Recipients of 2013 SIEF grants announced

Australia’s Chief Scientist, Professor Ian Chubb, this week honoured the 2013 recipients of the Science and Industry Endowment Fund (SIEF) grants to science and scientists. The grants are designed to assist Australian industry, further the interests of the Australian community and contribute to the achievement of Australian national objectives through scientific research.

Among the four recipients of the 2013 John Stocker Postgraduate Scholarships was Romina Cayumil from UNSW, who is doing research into the recycling of e-waste metals and polymers for the recovery of value-added materials in collaboration with CSIRO. The other recipients were Matt Thompson of ANU, Vidya Ramesh of UNSW and Ashley Laurence Uren of ANU.

Meanwhile, the 2013 Undergraduate Degree Scholarships provided financial assistance to six science and engineering undergraduates who are from rural, remote or Indigenous backgrounds to reduce barriers to these students embarking on careers in science.

An additional scholarship was recognised arising from a donation from Dr John O’Sullivan following his 2009 award of the Prime Minister’s Prize for Science. The John O’Sullivan Postgraduate Scholarship was awarded to Jiajia Guo for her study into the utilisation of scare radio spectra for broadband communication.

Dr Dessislava Mladenova from the Garvan Institute of Medical Research received one of six John Stocker Postdoctoral Fellowships and is working in the area of ageing of the human brain to enable us to better understand age-related neurodegeneration. Dr Ines Melendez from CSIRO will also receive a fellowship for her work on metals, hydrocarbons and multicellular life and how unconventional hydrocarbon-related precious metal ores formed during the early Cambrian evolutionary explosion. Other recipients came from CSIRO, UWA and Macquarie University.

SIEF has also announced funding in other areas recently, including a grant of $12.4 million to support the development of an Advanced Resource Characterisation Facility as part of the National Resource Sciences Precinct in Perth; and funding to assist in the construction of the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP), which will be the most powerful survey radioastronomy instrument on the planet.