Achievements

2009

2007

2008

The School congratulates the following people:

• Dr Richard Payne on his award of the 2008 Royal Australian Chemical Institutes' Biota Award for Medicinal Chemistry. This Medal is awarded to the chemist judged to be responsible for the best drug design and development paper published, patent taken out, or commercial-in-confidence report in the previous calendar year concerning small molecules (less than 1,000 Da) as potential therapeutic agents. This award scores the School a hat-trick, with the Medal being awarded to Professor Kate Jolliffe in 2006 and Dr Mal McLeod in 2007.
  
  
• Emeritus Professor Len Lindoy on his award of the 2009 Craig Medal by the Australian Academy of Science. The David Craig Medal recognises the outstanding contribution to chemical research of Emeritus Professor David Craig, AC, FAA, FRS. Its purpose is to recognise contributions of a high order to any branch of chemistry by active researchers. The award is made annually. This follows the award of the 2008 Medal to Professor Leo Radom and the 2007 Medal to the late Professor Hans Freeman.
  
  
• PhD student Dominik Konkolewicz, on his award of the Treloar Prize for the Best Oral Presentation at the 30th Australasian Polymer Symposium.
  
  
• Ms Alexandra Yeung, PhD student, who has won the prize for best student oral presentation at the recent RACI Chemistry Education Division conference in Fremantle, WA.
  
  
• Several students from the School were awarded prizes at the RACI NSW Organic One-day Symposium on December 3rd. Congratulations to PhD student Stephen Butler (Jolliffe Group) and Honours Student Fiona Ky (Todd group) for winning both the oral presentation prizes (1st and 2nd respectively). Congratulations also to James Cochrane (PhD) and Michelle Wong (Honours), both from the Jolliffe group, who won two of the three poster prizes.
  
  
• PhD student Natsuho Yamamoto, on her award of a 2008 Joan R Clarke Scholarship.
  
  
• Mr John Duckworth, Laboratory Manager, who has shared the 2008 Peter Dunlop Memorial OHS Award. This award recognises individual staff members who have made a significant contribution to improving health and safety at the University of Sydney.
  
  
• Professor Leo Radom, who presented the 2008 Dillon Steele Lecture at the University of Queensland.
  
  
• The Sydney University Chemical Society Selection Committee is pleased to announce that this year's Le Fevre Student Lectureships have been awarded to: Neeraj Sharma, Natasha Sciortino, and Kaitlin Beare. These three outstanding candidates were chosen from a pool of ten high calibre applicants. The Selection Committee was greatly impressed by all of the applicants, and the competition was very close. Congratulations to all.
  
  
• Dr Peter Rutledge, on his award of a prestigious 2008 Young Tall Poppy Award. Peter's research crosses many areas of chemistry, including developing new antibiotics, building improved technologies for detecting pollutants and designing new catalysts. The Young Tall Poppy Science Awards aim to recognise the achievements of Australia's outstanding young researchers in the sciences working in universities, research institutes and laboratories in private industry, private practice and government organisations. The NSW/ACT Young Tall Poppy Awards are principally supported by the NSW Office for Science & Medical Research as part of Science EXPOSed. The NSW Tall Poppy Campaign is also supported by Macquarie University and the NSW Department of Education and Training, with national support through the Department of Health and Ageing.

• Dr Richard Payne who appeared on ABC's Catalyst program - Episode 36 - speaking about his Tuberculosis Drug Discovery Research Program.
  
  
• All the School's successful ARC Discovery Project applicants (Professors Harrowell, Kepert, Lay, Lindoy, Maschmeyer, Kable and Warr, Associate Professor Rendina and Drs Hudson, Payne, Schmidt, Nauta, Ling and Carter). The School has achieved just over a 40% success rate on applications with School members as named Chief Investigators. This significantly exceeds the national average success rate of around 20%. The University overall has also had an excellent outcome, topping the G08 Discovery Project grant income and number of funded grants by a substantial margin.
  
  
• Associate Professor Lou Rendina on his award by the National Breast Cancer Foundation of a Novel Concept Award of $199,985 over two years to fund a research project entitled "Selective Targeting of Breast Tumours for Boron Neutron Capture Therapy".
  
