University of Melbourne

Wei Heng Chan
In 2019 Wei Heng graduated with a Bachelor of Science majoring in Environmental Science from the University of Melbourne achieving the top grade. He was awarded a place on the Dean’s Honours List for his high marks in various subjects such as ecology, environmental chemistry and data analysis. His studies focused on environmental problem solving and risk management.

As part of a project-based subject in his final year, he worked closely with the Merri Creek Management Committee to investigate the potential litter sources in the Merri Creek. During his studies, he was also a student assistant for the Green Impact program and volunteered externally for Earthcare St Kilda performing conservation work.

Edith Cowan University

Adam Crosby-Clark
Adam Crosby-Clark achieved the highest course weighted average for students graduating from the Environmental Management program in the 2019 calendar year.

University of New England

Samantha Cutler
Sam completed a Bachelor of Environmental Science in 2019 with a GPA of 6.87. She was a Vice Chancellor Scholar in every year she was eligible and received the R & H Robertson-Cuninghame Prize in 2018 for academic excellence in Natural Resources study. At graduation she received the New England Award in recognition of extra training, community involvement and volunteering undertaken during her degree.

Sam’s interests include spatial analyses, molecular ecology and genomics, and she presented a (Highly Commended) poster at the Eucalypt Genetics Conference in Hobart in 2019. She plans to undertake Honours in this research area in 2020.

Southern Cross University

Alison Hammond
Alison has a perfect GPA of 7.0 in all intermediate and advanced subjects in her final two years (6.91 overall). She has just been informed that the journal Marine Biology has accepted her manuscript from her third-year undergraduate research project (Integrated project) for publication. The title of her project was Short term movement and sediment turnover rates of the world’s largest Holothuroid Thelenota anax .She has ambitions to continue her studies as a postgraduate once completing her honours year.

University of Western Australia

Emilia Horn
Emilia has recently completed an internship at Rio Tinto over the Christmas long break. She won that through competitive interview.

She is in her last semester finishing one taught unit and will graduate late 2020. Emilia will then start Hons in soil science. However, Emilia has already undertaken a research internship that has resulted in a paper. Her manuscript is a collaboration between UWA and Bangor University. Emilia undertook detailed molecular microbial work at UWA as an independent research project. She is lead author on the resulting paper “Addition of base cations increases microbial growth in acidic soils”, which will be submitted to Soil Biology and Biochemistry in March 2020.

Emilia won the 2019 Soil Science WA award for best oral presentation (beat all the PhDs across 3 universities). She has a GPA of 6.623 (out of a possible 7).

Griffith University

Lara Keller
Lara completed her Bachelor of Environmental Science, with majors in ecology and conservation and urban environments, in 2019 with an exceptional GPA of 7. In recognition for her academic performance, she consecutively achieved the Griffith Award for Academic Excellence in 2017, 2018 and 2019, as well as achieving the SSSI QLD GIS Prize.

As a part of her studies, Lara participated in a capstone fieldtrip to Maliau Basin, Borneo, where her passion for tropical avian ecology was further reinforced. Now in her Honours year, Lara intends to investigate the factors influencing the urban success of the ground-dwelling Bush Stone-Curlew in suburban Brisbane.

Additionally, Lara has embraced her role as a tutor for the GUMURRII Student Support Unit for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and her enthusiasm for teaching has sparked aspirations to become a lecturer in ecology.

University of Wollongong

Samuel Limbrey
Samuel Limbrey’s strong academic performance, intellectual curiosity, and driven nature make him an excellent candidate for the ACEDD Scholars Awards. Sam has excelled at his studies—completing not only a major in Physical Geography and Environmental Geosciences but three minors, all while working part-time.

To further broaden his perspectives, he completed a semester at Uppsala University in Sweden where he focused on issues of sustainable development at the Centre for Environment and Development Studies. As an Honours student, he has shown impressive independence and intellectual rigour in his analysis of satellite measurements of air pollution in Australia, bringing together methodologies and ideas from atmospheric chemistry, geography, and statistics to provide new knowledge on an important environmental issue.

University of South Australia

Christopher Lowe
Christopher is an outstanding student with great passion about wildlife and conservation. He obtained first class honours with a GPA of 6.875. His research project focused on the terrestrial habitat utilization by sea kraits on a Fijian island, looking at the interaction between environmental heterogeneity, microclimate and sea krait behaviour. Results revealed the importance of high-quality coastal forest for the conservation of this amphibious snake. Christopher’s thesis was awarded a high distinction and received praise from the reviewers. Christopher will submit the findings of his thesis to the Journal of Animal Ecology next month.

