2021 Academic Staff Awards finalists: The Groundbreakers

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In week 3 of our Academic Staff Awards finalists series, we learn about the Macquarie staff who are pushing the boundaries of knowledge and finding bold new ways to make an impact – both in the classroom and in the research sphere.

Register to attend the Awards ceremony on 30 November and help us celebrate our best.


Excellence in Research – Five Future-shaping Research Priorities

These awards celebrate Macquarie’s Five Future-shaping Research Priorities, demonstrating the real-world impact of university research that has the potential to deliver significant benefits to Australian and international communities.

Professor Jeffrey Braithwaite, Professor Enrico Coiera, Professor Johanna Westbrook, Associate Professor Yvonne Zurynski, Professor Andrew Georgiou  |  Australian Institute of Health Innovation

braithwaite_insetMeet the five Macquarie experts leading research for the NHMRC Partnership Centre for Health System Sustainability (PCHSS). They are among 17 researchers, including health economists, scientists and clinician researchers, across seven universities and five funding partners, working to provide innovative solutions to the challenges facing healthcare systems worldwide. 

Led by Professor Jeffrey Braithwaite, the unique structure of the five-year grant embeds the researchers within the health system to work directly with health organisations. This ensures timely and sustainable improvements to the Australian healthcare system which, to date, include informing the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety; the development of national healthcare policies; designing innovative models of care; and the evaluation of health system programs. 

“Even before this pandemic, healthcare systems were being challenged by threats to their capacity to deliver high-quality care,” says Jeffrey. “These threats include ageing populations, increasing rates of chronic and complex diseases, growing cost pressures from new technologies and medicines, fragmented services, wasteful spending on low-value care and limited use of data and evidence to support health system changes.” 

PCHSS researchers have published more than 460 peer-reviewed papers, books, book chapters and reports since 2017, and been featured in more than 800 media stories. They have convened 465 stakeholder meetings, webinars and master classes. 


Dr Miriam Forbes  |  Department of Psychology

miriam-forbes_insetWith advanced statistics at its core, Dr Miriam (Miri) Forbes’ innovative program of research will fundamentally change the way in which mental illness is diagnosed and classified.

In leading a multidisciplinary international research team to analyse hundreds of symptoms of common and uncommon mental disorders, Miri has examined the most comprehensive symptom-level data ever in the field.

This critical work launches the next step of research by the international Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP) consortium of clinicians and scientists. The HiTOP framework has been developed as a rigorous evidence-based solution to the limitations of traditional diagnostic categories.

“Traditional diagnostic categories are misaligned with key mechanisms in neuroscience, molecular genetics, biological psychiatry and clinical psychology, and this hinders our efforts to identify the causes of mental illness,” explains Miri.

“My work has extended a robust and empirically based model of psychopathology to include the detail that is necessary to support the field’s shift away from the traditional diagnostic categories used in clinical research, and towards developing targeted interventions that are more effective for more people.”


Professor Catherine McMahon, Dr Kylie Gwynne, Professor Liz Pellicano (Department of Linguistics) and Pro Vice-Chancellor (Indigenous Strategy) Dr Leanne Holt

linguistics_insetIn a country with one of the worst rates of ear disease among the Aboriginal population, this team of researchers is ramping up accessibility to culturally safe speech and language programs.

In New South Wales, nearly one in two Aboriginal children aged zero to three is affected by otitis media (OM), a middle ear infection which, for Aboriginal children, often results in hearing loss.

In a research first, Professor Catherine McMahon, Dr Kylie Gwynne, Pro Vice-Chancellor Dr Leanne Holt and Professor Liz Pellicano have taken a collaborative, community-led approach with Aboriginal leadership at its core.

“Australia has many elements required to end avoidable deafness in Aboriginal children. To date, however, these approaches have not been successful in reducing disparities between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal children,” says Catherine.

“By taking a strengths-based approach (rather than the more common deficit-based approach) to Aboriginal health during community partnership meetings, we have focused on the positive and proactive ways that communities and systems address ear and hearing health, and identified opportunities for how these might be strengthened.

“Our research will provide important support and an evidence-base for Aboriginal children with OM and their families to access services to improve listening and hearing which will impact developmental milestones.”


