 Welcome everyone to this very special occasion. My name is Helen Sullivan. I am the Dean of the College of Asia and the Pacific and I will be your emcee for this evening. It is my very great pleasure to welcome you all to this wonderful celebration of staff achievement at the ANU. As we begin, I would like to acknowledge and celebrate the traditional owners of the lands and airways on which we are meeting. I'm coming to you from Nenawol and Nambri lands and I would like to pay my respects to elders past and present. So as I say, this is a celebration of the extraordinary achievements of our colleagues throughout the year, coming together of the Chancellor's Awards and the Vice-Chancellor's Awards. What could be finer than this? If you are fortunate enough to be at the Vice-Chancellor's residence then I understand that there is food and wine. If you aren't, then can I encourage you to do what I've done, which is to put on my best feather boa, which I imagine is going to annoy me intensely shortly, and also get yourself equipped with a glass of something special. This is non-alcoholic sparkling Chardonnay, which I'm drinking because I am going to be hosting the events and need to stay in control. So a couple of housekeeping issues before we get into it. Please, could you all keep your microphones muted throughout the event so that we don't get feedback or any unfortunate commentary? The audience, you're all welcome to use your video. We're confident that we have enough bandwidth. The event is being recorded. If you don't wish to be included in the recording, please turn your video off and mute your microphone. And if you have any further concerns about us recording the event, please don't feel obliged to stay. And reminder also to be respectful. This is a celebration and it's not the right forum for other kinds of conversations. Disruptive or disrespectful audience members will be ejected and that would be a terrible shame for all of us when we are here to enjoy and celebrate some fantastic achievements. All award recipients will be contacted by the events team in the next week with details on how you collect your certificates. So look out for those emails. And if you are a recipient this evening, you'll be invited to speak. So please get prepared by unmuting your microphone and turning on your video if you wish to once you've heard your name or the team's name if you are the team lead. Now, this is, as I say, a very special occasion and a special occasion means that we have some very special presenters, none more so than the Honourable Julie Bishop, who is the Chancellor as you all know of the ANU and will be presenting the Chancellor's Awards. Professor Brian Schmidt, our Vice-Chancellor, will be presenting some of the Vice-Chancellor's Awards and then we also have a positive cornucopia of senior executive figures. Professor Marianne Diva, who is the Pro-Vice-Chancellor Education and Digital. Professor Keith Nugent, the Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Research and Innovation. Ed O'Daily, the Director of ANU Communications and Engagement. And Dominique Hayward, the Director of Planning and Service Performance. And they will all be speaking to and announcing awards that are particular to their areas. So before we go any further, I'd like to invite Brian Schmidt, our Vice-Chancellor, to deliver his own welcome to you. Brian, over to you. Thank you, Helen. And I too would like to acknowledge and celebrate the first Australians on whose traditional lands and airways we're all meeting, pay my respects to elders past and present. Now as Helen indicated, I'm excited to be joining you tonight from the Vice-Chancellor's residence, first time I've been here for a while, on our beautiful campus, on the lands of the Nunnawal and Ambrie people, the traditional custodians for this part of the world, for more than 25 millennia. Tonight is a special occasion. In fact, it is one of my favorite events. And despite another, we'll call it challenging year, I think we could be more descriptive if we wanted to, it is important that we come together to celebrate the remarkable achievements of both our professional and our academic staff within our community. As a National University, ANU continues to be at the heart of the research and educational excellence at one of our and one of our core values is that we strive for excellence in everything we do. And it's not just the excellent work of our academics and educators that make ANU so great, but also the work of our professional staff. Each year, I'm proud to be part of such a great community, a place where we support each other's ideas, foster innovative new approaches, and come together to solve challenges facing our nation and beyond. This year is no exception. These past two years were the toughest times the university has ever faced, but I remain optimistic about our future. Now, more than ever, it is important that we acknowledge some of those people who helped us through our most challenging times. And tonight, we will do just that. ANU is ultimately the university it is because of its people. And while tonight we will celebrate individual and team achievements, it's also important that we acknowledge all of those who supported these people along the way. I would like to acknowledge and thank the colleagues of tonight's recipients. I'd also like to thank the sponsors who took the time to nominate their colleagues. These individual accolades do not happen without the help and support of a team. And of course, there are recipients, family and friends who have had to endure a crazy last couple of years. Dedicating such a large part of yourself to your work cannot happen without the support of loved ones. I'd also like to thank our entire community. The uncertainty and hardship this year has brought, has been, I know, hard on everyone. It's been hard on everyone across the world, but it is something where I can tell you, looking to the future, good times are going to return. And that's one of the reasons why I want to celebrate tonight. I admire the patience and resilience everyone has shown to get through these bad times. Your response is a testament to what makes ANU and our community so great that I could not be more excited to see what 2022 holds for our university. As Helen indicated, we are joined tonight by our Chancellor Julie Bishop this evening from our office and Perth, and she will be presenting the 2021 Chancellor's Awards. I was, of course, hoping, and I think Julie hoping even more than I, that she would be celebrating on campus with us right now. But Julie, there's always next year and maybe even the year after that, the way things are going in Western