Academy Fellowships

The Australian Academy of Science has announced the election of 21 leaders in Australian science to its Fellowship for their outstanding contributions to and application of scientific research including evolutionary science, plant development, plant pathology, cancer genetics and epilepsy.

The academy honours the work of Australia’s leading scientists each year with election to its Fellowship, which now numbers 481.

The new Fellows will be formally admitted to the academy at its annual flagship event, Science at the Shine Dome, to be held in Canberra in May, where they will make short presentations about their work.

Academy President Suzanne Cory congratulated all of the new Fellows for their stellar achievements and contributions to advancing the sum of human knowledge.

“All of these scientists are doing amazing and significant work in their chosen fields - they are the Olympic athletes of science,” she said.

The following is a list of the 21 new Fellows.

• Professor Rose Amal, School of Chemical Engineering, University of New South Wales - elected for her outstanding contributions to photocatalysis and leadership in harnessing solar energy to purify water and generate Hydrogen 2.
• Professor Hans Bachor, Australian National University - elected for his pioneering work in quantum optics, which has opened new paths for quantum computing and quantum optical communication technologies.
• Professor John Bowman, School of Biological Studies, Monash University - elected for his original discoveries that have revealed the genetic basis of three fundamental processes in plant development.
• Professor Alan Carey, Mathematical Sciences Institute, Australian National University - elected for his original research in several distinct areas of pure mathematics, particularly in infinite dimensional groups and their application to quantum field theory.
• Professor Georgia Chenevix-Trench, Cancer Genetics, Queensland Institute of Medical Research Berghofer - elected for her work on the genetics of breast, ovarian and other cancers, including showing that mutations in the ATM gene confer moderate risks for breast cancer.
• Professor Michelle Coote, Research School of Chemistry, Australian National University - elected for developing and applying accurate computational chemistry for modelling radical polymerization processes.
• Professor Matthew England, Climate Change Research Centre, University of New South Wales - elected for his work on modelling the Southern Ocean and deep ocean ventilation, and its application to climate models.
• Dr Elizabeth Jean Finnegan, CSIRO Plant Industry, CSIRO - elected for her world-leading research on plant gene expression, including cloning the first plant DNA methyltransferase and the demonstration that DNA methylation is essential for normal plant development.
• Professor Peter Gill, Research School of Chemistry, Australian National University - elected for his fundamental and applied research in quantum chemistry, the discipline in which the laws of quantum mechanics are applied to understand and predict molecular behaviour.
• Professor Barbara Howlett, School of Botany, University of Melbourne - elected for her research in fungal plant pathology, which has improved understanding of disease resistance and had a major impact on the Australian canola industry.
• Professor Lisa Kewley, Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Australian National University - elected for her fundamental advances in understanding of the history of the universe, particularly star and galaxy formation.
• Professor Hanna Kokko, Research School of Biology, Australian National University - elected for her significant contributions to ecology and evolutionary biology using novel mathematic methods.
• Ms Catherine Livingstone, Chair, Telstra - elected for championing science and technology and the critical role they play in the future development of Australia, and for services to the Australian Academy of Science.
• Professor Angel Lopez, Centre for Cancer Biology, SA Pathology, Institute of Medical & Veterinary Science - elected for his work on growth factors, which has paved the way for the development of drugs for the treatment of some inflammatory diseases and certain types of leukaemia.
• Professor Ivan Marusic, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Melbourne - elected for his contributions to fluid mechanics, most notably advancing our understanding of wall-bounded turbulent flows.
• Professor John Miners, Clinical Pharmacology, Flinders University and Flinders Medical Centre - elected for his pioneering work to establish drug metabolism as a predictive science that underpins both preclinical drug development and the clinical use of drugs.
• Professor Craig Moritz, Research School of Biology, Australian National University - elected for his work to improve our understanding of evolutionary biology, particularly how new species arise and develop in different contexts.
• Professor Margaret Reid, CAOUS Centre, Swinburne University of Technology - elected for her pioneering work in new fundamental tests of quantum theory, including teleportation and cryptography.
• Professor Jamie Rossjohn, School of Biomedical Sciences, Monash University - elected for his research into the structural basis for T cell recognition of foreign antigens, which has had a profound impact on our understanding of immune recognition, particularly in autoimmunity and drug and food hypersensitivities.
• Professor Ingrid Scheffer, University of Melbourne and Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health - elected for her groundbreaking research into the genetic causes of epilepsy and related disorders, which has led to better prevention for these disorders and significant advances in diagnosis and therapy.
• Professor George Willis, School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, University of Newcastle - elected for his innovation in diverse fields of mathematics, including insights into locally compact groups and fundamental concepts such as the scale function and flatness.