Professor Sheila Degotardi  |  School of Education

degotardi-sheila_insetSo pioneering is Professor Sheila Degotardi’s work in early language learning in early childhood education (ECE) centres, that it has cemented Macquarie University and Australia as research leaders in the field.

Sheila’s MQTaLK (Talk-Learn-Know) programs – funded continuously since 2014 – are providing world-first insights into the hypothesis that certain forms of talk act as “tools for learning” for infants and toddlers. The research program will also provide the first empirical longitudinal evidence of how learning-oriented talk develops and is used by toddlers from socially and culturally diverse backgrounds.

“Nearly 20 per cent of Australian children start school developmentally vulnerable or at risk in the area of language and communication development, so the MQTaLK program is providing much needed Australian data on how ECE infant-toddler programs can reverse early educational disadvantage,” says Sheila.

“Until now, research has largely focused on pre-school aged children. MQTaLK is filling a significant gap in the research on early language learning by focusing on the language environment in infant-toddler ECE centres.”

Sheila’s research is widely published, with MQTaLK publications comprising almost 50 per cent of the existing published infant-toddler ECE research on the topic. As a result she’s in demand as a keynote speaker on the world stage.


Professor Bronwyn Carlson, Professor Sandy O’Sullivan, Associate Professor Tristan Kennedy, Madi Day, Tetei Bakic, Dr Jo Rey  |  Department of Indigenous Studies

indigenous-studies_insetAs Australia’s most distinguished academics on Indigenous peoples, the team at the Centre for Global Indigenous Futures is pioneering a new way of conducting research.

Instead of ‘closing the gap’ and focusing on Indigenous peoples as ‘problems’, their groundbreaking research is undertaken by – and for – Indigenous peoples.

“It’s not just about Indigenous peoples,” says Professor Bronwyn Carlson. “We are responding to a gap in research by addressing the question of Indigenous future and believe strongly in the idea of ‘growing our own’.

Indigenous leadership and researcher development are a key focus for the Centre, which offers an internship program developed by Associate Professor Tristan Kennedy to support future Indigenous scholars.

“Our research reimagines what future life will look like with – and for – Indigenous peoples,” Professor Bronwyn Carlson says.

The team has an outstanding record of industry and academic funding, publications and recognition – and their impact is profound. As well as mapping the complex histories and potential futures of queer Indigenous peoples across the globe; producing new knowledge on Indigenous peoples’ engagements on and with social media; and revealing how hate speech is identified by Indigenous peoples, reinvigorating traditional ways of caring for Country, the team has prompted the creation of Indigenous positions and internships, and influenced the policies of industry partners including ReachOut Australia and Facebook.


Professor Maroš Servátka  |  Department of Economics

servatka-maros_insetInnovative trading rules developed by Professor Maroš Servátka and co-authors from the University of Alabama and the University of Waikato could protect investors from losing trillions of dollars when markets bubble then crash.

In a world-first, their research shows it is possible to eliminate bubbles solely by changing the way trading is conducted.

As well as impacting the trading process, their results also challenge existing thought on how bubbles emerge and how they can be tamed.

“We posit that a crucial factor contributing to bubbles is the presence of a trading institution that encourages traders to misrepresent their willingness to trade,” explains Maroš. “Eliminating incentives to misrepresent demand or supply weakens the speculative motives and causes prices to follow the fundamental value of the underlying asset.”

He says understanding the psychological and economic underpinnings of bubbles is crucial in preventing market crashes from reoccurring.

So the team of experimental economists created economies in the laboratory with real people and real money, and discovered a practical market design in which an institution that curbs incentives to misrepresent willingness to trade can eliminate bubbles.

Their groundbreaking results were accepted by the holy grail of economists, the American Economic Review: Insights, which described the research as a “crucial discovery”.


Professor Neil Saintilan  |  Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences

saintilan-neil-_insetCould rises in sea level be an opportunity rather than a risk? By exploring carbon sequestration – the capture and storage of atmospheric carbon – across sea-level histories up to 8000 years old, Professor Neil Saintilan is pioneering research into the possibility that wetlands could be reliable sites for future carbon capture.

“We answered the long-standing question of how coastal wetlands will respond to accelerating sea-level rise by placing them in a context of global sea-level history through the innovative use of historic analogues,” explains Neil. “Our analysis of global carbon storage in mangrove and saltmarshes, published recently in Nature and Science, shows for the first time that sea-level history has played a major role in determining the concentration of organic carbon in these environments.”