Australia. But without further ado, I'd like to invite the Chancellor to speak and commence tonight's proceedings with the 2021 Chancellor's Award. Over to you, Julie. Thank you, Vice Chancellor. And I too acknowledge all our special guests this evening. I do wish I could be with you, Brian, at your party at the Vice Chancellor's Residence. But I'm joining you from the ANU office in Perth on the traditional lands of the Wajap people of the Noongar Nation, and I pay my respects to their Elders past and present. As Brian said, although we'd hoped we'd be able to host this event in person, I am still very pleased that we're coming together for the 2021 Chancellor's and Vice Chancellor's Awards to recognise and celebrate the exceptional contributions made by our academic and professional staff. It's especially important for us in what has been another incredibly challenging year. While universities have the knowledge through research and teaching to make change and to think differently, universities can only be as great as their people. Without skilled, hardworking and passionate people who are committed to their work, the world would be a very different place. As Chancellor of Australia's first and only national university that sits among the world's best, I acknowledge the contributions of all members of the ANU family in areas of research and teaching and innovation and policy. Our ANU community continues to respond to not only challenges faced here at ANU, but also the unforeseen challenges our nation continues to face, particularly throughout this global pandemic. Our university has caused to celebrate the exceptional talents and high caliber of people who can be relied upon to find solutions to national, regional and global challenges. So now to the Chancellor's Awards. First, the Chancellor's Award for Distinguished Contribution to the University. Now this award recognises contributions to the economic, cultural, scientific or social development of Australia or the international community and demonstrates eminent achievement and merit of the highest degree. Our judging panel decided that there were two worthy recipients this year. So I'm pleased to announce that the first recipient of the 2021 Chancellor's Award for Distinguished Contribution to the University is Emeritus Professor Ken Baldwin. Now Ken has been an active member of the ANU community for over 40 years through his awarded research career in optical and quantum physics as an academic mentor and allow me to add as an active student mountaineer. Now throughout his career, Ken has been passionate about his research and impact on the next generation of leaders. His focus and dedication and commitment to his work has been crucial in bringing initiatives into being, including the ANU Energy Change Institution and the Zero Carbon Energy for the Asia-Pacific Grand Challenge. Ken has been a highly effective advocate for engagement between policymakers and STEM researchers throughout his career and with an influential media presence through his focus on energy transition, particularly for Australia's future export industries based on renewable energy. I invite Emeritus Professor Ken Baldwin to say a few words. Thank you very much Julie and it's a great honor to receive this award. I'm reflecting this evening with my co-recipient who I went to school with, believe it or not many years ago, that when I first walked through the doors of the ANU back in 1974 as an undergraduate, that really I had no conception of where my career in physics, which I was embarking on then, might take me. And indeed, even more recently, I do remember sitting on the bleachers with our Vice Chancellor, Brian Schmidt, watching our children at Little Athletics. And probably 15 years ago, neither of us realized that he would be the Vice Chancellor and be that I'd be receiving this award this evening. So it just goes to show how things develop over time. One thing I've learned, particularly in recent years, is that you can continue to learn and to reinvent yourself. And the Energy Change Institute is an example of that. I've developed an appreciation and a deep understanding of disciplines well beyond physics as a result of this. And indeed, I owe a lot of tonight's award to the many colleagues who I worked with in the Energy Change Institute and in physics over many years. So I think it's a life lesson that you can always learn, you can always develop, and you can always achieve well beyond those areas and those goals you had many years ago. So thank you, Julie, and thank you, everybody. And indeed, I'd love to acknowledge all the people who helped support me in this journey. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ken, and hearties, congratulations. The second recipient of the 2021 Chancellor's Award for Distinguished Contribution to the University is Professor Amanda Barnard. Amanda's dedication and commitment to the university was evident when she returned from retirement in 2020 and she now serves as the Associate Dean for Rural and Indigenous Health at A&U Medical School. Amanda resumed her role as a Foundation Head of the Rural Clinical School, previously serving between 2004 and 2018. She's an inspiring leader and a positive influence on our community with her dedication to gender issues and recognition of women in medicine spanning the past 25 years. In addition to her significant work at A&U, she continues to serve on several national and regional bodies with education, rural workforce and health briefs, including the Australian Medical Council, Frame and the Asthma Council. She's also a general practitioner in Bradwood, New South Wales. I invite Professor Amanda Barnard to say a few words. Thank you very much indeed, Julie, and I'd like to echo my colleagues' words, what an honour this is. And my reflection has been just how many different ways this university encourages its staff, its academics, its students, its professional staff to excel across such a huge range of areas, and interests, and in doing so in serving the A&U's mission both as a national university and also within our region and going out internationally. So when I think about my work and what this university has allowed me to do, it's really been focusing on the social accountability of medicine, of medical schools and of medical education, how we create skilled educated clinicians who understand their communities, whether they're the Canberra community, whether they're rural, whether they're national communities or international ones, and serve those communities as skilled clinicians and particularly in primary care. So particularly in COVID, I think we've seen how important a trusted, well-educated, critically