  
• Helen Salouros, PhD student, on her getting the best poster award at the Australian and New Zealand Forensic Science Symposium held in early October in Melbourne.
  
  
• Mark Hackett, PhD student, on his award of a travel bursary for attendance at SPEC 2008, an international conference on spectroscopic disease diagnosis in Sao Paul, Brazil, where he will deliver a talk.
  
  
• Professor Max Crossley on his award of the title of University Professorial Fellow by the Senate of the University in recognition of his longstanding and on-going high achievement.
  
  
• Professor Leo Radom, who was Chair of the Eighth Triennial Congress of the World Association of Theoretical and Computational Chemists (WATOC 2008), held in Sydney from September 14–19.  The Congress attracted more than 830 participants from 46 countries around the world.
  
  
• The following PhD students for their presentations at the recent DRSPOC seminar series: Robert O'Reilly for Best Overall Presentation and Natsuho Yamamoto for Best Themed Presentation.
  
  
• Dr. Kevin Cook, Postdoctoral Fellow, on his award of ARC ARNAM funding to travel to Scotland to work at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh on characterising soft glass waveguides and structured optical fibres and to attend an SPIE Europe Optics and Optoelectronics conference in Czech Republic.
  
  
• Soren Wohlthat, PhD student, who was awarded a poster prize at both the ICEM (International Conference on Electronic Materials) in July and the WATOC (World organization of Theretically Orientated Chemists) conference held in September.
  
  
• Rebecca Lesic, PhD student, on her award of a student travel bursary for CHEMECA2008 - Towards a Sustainable Australasia (28th September - 1st October 2008) from the RACI Industrial Chemistry Division.
  
  
• Professor Thomas Maschmeyer who, in collaboration with Sydnovate, has generated IP licence income of $300,000 for the University in the area of biorefining. In addition, via the consultancy, testing and research agreements set up through Sydnovate, he has helped an Australian start-up (Ignite Energy) to realise a trade-sale at $65,000,000 through which a new resource company was formed (Ignite Energy Resources, currently valued at $200,000,000 with rights to 18 billion tonnes of lignite and associated coal-bed methane).
  
  In addition, Thomas has been appointed Director of the Sydney University Institute of Sustainable Solutions (USISS), founded on the basis of a $15 million bequest to the University, and of the USyd Centre for Sustainable Molecular Science and Technology. Furthermore, he has become non-executive Director of the ASX-listed company ABG.
  
  Thomas has presented an invited lecture on the generation of hydrogen from water and sunlight at the International Conference on Catalysis - the premier event in the field, held every four years.
  
  
• Professors Max Crossley and John Canning on their award of an International Science Linkage Grant funded by the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research. Theirs was the largest grant awarded in the 2008 round ($610,873). The collaborating countries are Brazil and Germany and the project title is Grating and Porphyrin Technologies for Sensing in the Energy and Mining Industries.
  
  
• Andrew McLeod, Honours graduate and part-time research assistant, on his award of the 2008 Convocation Medal. This is the most prestigious award of the University for a recent graduate and is presented to an outstanding recent graduate who has also contributed exceptionally to the life of the University. Andrew is working on a part-time basis in Professor Peter Lay's research group while he completes his Law degree.
  
  
• Postgraduate students Vincent Ching, Yue Wu and Neeraj Sharma for their award of Joan R Clarke Scholarships.
  
  
• Emeritus Professor Len Lindoy on his award of the 2008 Leighton Medal by the RACI. The Leighton Medal is the Institute's most prestigious medal and is awarded in recognition of eminent services to chemistry in Australia in the broadest sense.
  
  
• Andrew McLeod who has been awarded the RACI Western Section Honours Prize for the best Chemistry Honours thesis for a student who is a resident of the Western part of Sydney. Andrew did his Honours project with Professor Peter Lay.
  
  
• Mr James Cochrane, PhD candidate, on his award of the Best Poster Prize at the 2008 RACI Biomolecular Chemistry Conference on Drug Design and Development.
  
  
• Mr Mark Hackett, Ms Taliesha Paine, Mr Ahamed Muneer and Mr James Cochrane, PhD students, on their award of John A Lamberton scholarships.  These scholarships are awarded to postgraduate students whose research areas emanate from and are inspired by the work of Dr John A Lamberton. 
  