It demonstrates that Southern Hemisphere wetlands have the potential to sequester an additional 5 million tonnes of atmospheric carbon per year if the rate of sea-level rise were to double.

“This acceleration in carbon sequestration also helps wetlands adjust to sea-level rise.”

Neil’s award-winning research has provided a powerful incentive for mangrove and saltmarsh conservation and restoration in Australia and around the globe. In April, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced a $30 million investment in Blue Carbon ecosystems in Australia and the Pacific.


Associate Professor Dominic Berry  |  Department of Physics and Astronomy

d-berry_insetQuantum computers are the most advanced technology ever proposed – with the promise to provide exponential speedups in the power to solve problems.

With IBM and Google expecting to produce them by 2030, Associate Professor Dominic Berry is leading the way in developing the algorithms these computers will need to solve real-world problems.

Unlike most quantum algorithms which are focused on abstract mathematical problems with no real-world application, Dominic’s work opens up entirely new areas of quantum algorithms, with the potential to solve virtually all computational physics and engineering. In the field of chemistry, it could potentially reduce world CO2 emissions by one to two per cent, helping ensure food security for billions of people.

Nitrogen fixing is needed to produce fertiliser – essential for the world’s food supply. “The current industrial process is inefficient, consuming one to two per cent of energy globally,” he explains. “While the biological process is far more efficient, it’s based on a complicated group of atoms called FeMoco, which has so far resisted industrialisation.

“My algorithms provide speedups thousands of times greater than prior work. For FeMoco, the speedup is a factor of 10,000, making it practical to perform on quantum computers in days rather than decades. We hope this will lead to a greatly improved industrial process.”


Dr Hazer Inaltekin |  School of Engineering

inaltekin-hazer_insetIn a country as isolated and unforgiving as Australia, Dr Hazer Inaltekin’s flying and edge computing base stations have the potential to connect remote regions with game-changing technology.

“The ability and agility to move the base stations to wherever and whenever they are needed will offer benefits in many application areas such as remote farming, transport vehicles, mining, environmental monitoring, offshore platforms and bushfire response,” he explains. “The Internet of Things (IoT) – connecting physical objects to the internet – can streamline business processes by decreasing human error and reducing costs by up to 20 per cent through remote monitoring, control and predictive maintenance of critical business assets.”

Hazer is developing a Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite IoT platform and a suite of novel edge computing algorithms that promise a reliable service where there is no mobile coverage. He’s also working on the integration of terrestrial and space communications networks to vastly increase data rates and speeds for remote telecommunications.

And he’s embedded networking and computing aspects of much of this research into the novel – and unconventional – postgraduate unit, Cloud Networks.

“I was tasked by the School of Engineering with developing this unit from scratch based on my research expertise. All content was developed from published research papers – we don’t use textbooks.”


Excellence in Research Innovation, Partnership and Entrepreneurship Award

The inaugural Research Innovation, Partnership and Entrepreneurship award is to recognise and reward excellence in research innovation, partnership, commercialisation, translation, and entrepreneurship at Macquarie University. 


Dr Julian Droogan, Dr Brian Ballsun-Stanton, Lise Waldek  |  Department of Security Studies and Criminology

droogan_insetPolicy makers, law enforcement and tech companies around the world are adopting the groundbreaking research conducted by our team of experts on violent extremism online.

Dr Julian Droogan, Dr Brian Ballsun-Stanton and Lise Waldek were approached by the NSW Government following the 2019 Christchurch attack to guide its response to right-wing extremism and terrorism.

“We developed new best practice technologies and methods for mapping and analysing violent extremism online,” says Julian. “The results have attracted the attention of governments in Australia, the European Union and the United States, and some of the most influential social media companies.

“The impacts of the research will continue for years to come as it is used by the state government to coordinate policy.”

The team has been busy with subsequent government-funded research to examine the impact of COVID-19 on right-wing extremism, and a public testimony at the federal Inquiry into Extremist Movements and Radicalism in Australia. They are currently undertaking research for the United States Institute for Peace on how social media ecosystems are used by the right-wing extremists to spread propaganda and hate, and how policy makers can better provide interventions in this space.

They were also recently approached by former Prime Minister The Hon Kevin Rudd for advice on countering online violent extremism.