thinking primary care clinician is for many, many communities both here and nationally. So and again, just to say that this work that we do is always part of a team and I would like to thank those teams who have worked with me at the A&U Medical School and the Rural Clinical School here to help us produce clinicians who are now medical leaders in their fields. And on a personal note in this 75th anniversary of the ANU, this means something to me personally and that three generations of my family now have been studying in some form or on the academic staff here at this institution. So it means something very, very important to me to be this recipient of this award. So I'd like to thank my sponsor and the team and thank you Julie and your selection panel for this enormous honour. Thank you. Thank you Amanda and congratulations on your award and thank you for your acknowledgement of the other members of the team around you. Now the Chancellor's Award for Outstanding Service to the Campus Community. This recognises voluntary and sustained contributions which enhance the general welfare and life of the campus and benefit the institution as a whole. And I'm delighted to announce that the 2021 Chancellor's Award for Outstanding Service to the Campus Community, the recipient is the COVID Response Office. In other words, Professor Tracy Smart and Ms Patricia Tay. Now the hard work and diligence displayed by the COVID Response Office throughout the pandemic has been crucial in supporting ANU operations and service continuity. The team have built connections with other federal, state and territory governments, synthesised global and local research and trends to develop regular communications, COVID guidelines and the campus alert level system. Tracy and Pat's willingness to adapt and change in uncertain times to support the needs of governments and health authorities and students and staff and the wider community is absolutely inspirational. I also recognise the numerous other staff who helped and supported the COVID Response Office with their specialty knowledge and advice and with their contributions the COVID Response Office was able to be creative, agile and positively benefit more members of the community and these examples of teamwork are what make our university a great place to study and work and live. So I'll invite Tracy and Pat to say a few words. I'm not sure if Tracy's available but I can see Pat certainly at the Vice Chancellor's Party. So over to you Patricia. Thanks Chancellor and it's really been a rewarding couple of years for Tracy and I just for us to see how the university community has come together during these difficult times and uncertain times too and the success of the COVID Response of the university is really testament to the entire university community to have behaved in a COVID safe way. So I want to say it really wouldn't have been possible without everyone but in particular we really also want to thank Ian Anderson, Paul Dowding and Russell Gruen and Anastasia Manny-West for this nomination we're very honoured as well as the VC and you Chancellor for your unending support throughout this time. Through all the teams that have worked with us and supported us Susan, Helia, the Jameses, Bran and Jeffress, Nikki Middleton and their teams who have stood up to every challenge with great spirit and teamwork Marian, Diva, Dom Haywood and your team you already support throughout the lockdown was really invaluable and of course Will, Maddie and Liv you guys are truly an ace team and just personally also want to thank Dom and Russell again who are seemingly infinitely wise and I'm very grateful for your mentorship and guidance and of course Tracy Smart who has been an inspirational leader and an awesome boss and the best partner in this rollercoaster of a ride. I think Tracy has some words to say as well. I do thanks Pat. Obviously I could have joined Pat tonight at the Chancellor's residence because I'm home quarantine. As Pat said I've been so busy being a role model of being COVID safe that I evidently wasn't chickenpox safe so I've been diagnosed with a childhood illness that I already had in my childhood so it's even though my odds of COVID were probably greater that's what I've got but I'd like to add to the thank yous and obviously echo the thank yous. I particularly like to thank my two dads as I call them Ian Anderson and Russ Gruen who set me on this journey and have really been so supportive through all of this. Also in Tia's buyout I'd like to give a nod to him. He was there when I stood up we stood up the COVID response office last year and he really taught me the ropes working in this strange new environment that is a new university and then of course I'd like to thank Pat. Pat stepped in after in Tia's left at very short notice right in the middle of our ultimately unsuccessful attempts to bring international students back and really it was a trial by fire but she's she stuck around and she developed from my right-hand person to a true partner in crime and I want to obviously acknowledge her efforts particularly during the lockdown her compassion and care to our customers the whole university were exceptional. And finally I just want to thank everybody at the uni from the Chancellor Vice-Chance for on down many many people who transition from the AMF find it very difficult and a lot of that I think is because of the loss of sense of purpose and a disconnection from their tribe and I think what this role has given me is that sense of purpose and that's to keep the university safe and it's also giving me a new tribe and because of that I've been able just to seamlessly transition from my institutionalization of 35 years into my post-service career and I look forward to developing that post-service career with the university in the years to come. Thank you again everybody. Well thank you Tracy and we're delighted that you're part of our tribe but we would like you to get better and all the very best for recovering from chicken pox that's a novelty in these COVID times but to both you and Pat thank you for your valuable contribution to the health and safety of our community in these COVID challenging times. I now present the 2021 Peter Bohm Award named in honor of former ANU Chancellor Professor the Honourable Peter Bohm AC. This award represents our top accolade for an ANU academic and acknowledges exceptional contribution to the Australian National University. This award is the university's most prestigious award and it recognises outstanding achievement and merit of the absolute highest order. Tonight I am pleased to announce that the recipient of the 2021 Peter Bohm Award is