  

• Ms Grace Simpkins, PhD student, who was awarded the 2008 Le Févre Travelling Scholarship.
  
  
• Mr Dominik Konkolewicz, PhD student, who was awarded the 2008 Surface Coatings Association Australia Scholarship.
  
  
• Dr Brian Hawkett on his award of a grant of $102k from the Department of Defence for a proof of concept project entitled “Aircraft Coatings”.
  
  
• Mr Tyler Troy, Postgraduate Teaching Fellow, who was awarded a Grant-in-Aid of $2,500 from the University of Sydney for study in France towards his PhD.
  
  
• Ms Rebecca Lesic, PhD student, who received the International Association of Catalysis Society’s Young Scientist Award at the 14th International Congress on Catalysis at Seoul, South Korea in July 2008.
  
  
• Mr Patryck Allen, PG Teaching Fellow, who has been awarded one of five Japanese-funded positions at the Cheiron Synchrotron School at SPring-8 this year which covers all expenses.
  
  
• Associate Professor Lou Rendina who has been admitted as a Fellow of the RSC.
  
  
• Professor John Canning and Professor Max Crossley who have both recently received an IPDF grant from the International Office to help further relationships between Sydney University and Brazilian institutes.
  
  
• Dr Siegbert Schmid on his election as a member of the Teaching Commission of the International Union of Crystallography.
  
  
• Ms Li Li on her award of a CSIRO OCE Postgraduate Top-up Scholarship.
  
  
• Congratulations to the following members of the School who were successful in their applications for International Program Development Fund (IPDF) support:
  • Emeritus Professor Len Lindoy, enabling him to continue his long-standing collaboration with Professor K Gloe and his group at the Technical University Dresden.
  • Dr Mat Todd, for A Pilot Open Source Project for Undergraduates, to develop an undergraduate lab class at Stanford where results are posted on the web and contribute to an open source research project.
  • Dr Mat Todd, for a second India-Australia Workshop on Plant Neutraceuticals (with Basil Roufogalis from Pharmacy), helping fund a visit to Sydney by several Indian researchers for a workshop on developing methods for the extraction and synthesis of small molecules for new pharmaceuticals.
  • A/Professor Sebastien Perrier, for the development of a Strategic Network on Soft Nanotechnology between the School of Chemistry and the Interdisciplinary Research Centre in Polymer Science.
    
    

• Emeritus Professor Len Lindoy on his award by the Royal Society of Chemistry UK of an RSC Centenary Lectureship and Medal for 2009-2010 for his wide ranging and important contributions to coordination chemistry, ligand design and supramolecular chemistry.
  
  

• Dr Peter Rutledge who is the RACI Nyholm Lecturer for 2008 and who spoke to high school students around NSW on Chemicals are Good for You. Peter has been awarded a plaque by the RACI in recognition of his services.
  
  
• Dr Chris Ling who has been awarded a Visiting Fellowship at St Catherine's College, Oxford during Semester 2.
  
  

• Prof J Canning who, with A/Prof G Peng at UNSW, has been awarded a Linkage Grant for Highly Multiplexed Fibre Sensor Systems for Structural Health Monitoring and Risk Assessment of Critical Transport Infrastructures in the latest round. This project is to develop advanced photonic and telecommunication technologies for timely and reliably acquiring and processing key structural performance information. This will reduce structural failures and maintenance costs with reliable data of structure health monitoring and risk assessment.
  
  

• Professor Leo Radom who has been admitted as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. Leo was also selected as the 2008 Schleyer Lecturer at the University of Georgia.
  

• Professor Max Crossley who was the 2008 Distinguished Lecturer of the Chemistry Department at the Hong Kong Baptist University.
  

• Associate Professor Lou Rendina who has been awarded the Royal Society's JWT Jones Fellowship.
  