Dr Sourabh Khandelwal, Professor Michael Heimlich, Emeritus Professor Anthony Parker, Professor Simon Mahon  |  School of Engineering 

engineering_insetThe ‘wireless wizardry’ of this team of eminent radio-frequency (RF) experts has cemented them as a global authority – in demand by the world’s leading high-tech companies.

Thanks to Dr Sourabh Khandelwal, Professor Michael Heimlich, Emeritus Professor Anthony Parker and Professor Simon Mahon, the High Performance Integrated Circuit group (HPIC) within the School of Engineering is home to two transistor simulation models used all over the world – and is considered the premier group to leverage the transistors into innovative circuits.

Companies including Defence, Science and Technology group (DST), US Air Force, Cree, Ericsson and Analog Devices rely on Macquarie and its diverse team of researchers as leaders in RF research and microwave technology as they prepare the next generation of IC engineers.

Of HIPC’s many partnerships, the Macquarie Analog Devices (MAD) Lab project with Analog Devices is the biggest. The goal: to solve the ‘holy grail’ of RF IC design – a transistor model with near-perfect accuracy that could scale to any transistor size or type of IC.

“The result has been a critical mass of vertically integrated capability and validation,” says Sourabh.

“All of our partners are benefiting from this burgeoning research-HDR-learning and teaching ecosystem through accelerated results and continual improvement, and by cross-fertilisation underpinning technology through a common collaborator, HPIC.”


Distinguished Professor Phil Taylor  |  Applied Biosciences

phil-taylor_insetIn leading the charge against Australia’s biggest pest threat to its $14.5 billion horticultural industry, Professor Phil Taylor maintains a large, diverse and highly innovative research program.

It’s Macquarie’s most substantial externally funded program – currently at $40 million, including an ARC Centre – with a focus on deep partnership with diverse stakeholders to develop and improve sustainable solutions for the management of pest fruit flies.

Phil’s impact is wide-ranging,and includes the development of the Sterile Insect Technique (SIT) for the management of pest fruit flies. “My team’s rearing protocols have massively improved the quality of the sterile insects released to induce infertility in pest populations, and our holding and release protocols have resulted in a six- to eight-fold increase in field survivorship and maturation.”

So significant are his partnerships, they warranted the establishment of Applied BioSciences as a Research Department, which expands Macquarie’s scope to capitalise on his drive for effective engagement with industry, governments, and communities.

Through Applied BioSciences, Phil has developed a vehicle for translation of biological knowledge into impactful innovations through collaboration and strategic partnerships. This has led to significant investment and shared endeavour with partners, particularly through the establishment of co-funded research appointments and co-location of researchers from partner organisations.


Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Learning Innovation

This award recognises the development and implementation of innovations that improve learning, teaching or assessment to enable, motivate, support, and inspire students to learn.


Agnes Bodis, Melissa Reed, Yulia Kharchenko  |  Department of Linguistics

bodis-team_insetIn their bid to provide an inclusive education, this team of pioneering teachers has designed an innovative program that allows students to undertake practical elements of their unit online – and it has the potential to be applied across many courses.

When external online students for Language Teaching Methodologies jumped from 26 per cent in 2019 to 60 per cent a year later, Agnes Bodis, Melissa Reed and Yulia Kharchenko adapted quickly to ensure their students could still undertake the small group peer teaching practice (microteaching) they needed to pass the unit.

“We designed a series of teaching tasks using VoiceThread, an online platform enabling multimodal communication,” explains Agnes. “So all students, regardless of their enrolment mode, have ample practice teaching and observing others – in their own time.”

An added bonus is that the continual support afforded to students through the new technique results in improved assessment performance – and higher grades.

Improvements to the unit have been widely supported, with students reporting that online microteaching is “a fantastic precursor to the practicum unit” by addressing shortfalls before teaching in the classroom.

The online peer-evaluated microteaching has been incorporated into the unit’s core curriculum and is now an assessed participation task.


Professor Panos Vlachopoulos (Deputy Dean, Education and Employability), Associate Professor Andrew McGregor, Michael Rampe | Faculty of Arts

faculty-of-arts-team_insetWith an ever-increasing need for transferrable workplace skills and a growing student-to-lecturer ratio, innovation is becoming essential to meet the needs of students – and their future employers.