distinguished Professor Emeritus John Braithwaite. Throughout his career John has achieved eminence within the social sciences as in being influential in advancing knowledge across a range of issues including global business governance, peace building, republican social theory, responsive regulation, restorative justice, delinquency and white collar crime. For the last 50 years John has been active in the peace movement, the politics of development, the social movement for restorative justice, the labour movement and the consumer movement in Australia and internationally. John has successfully supervised over 80 PhD scholars, mentored numerous early career scholars and produced many hundreds of scholarly outputs. He also founded the regulatory institutions network known as REGNET and now the ANU School of Regulation and Global Governance, an interdisciplinary hub that continues to nurture transformative social science. Professor John Braithwaite I invite you to say a few words. Well thank you for those kind words Chancellor. I've been very fortunate with the colleagues that have surrounded me throughout my very long time at ANU. One gets an award like this and you know you mentioned the the quantity of articles which is not a measure of quality. There are some good bits there but some not so good bits as well. I also have a hundred co-authors and it's kind of hard for me to think of any of the good bits that weren't a responsibility of the co-authors. Actually about I'm pleased to take the award anyhow. It is a great honour and I'm very thankful to you and your committee for it and for my colleagues who are kind enough to nominate me for it. I am very proud of my colleagues in the Regulatory Institutions Network, REGNET, School of Regulation and Global Governance. It's various names. These new interdisciplinary groups have the advantage of making it possible for the university to break out of old patterns not only in terms of crossing disciplinary divides but also crossing out of patterns of male domination. So like the space science area for example where it's been possible to build a majority female group. Our group from the very beginning has been a majority female group and the founding generation of whom the most important influence on me I can't mention them all was Valerie Braithway. She got a job at ANU in 1978. I couldn't get a job initially at ANU when we came down from Queensland but had an interesting period of my life working for NGOs and for government during those early years. So we became an ANU family as well. Once I moved to ANU we had two children who graduated from ANU. We went on study leave in 1988 and we had an ANU colleague who minded the house. Forrest Bryan Harreld while we're away and when we returned from Chicago he never left and he's still there. So we have a very unusual kind of ANU family living in our house and we've very much lived and breathed the institution but it's been my students who have been so important with all of us I think in interdisciplinary groups the students bottom up give you the energy and the the energy has assisted that's just one of the ways with the gender transformation but I'm grateful to have Kate and our current director here and she's the fifth in a line of five female regnet directors that we've had in in succession and we're very proud of that too. So thank you. Thank you John and congratulations and again delightful your humility in acknowledging your colleagues who are also committed to excellence as you certainly are. Now if we were all together in person I would be presenting each of our Chancellor Award recipients with a gift a beautiful glass bowl handmade by local artists from the renowned Jam Factory in South Australia to honour the contribution of each of our recipients to the university and in addition if I were there with Professor Braithwaite our Peter Bohm award winner I would also present him with a Macquarie Atlas of Indigenous Australia so it's all in the mail but congratulations again to the recipients you certainly do our university proud. There was a significant number of nominations this year and I want to thank the nominators for their support of the awards and also the members of our judging panel who carried out what was a rather lengthy task the selection process with great integrity and confidence. So now with congratulations to all the winners I'll hand back to Helen. Chancellor thank you for that very professional allocation of awards to people and it was just terrific to hear as you say so many generous speeches so much humility on display it's one of the things I think that it's not usually associated with universities but we certainly seem to have it here at the ANU in in quite sufficient quantities so just like to add my congratulations to to all of the winners and maybe just to to emphasise to future nominees don't think that you need to get chicken pox or some other kind of nasty disease in order to be considered eligible for this award. I think that is is just Tracy doing what she's always doing which is going the extra mile but yes Tracy we really hope that you you get well soon. So now we move on to the Vice Chancellor's Awards and here as I indicated earlier we have a cacophony it's probably the wrong word but it's the one that comes to mind of senior executive folk who are going to be presenting these awards and we will start with Marianne Diva Professor and Pro Vice Chancellor of Education and Digital who will be presenting the Vice Chancellor's Award for Early Career Academics and the Vice Chancellor's Award for Educational Excellence so Marianne over to you. Thank you Helen and it's a great pleasure to be here this evening. Now I think we all know that ANU is home to some of the most outstanding early career academics who are conducting high impact research in their respective fields of study and it's really exciting to be able to recognise high achievement at this particular career stage. I'm very pleased this evening to announce that the Vice Chancellor's Award for Early Career Academics in fact has two recipients. First up we have Dr Shaolin Wang. Shaolin is a pioneering researcher in carbon capture and energy saving in Australia and just listen to this she's published around 59 high impact research outputs including two book chapters and 32 referee journal articles and has 15 patents with three of them commercialised. The scientific merit novelty and impact of her contributions are evidenced by the award of ADEPRA only two years after completion of her PhD and her success in the ANU Global Research Partnership scheme. I'm going to ask Shaolin to say just a few words now. Thank you so much Marianne thank you everyone