• The School's Postgraduate Teaching Fellows past and present (Pat Allen, Sam Banister, Kaitlin Beare, Katie Cergol, Jack Clegg, Liz Fellows, Hendra Gunosewoyo, Mark Hackett, Jill Halliday, Brianna Heazlewood, Joe Ioppolo, Dom Konkolewicz, Ambili Menon, Steven Rowling, David Schilter, Neeraj Sharma, Erin Sheridan, Grace Simpkins, Tyler Troy, Natsuho Yamamoto,Alexandra Yeung and Jenny Zhang) on their award of a 2008 Vice-Chancellor's Award for Support of the Student Experience. The program was described as an excellent, sustainable initiative and the Awards Committee was impressed by the breadth of impact of the program which they felt could be easily transferred to other faculties.
  

• Dr Chris Ling who has been appointed Chair of the NSW Synchrotron Consortium.
  

• A/Professor Tony Masters upon winning a 2008 Vice-Chancellor's Award for Outstanding Teaching.
  

• Dr Mat Todd on his award of a Linkage Grant with the World Health Organisation in the latest round for his project Praziquantel: A unique pharmaceutical challenge in which he will be seeking inexpensvie synthetic routes to improve the affordability and availability of this drug for treating tropical diseases, and will explore an open-source model for research and development of a wide range of new drugs.
  

• Dr Adam Bridgeman on his award of the 2008 Faculty of Science Citation for Excellence in Teaching for the School of Chemistry. The Citation acknowledges the contribution of staff in the Faculty of Science to high quality teaching and enhancing the student learning environment. The citation recognises innovation, scholarship and excellent practice in teaching and learning as well as exceptional curriculum design, development and review.
  

• PhD candidates Yue Wu, Elizabeth Fellows, Mark Hackett and Annie Nguyen on their award of AINSE postgraduate top-up scholarships.
  

• Dr Mat Todd and Professsor Basil Roufogalis (Pharmacy) on their award of $20,579 from DEST's Australia-India Strategic Research Fund for a project entitled Plant Nutraceuticals and Bioactive Molecules: A growth opportunity for the pharmaceutical industry in Australia and India. The funding is for a workshop in India later this year, which will bring together academics and industrialists from both countries to generate new research collaborations in developing pharmaceuticals from native flora.
  
  

• Dr Ron Clarke on his appointment as a Distinguished Visiting Fellow by the Faculty of Natural Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel.
  
  

• Professor Leo Radom on the award of the 2008 Craig Medal by the Australian Academy of Science. Leo has made major contributions to the use of theory in areas of chemistry. His research covers the application of computational quantum chemistry to the study of chemical structures and reactions. He has contributed to areas such as gas-phase ion chemistry, substituent effects in cations, radicals and anions, free radical chemistry, 'designer chemistry', and transition-metal-free hydrogenation. His early papers provided a template for benchmarking and applying theoretical methods to chemistry. The David Craig Medal recognises the outstanding contribution to chemical research of Emeritus Professor David Craig, AC, FAA, FRS. Its purpose is to recognise contributions of a high order to any branch of chemistry by active researchers. The award is made annually.
  
  

• Associate Professor Lou Rendina and Associate Professor Michael Kassiou on their award of a research grant from the Cure Cancer Australian Foundation for their project: The Targeting of Brain Tumours by a New Class of Agents for Boron Neutron Capture Therapy.
  
  

• PhD student, Nahid Chalyavi, on her award of an Endeavour International Postgraduate Research Scholarship for 2008 - 2010 by the Australian Government.
  
  

• PhD student, Andrew Telford, on his award of a University of Sydney International Student Scholarship and a CSIRO Flagship top-up scholarship for 2008 - 2010.
  
  

• Professor Peter Lay on his appointment to the Science Advisory Committee of the Australian Synchrotron.
  
  

• Dr Siggi Schmid on his election as Chair of the RACI Chemical Education Division and Mr Justin Read on becoming Secretary of the RACI Chemical Education Division.
  
  

• Mr Justin Read and Dr Adrian George, who are part of a team from the Faculties of Science, Pharmacy, Vet Science, Education and Social Work and Medicine awarded a TIES grant for the project: Developing Student Motivation and Interest.
  
  

• Dr Siggi Schmid, who is part of a team across the Faculties of Science, Engineering and IT awarded a 2008 TIES grant totalling $112,000 for the "Development of Online Tools for Teaching, Self-Teaching and Assessing Numeracy Skills.
  
  

• Arthur Garske, on is 50 years of service to the School. Arthur retired in February 2008.