The Faculty of Arts team of Professor Panos Vlachopoulos, Associate Professor Andrew McGregor and Michael Rampe has successfully rolled out a new collaborative learning tool that is just that.

By integrating Team-Based Learning (TBL) into their classes and online teaching (believed to be a first for online TBL), the team is transforming the student learning experience with highly engaging content and discussion that sharpens critical thinking and communication skills.

“TBL centres on students applying their knowledge to real-world problems,” says Andrew. “It adopts a flipped classroom approach, where students individually learn content before class and apply this knowledge in individual and group activities.

“A dynamic learning environment is created that tests knowledge, encourages peer-to-peer collaboration, communication and influencing skills, requires quick thinking and responses, and promotes group problem-solving. For in-class TBL activities, passive lecture time is transformed into an enjoyable and intense learning event where the atmosphere is engaged and interactive. 


Dr Christian Schwab, Associate Professor Richard McDermid, Jacob Pember  |  Department of Physics and Astronomy

cschwab-team_insetPhysics and astronomy students are finally out of the classroom and experiencing a unique new way of learning, thanks to a state-of-the-art observatory developed by Macquarie’s very own team of experts.

The pioneering facility – located on campus – was developed over three years using multiple grants by Dr Christian Schwab, Associate Professor Richard McDermid and Jacob Pember, with the direct involvement of undergraduate students. With a professional-grade spectrometer, also built by the team, and the addition of a robotic telescope, it’s now dedicated to undergraduate teaching, research development and public outreach.

“By embedding practical experience in our third-year unit, we not only attract students to further study, but also give them a competitive edge beyond graduation,” says Christian. “We provide important training for employment as an astronomer in academia or observatory staff. But these skills are transferrable to a much broader range of industries, from the $4 billion-a-year optical spectroscopy market to earth exploration, pharmacy and food science.”

The authentic research experience ASTR3010 students now gain not only allows them to observe and analyse their own stars using tools and instruments used by professional astronomers, it’s resulting in higher engagement and bringing together the previous three years of study.


Dr Jennifer Ruskin  |  Co-op and internships, Macquarie Business School

jruskin_insetDr Jennifer Ruskin has taken ‘students as partners in learning’ to a whole new level.

While students have been involved in the co-creation of courses for some time, Jennifer has innovated a sustainable new way to design curriculum.

By transforming contributions by students and industry partners into teaching resources, she enhances the range of perspectives and choice for students, and better prepares them for subsequent industry placements.

In driving their own learning, students contribute to ongoing unit development through self-assessments and by facilitating seminars that help their peers explore and develop an identified skill.

“Students become agents in their learning,” says Jennifer. “They have a choice in the skills that are assessed, develop evaluative judgment and practise digital skills.”

In leveraging her relationship with industry partners, Jennifer is able to turn a 45-minute interview into up to eight clips that can be used across units. Embedded on iLearn, these clips provide a foundation for student reflection and offer insights into issues students may encounter during a placement.

Jennifer says, “Students describe the intrinsic motivation linked to feeling included and that their opinion matters, and the deep learning that comes from feeling supported and having a class that is catered to them.”


Shamim Joarder  |  Learning Enhancement and Student Engagement, Office of the Pro Vice-Chancellor (Learning and Teaching)

sjoarder_insetWith just three clicks of the mouse, academic staff can almost instantly re-engage students who might have otherwise dropped off the radar.

Shamim Joarder’s iLearn Insights – developed at Macquarie – is the learning analytics tool now used by academic staff to give their students a tailored and engaging learning experience.

While Shamim developed the program before COVID-19, the impact since online learning took hold has been profound.

“It addresses the challenge of engaging and supporting students, allowing academics to identify students who are engaging or otherwise with the Learning Management System content, thus allowing early intervention, and ultimately improved retention with targeted support,” explains Shamim. “Of the students who had not logged into a unit’s iLearn site within last seven days, 82 per cent were re-engaged within 48 hours of receiving a personalised email intervention.”

Macquarie Business School’s Dr Prashan Karunaratne is one of many impressed users: “This was the single tool that saved my engagement with my students during COVID. Where I would usually get a snapshot in my face-to-face interactions in class, now I got these same snapshots, and more, via iLearn Insights.”

This year, more than 670 staff across 40 departments have sent almost a quarter of a million targeted emails to students though iLearn Insights.


Missed our earlier finalists profiles? Find them all here.

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