it's a big honour and a big surprise to me and I'm so glad this is a you know an online event so everyone can see my body shaking I'm so excited but you can still hear my voice shaking indeed and a little bit general about myself I have my PhD here so I think I'm the baby of the ANU in terms of my academic life so after I finished my PhD in 2017 I turned a teaching intensive lecturer at ANU and being a early career academic here is so happy that everyone taking care of you and like tolerant to your mistakes and the things like that so I won't really want to help other early career academics so I became a early career academic representative of our college then people are nice to me and they help me with everything take care of my mistakes so I'm so grateful that ANU provide me with such a supportive environment to grow from a baby to a maybe a growing adult in my career I'm so happy everyone I'm really grateful thank you. Thank you Shaolin. Our second winner this evening Dr Kinley Wangde is a Spatial Epidemiologist leading a team on the Spatial Epidemiology of Infectious Diseases within the Department of Global Health Research School of Population Health. Kinley is a highly productive and experienced researcher on a significant upward research trajectory demonstrated by significant research outputs and impact with translation to policy. He has published 70 research papers in high impact journals notably Lancet Global Health and Lancet Infectious Disease. I'm going to ask Kinley to say just a few words now. Thank you. Good evening to all of you so it's a big honor for me to receive this award and I'm also I also just completed my PhD from ANU and I'm also similar to the earlier receiving I'm also a child of ANU and I'd like to first thank ANU for giving me this platform this opportunity to really to uh or to say the research that I'm very passionate about. So I would also like to just extend a few words of thanks to my supervisor professor Deryn Gray who was who has really supported me during these times and I would like to thank my colleague Haribandu Sharma who nominated for this award and all my colleagues at the RSPH Decide School of Publication Health and I would also like to extend my thanks to my national and international collaborators through which I have a lot of done a lot of work. Last but not least my family who has been supporting during these difficult times. Thank you. Thank you and congratulations Shalyn and Kinley. Sorry thank you and congratulations Shalyn and Kinley and there's no doubt there's so much more to come from both of you and we really look forward to watching you continue on to great success in your careers. Next up we have the Vice Chancellor's Award for Educational Excellence. Now after several years of what I think we all recognise has been extreme disruption to learning and teaching it's great to see how some of our educators have met the challenge of new times and offer outstanding models for their peers. The award this evening is granted to an individual who's been recognised for their skill in sharing and developing knowledge with their students. Our next winner sees himself as the ringmaster at the Flea Circus in his lectures and has quite the alter ego to go with it. His act is often described by his students as awe-inspiring and enlightening. Please join me congratulating Professor Alexander Mayer, a parasitologist from the Research School of Biology, a new College of Science. Alex's creative and dynamic approach to teaching places student perspectives humility and respect at its centre. His understanding of student learning is grounded in sound pedagogy and his teaching promotes paradigm shifts that prompts students to question their assumptions and adopt new frames of thought. I'm now going to ask Alex to say just a few words. Thank you so much and I'm just speechless and very pleased to be here and of course honoured and humbled by this award. I think universities are often torn between the different domains of teaching and research and we all have the personal and daily experiences where teaching and research collide. However, I think also that it's the synergy between both that make universities special and valuable. What could be better than being taught by a practitioner that actually have also been the same person who have contributed to the generation of the knowledge that is taught? And at the same time being challenged all the time by the perspective and observations of the students by their curiosity I think makes much more meaningful research endeavour. I would like also to acknowledge all the lectures and co-lectures and colleagues across biology, across the ANU and across the country. I would like to thank them for sharing their creativity, their inspiration and being great colleagues. I would like to single out Denise Higgins and Susan Howard who actually have opened up my eyes for the scholarship of teaching and Kevin Saliba and Melanie Rube for their constant support and being able to bounce off ideas with them. But I especially would like to acknowledge the people behind the scenes, the people in the science teaching team, the support team and the biology teaching and learning centre, the people in RSVIT and of course at the college level. They make the things so much easier, all the cumbersome things that come with teaching. But most importantly I would like to acknowledge the extraordinary enthusiasm and dedication of our students. Innovative teaching means taking risks and that also means doing experiments and conducting experiments. And of course it wouldn't be an experiment if they would all go according to plan and therefore sometimes things go astray and not according to plan and so I would like to thank them for their sportsmanship and for their patience. Thank you. Congratulations Alex and I think it's really significant that each of our award recipients this evening has really highlighted the network of support, the people around them who have supported them and lifted them up to these levels of achievement. So a big round of applause for all of our winners and indeed to all of our colleagues for their incredible commitment across the university to all of their fields of study and I'll pass back to you Hal Hillen. Thanks so much Marianne and congratulations to Shaolin, King Lee and to Alex and Alex I'm sure that that Marianne it will be hot on your trail of people in IT who do wonderful things. I think that that's something that we're we're all searching for and so if you have some over there in the research school of biology then I think we'll all be in demand for them. So we move next to the awards for excellence in research and it's my task there