences range from laboratory research on emerging solar technologies at UC Berkeley to political advocacy work in California. Most recently, she was employed as a Consultant in San Francisco at Energy and Environmental Economics, Inc. where she evaluated variable energy generation interactions with the electric grid. Her major projects involved providing expertise on battery storage impacts and deployment for state regulators in California and New York. 

For her Fulbright project, Alison will conduct a comparative study of renewable integration challenges in California and Australia, and the potential for overcoming them using energy storage technologies to moderate variable power generation. She hopes her findings will provide guiding principles for system-wide change that will further dialogue, promote collaboration, and advance action towards a greener future in both California and Australia. 

Sonya Palmer Postgraduate Students

Sonya is a PhD candidate of the Integrated and Photonics Application Centre (InPAC) in the School of Engineering at RMIT University. Sonya’s research is centred on the development of precision measurement tools, called quantum sensors, for industries such as health, space and mining. One important application of quantum sensors is atomic clocks for measuring time, but similar approaches can be used to measure magnetic fields, acceleration and gravity. Existing quantum sensors are bulky, complex and non-portable, so Sonya’s research focuses on how integrated photonics can make these systems more portable. Sonya will spend her time at the University of California Santa Barbara under the supervision of Professor John Bowers, a world leader in integrated photonic technology and its commercialisation.

As a Fulbright scholar, Sonya will develop a greater understanding of how to bring academic research through to the commercialisation stage, something she is looking forward to bringing back to Australia.

Helen Xiao He Zhang Postgraduate Students

Helen is a Legal Officer in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT). She served as Second Secretary (Political/Economic) and Vice-Consul at the Australian Embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel, from 2015-2018. During her diplomatic posting, Helen reported on international security issues such as the Syrian war, ISIS, foreign fighters, and the Iran nuclear deal. Helen also spearheaded the innovative ‘Ozraeli’ campaign to promote Australia in Israel through digital diplomacy. Helen completed her undergraduate studies at the Australian National University, and practiced commercial law in China before joining DFAT.

Helen will undertake a Mid-Career Master’s degree in Public Administration at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government (HKS) in 2019 as a Fulbright Anne Wexler Scholar. At HKS, she will build on her expertise in international security and deepen her understanding of challenges facing democracies and the liberal international order. Helen plans to use her HKS experience to help shape Australia’s foreign policy.