Curtin University

Joshua Newton
Joshua has been performing well above the standards in the science degree. He is proactive in all tasks to be done, and produces high quality work. He is a mentor for his colleagues and a leader in team work. He extends the theoretical knowledge by volunteering in research projects and is investing countless hours to achieve positive outcomes. He participates in a variety of projects, contributing into each venture new ideas and knowledge. Joshua is passionate for the environment and invests significant energy to preserve ecological integrity where he can. He surely has a bright future in this field.

RMIT University

Marinda Pattison
Marinda has been an exceptional student throughout the duration of her degree program at RMIT. She is an excellent ambassador for environmental science and conducts herself with professionalism and energy within the discipline. She has completed a number of international environmental projects working on a range of ‘hot topics’. For example, Marinda carried out some high impact research work in Fiji examining the polluting and destruction of microplastics in the environment. She has an excellent academic record (GPA 3.9/4) and has recently been employed as a research assistant working on microplastic distribution and characterisation in the Victorian region.

University of Canberra

Luke Richmond
Luke is a highly recommended candidate who has achieved one of the top GPAs the Bachelor of Environmental Science and went on to complete an Honours program with the title of his research thesis, ‘Condition of mangrove (Avicennia marina) communities in Wagonga Inlet, Narooma. He was awarded a First Class Honours for this research and during his time established many end-user linkages. He also helped other students with matters of data analysis and showed substantial leadership within his cohort during his program.

I unreservedly recommend Luke to you as the University of Canberra nominee for the ACEDD Students Award.

University of Tasmania

Emily Sheppard
Emily has excelled throughout her Bachelor of Natural Environment and Wilderness Studies (BNEWS) degree (GPA 6.82). Her outstanding results across diverse knowledge domains demonstrate a rare ability to integrate the biophysical and the social sciences to develop a holistic understanding of environmental studies. Emily’s achievedHigh Distinctions in all of her units in the final year of her Bachelor of Natural environment and Wilderness degree.

University of Wollongong

Elizabeth Swallow
Elizabeth Swallow’s Honours thesis examined past climate and water depth and water quality regimes in the Thirlmere Lakes, Blue Mountains World Heritage area, NSW. Thirlmere lakes have recently undergone possibly unprecedented drying and Elizabeth’s work using fossil midges to understand past environmental conditions has helped better understand and manage these systems.

As well her work has helped further the use of fossil midges as environmental indicators. Elizabeth has been a consistently high achieving student throughout her degree (achieving 10 HDs and 11 Ds) and is likely to undertake further postgraduate study in environmental science.

Swinburne University of Technology

Hayley Mildenhall
Hayley achieved a GPA of 3.375 across her entire course. Her interest in Environmental Science resulted from studying the the Water Science unit and the realization that it was exactly the type of career she wanted. Another highlight was working with Melbourne Water as the Grand Challenges in Science project, investigating whether recycled water could be responsibly released into the environment. Hayley won the Melbourne Water Women in Water Scholarship and now works with Melbourne Water on her Honours project, which considers whether natural oils (Eucalyptus and tea tree) inhibit bioluminescence bioassays that are used for indicating water quality.

Macquarie University

Max McLennan-Gillings
Max completed a Bachelor of Environment majoring in Earth Science and Spatial Science in 2019. In his final year of study, he was awarded the Friends of Ku-ring-gai prize for academic excellence, and, upon graduating, the university award for academic excellence.

During his degree, Max undertook fieldwork in locations such as Broken Hill, Namibia, and New Caledonia to study the human health and environmental impacts associated with industrial mining and smelting operations. In 2019, he presented his research on indoor exposure risk from mine derived trace elements in Broken Hill at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco.

Queensland University of Technology

Grace Heron
Grace has worked on a number of environmental projects including spatial statistical stream-network models for monitoring aquatic health, the use of low-cost vision sensors to monitor and predict river flows, and developed open-source spatial tools for use in the annual modelling for the Freshwater Ecosystem Health Monitoring Program (EHMP). Grace is also a keen and active citizen scientist, having volunteered with the Virtual Reef Diver project since 2018. She has published 1 paper in an international peer-reviewed journal and is involved in two other manuscripts that are in preparation.

University of Southern Queensland

Luke Mager
Luke has achieved the highest grade-point average of all the students who will graduate with a Bachelor of Science and a major in Environment and Sustainability. He has demonstrated academic excellence throughout his degree program.