to invite Professor Keith Nugent the Deputy Vice Chancellor of Research and Innovation to present the Vice Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Research Keith. Thank you Hal. I think as we all know ANU is a university that prides itself on the quality and the impact of the research it does and it's really proud of the impact that the research has in the world around us. It's also very proud of the fact that of the way that they research informs our teaching and so since we are very very good at research we are very very good at doing that research informed teaching work and so it's a hold that makes ANU a really special place but given that true excellence in research to be awarded the ANU Vice Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Research is a very very special honour. It's a very tough competition to win. It really needs you to be among the best of the best and so it's really my pleasure today to announce in fact we're going to have three winners for this award this year all are very different and all are truly excellent. So the first winner we have is Associate Professor Teagan Kruis. Teagan is a social and clinical psychologist who is making waves around Australia and the world for her research integrating the science of social relationships with health policy and practice. With over a hundred academic papers and grants from both NHLIC and the ARC Teagan is committed to advancing theoretical understanding of the social determinants of health and well-being. So with that introduction I would now like to call upon Teagan to say a few words. Thank you Keith. I'm shocked and so surprised and pleased. Thank you so much. My research is all about how important community is for our health and the ANU community has been really powerful for me and my career and my health and well-being as well. It's a really supportive environment and not just I don't just mean in terms of the soft stuff I also mean in terms of me being able to do the research I do is a big part of that has been the support that ANU has given me over the last few years. My research is all about health equity, social justice and about how we can use rigorous science to achieve those things. So I'm excited because that is such important work and I'm really passionate about it and it's great to hear that other people are as well and that we're getting a kind of impact that I think this research really deserves. So thanks ANU and I think the next thing for me is really making sure that the fantastic opportunities for mentorship and support that I've received are what we now go on to give the next generation of scientists coming up at ANU. So thanks so much. Thank you Teagan. I can hear the passion for your work coming through and the way you talk about it. The second award goes to the Advanced Instrumentation and Technology Centre, the AITC team. The AITC is leading Australian participation in the world's largest optical observatories both today and tomorrow. The team's remarkable achievements include adaptive optics, laser communications, Earth observation, space testing and a stair back which I personally know a little bit might be myself personally really really gobsmacked by the quality of the work that's been done by this team. So to accept the award can I please call upon the team Lee, Professors Celine Diorgiven. Celine. Thank you very much Keith. This is a great honor and great pleasure to be receiving this award on behalf of the entire Advanced Instrumentation and Technology Centre team at the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics. Our team is pretty exceptional and quite unique in the ANU environment. It's a group of about 40 researchers and engineers who are completing the AITC research programs in astronomy and space instrumentation and also technology development in these areas. Our team also includes many students, both undergraduate and postgraduate students who are members of the team really and participate in all our projects and help us deliver on our commercial contracts as well. And we also have a broad administrative support team which is not officially part of the AITC because it's not on our payroll but it's definitely part of the team because they provide the support we need to keep going both at the school and at the college level. The AITC has evolved from the technical department of the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics to a self-standing research centre in astronomy and space research. And it's part of the Australia landscape. It's a member of Astralis which is a national consortium of astronomy and instrumentation. It's also offering services to the Australian space industry with a national space disability. And it continues to grow in collaboration, in close collaboration with the ANU in space, the Innovation Institute for Space. So I would like to thank a lot of people. Thank you, Key, for giving us this award. Thank you, Matthew Polis, the director of the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics who's been supporting our technical department over the years. Thank you, Annamu, our previous AITC director who set us on our current successful trajectory. Thank you, Roger Haines, the technical director at the AITC, Francois Ribaud, the Astralis AITC director. Thank you to the entire AITC executive team, all our staff and students. And thank you all for this award. And my cat is happy as well, I don't think... Good to have a little bit of touch of Zoom going on with the pit coming in. Thank you, Celine. That's great to hear about the work that you do. Our third and final win over this award is a world-leading researcher working at the intersection of rational choice theory and environmental philosophy. Associate Professor Katie Steele's research is unique in the extent to which she brings theoretical considerations in philosophy to bear on urgent real-world problems, especially concerning climate science and policy. So, Katie, please say a few words. Thanks very much, Keith. Yeah, it's a great honor and I'm embarrassed to be in such fine company this evening. It's really been very inspiring hearing about everybody's projects. These last years at AN, you've been particularly fruitful for me in my research. I feel like I've sort of come into a new realm. Thanks to the great environment at ANU. I feel a little embarrassed and privileged that I've prospered so well even during the global pandemic when others have not been so fortunate. But I've been able to keep on with my research and to have such a rich and rewarding position at the ANU. Yes, so thank you to all my colleagues. I'm very humbled to receive this. Thanks also to my colleagues who nominated me for this award. Going forward, I just hope that I can use my rational choice superpowers to really make even more of a contribution to the many problems that we face going forward. Not least, the serious social challenges associated with climate change. This will be motivation. Thanks very much. Thank you, Katie. The world could do with a lot more rational choice. That is the short thank you for that. Okay, that's our awards for this section. So back to you, Helen. Thank you so much, Keith. And congratulations, Tegan, Katie, Celine, and indeed, Celine's cat. So Celine has now set the bar for how you need to receive these awards. So any future acceptance speeches accompanied by turtles, seals, wild birds, whatever you like. Just find something and bring it along. Before we move on, I should just say before I bring the opprobrium of all of my IT colleagues as well as the rest of the IT function in the university down on my head. Of course, the problem in the University of ANU is not the people. Absolutely not. It is the fact that we, our people need to wrangle with somewhat shall we say, less than optimal systems. So with that, I'll try and dig myself out of the hole by inviting Edo Daly, who's the director of our communications and engagement function to speak and to present the Vice Chancellor's Award for Impact and Engagement. Thanks very much, Helen. It's a real pleasure to be here and presenting this award tonight, in particular, because as some of you may know, or even for some of the long term service award recipients, remember, this isn't my first time at ANU. I moved to Canberra 18 years ago to work here. It was a good decision and I'm really grateful to ANU for that. And that's why I was able to be lured back a couple of years ago, because ANU has so many people who aren't just doing great work. They're passionate about sharing it with the wider public. And that's our obligation as a national university to do. And it's a privilege as a professional to be part of it. So I'm really delighted to be here to celebrate ANU engagement, just as I was delighted to see such a broad and competitive field in this category. So I'm pleased to announce that we have two recipients of the award and three finalists. The first recipient of the award is the COVID-19 impact monitoring program led by Professor Matthew Gray and Professor Nicholas Biddle from the Centre for Social Research and Methods in the ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences. The study they've been undertaking is the largest longitudinal study of its kind in Australia. It has been tracking the pandemic since COVID arrived in Australia up until today. And I'm pleased to say it's been keeping my colleague James Giga behind me very busy with engaging with the media throughout the last couple of years. So I'd really like to call on Professor Gray and Biddle to say a few words. Thanks, Ed. And thanks, everyone, for those very kind words. So I'll just say something really briefly and then Matt can add as well. So I wanted to acknowledge the rest of the team, Associate Professor Ben Edwards and Kate Solis from the ANU Centre for Social Research and Methods, who've contributed substantially to the work we've been doing on both the data collection, data analysis and reporting. I'd also like to thank the Social Research Centre, an annual company who do the data collection for the impact monitoring survey and have done an outstanding job in collecting data and working with us on the methods for the survey. And finally, to James, James Gigacher in the media office, who've texted me more times and I can I care to admit asking us to please answer that journalist number. Please pick up the phone and to wrangle us and the journalists in terms of kind of getting our message out there. So thanks, everyone, for the award and I hand over to Matt to say anything else you'd like to add. Thank you, Nick. And I don't want to say very much other than to say Nick provided the leadership for the team and I want to acknowledge that. And it's a good example of preparation meets opportunity. We've been running these surveys for a number of years and other people involved. And we were able to turn very quickly to focus on COVID. And it's a good example, I think, of how long term investments in this kind of research infrastructure and capability can become very timely. So thank you very much, everyone. Many thanks, Matt and Nick for that. Our second recipient of the impact and engagement award has significantly advanced the national discussion of the sexism experience by women in politics, a discussion that we all know came to a head in 2021. Dr Blair Williams analysis of the gendered nature of the media coverage of women in politics to have a significant impact both within and beyond the academy. I'd like to invite Professor Williams, Dr Williams to say a few words. I didn't prepare any words. But thank you. This is fantastic news. I'm shocked and overwhelmed. I want to thank ANU for being, you know, the fantastic university that it is and so close to Parliament House, which makes it useful for me to study the sexism in there, which I've been doing since I started my PhD here in 2015 and just finished last year. So yeah, my heart's beating quite fast. But I mean, I guess it feels kind of bad at the same time to be, you know, winning an award based on things that are so horrific that we've seen this year come out of Parliament House. And that has been obviously in the culture, you know, in those rules for quite some time, if not built on that as a foundation. But, you know, I think it's really important to kind of get this research out there to keep this topic in the media, particularly to keep it at the top of the agenda, particularly when we go into an election year next year. So thanks also for the media team and James G as well for those text messages and emails. Very brilliant help and fantastic to everyone at the media team. So thank you again. Thanks, thanks Blair, for those timely and well chosen words. The Social Committee had received some incredibly strong nominations in this field. And so we've also awarded three finalists for the Vice-Chancellor Award for Impact and Engagement. Our first finalist is Dr. Maria Maley from the School of Politics and International Relations. She's one of the few researchers who focuses on gender in political staffing. Maria has been the go-to expert for regulators to solve the issues surrounding parliamentary workplace conduct. Our second finalist is Professor David Sharkey, who has almost single-handedly raised awareness surrounding multiple sclerosis through his research and through his personal story. His webinars and work with national and international organizations have helped thousands of Australians. And last, but certainly not least, going where no one has gone before, the ANU Institute for Space Team, led by Professor Anna Moore, they are positioning Australia to be a leader in space technology through their expertise in areas including positioning, navigation and timing, earth observation, communication technologies and services. Congratulations to all of these winners. Over to you, hon. Thank you, Ed. What a fine collection of winners we have there. And it's really terrific to see the range of ways in which colleagues at the ANU are now getting engaged, making an impact right across the board. So congratulations to all of them. And thank you too, Ed, for announcing those awards. Now, I'd now like to invite Dominique Haywood, the Director of Planning and Service Performance, to present the Vice-Chancellor's Award for Innovation and Excellence in Service and the Andrew Hopkins Award for Excellence in Health and Safety. Dominique. Thank you, Helen. The disruption over the past two years has forced us to rethink what is normal. But the dedication of people here at the ANU is both normal and extraordinary. Over my three years here, I've been lucky to work with people who are absolutely committed to providing the best possible service. And I appreciate the opportunity to present this award, which recognises the hard work and ingenuity of our staff, which they have put into it, ensure that the university meets its strategic goals. I'm delighted to announce that we have two recipients of the award for excellence and innovation in service. Our first recipient is Belinda Farrelly, Associate Director of Organisational Change. Belinda has been at the forefront of the university's recovery process. She carried out the mammoth task of building a pathway to a financially sustainable position while ensuring affected staff were treated with dignity and respect. Her professionalism and diligence have been recognised by several of her colleagues. And I'd now like to invite Belinda to say a few words. Thanks, Don. For once, I'm a little bit speechless, which for those that are in the room that know me, we'll find that quite amusing. I'm very humbled to have been nominated for this award and to have received it. And I wish to thank firstly Nadine White, who is our Director of our Chiefs of People and Cultural Officer, who has provided awesome leadership to me and to many during this fairly challenging time. I certainly didn't do this alone. There was a bunch of a massive team of people that I worked alongside to deliver this, both through the recovery plan phase. There was a massive team of us that had many hours of team chats and exchanges to get things through. And I thank my colleagues, all the general managers, all the service division directors, the executive across the portfolio who took my calls and wrangled with me and worked with me to help us get to where we needed to be. And to my colleagues in the comms team, the ACE team, you were awesome and you always helped me out. And to my colleagues in FMBS, I couldn't have done it without you. So there are many to thank. And I certainly am very honoured and appreciate this award. Thank you, Blinda. Our second recipient is a team who are at the forefront in ensuring that both staff and students were supported in the height of the second wave of the pandemic. The FNS COVID operations team composed of volunteer staff from across colleges and divisions, across the whole of the ANU, completed a range of challenging tasks, with one of their most notable tasks being that they provided residential students with essential food and water supplies. The volunteers were involved in sourcing, storage, meagre preparation, packaging and delivery. Their commitment ensured that nearly 2,000 residential students were provided with fresh fruit and vegetables daily during the southern lockdown. It is my utmost pleasure to welcome the team lead, Niki Meddlken, to accept the award on behalf of the entire team. Niki, can I ask you to say a few words? Thank you, I wasn't expecting this. Look, I'll just say I have a really awesome facilities and services division, but this piece of work that we did couldn't have been done without the whole of the university. Every single division and college stepped up. Really, every service division and college general manager answered my phone calls, whether they're at six o'clock in the morning or at midnight. It was an awesome team effort and we really couldn't have done it without everyone. Look, it really just goes to show what a wonderful community we have. Everyone calls together in a time of need and we really did the very best we could for the students, right at the peak of a really exhausting period for everyone, right across Canberra. So, really, thank you for the bottom of my heart to everyone on this call and across the university very big thank you. Thank you, Niki. I think it's fair to say that these times have brought out the best in our community and I would like to therefore recognize another two finalists in this category. Our first finalist deployed a new strategy that involved expanding research business development across the ANU to meet funding and industry engagement targets. Karen Jackson showed exemplary stakeholder consultations across the research portfolio and all of the seven colleges. Thank you, Karen. Our second finalist for the Vice-Chancellor's Award is Sarah Walker. Sarah has been instrumental in transforming the first year student experience at ANU. She has been involved in launching the ANU Plus volunteering program, the Set for ANU initiative and Griffin Hall, the campus hall for non-residential students. Her dedication to supporting students from various backgrounds and at different stages of the university journey has played a significant role in retaining first year students. Please join me now in congratulating our two winners and our two finalists. You epitomize what our community stands for. I'd like now to move to presenting the Andrew Hopkins Award for excellence in health and safety. As I'm chair of the portfolio WHS committee, you may have heard me talking about how safety is everybody's job. We all have an obligation to make each other safe in the workplace. This is why safety matters and why we recognise those who have worked hard to make their colleagues and our students safe during their time at ANU. This year's recipient of the 2021 Andrew Hopkins Award for excellence in health and safety goes to a team that has ensured the disruption caused by the lockdowns did not impact the quality of teaching as they manage and oversee health and safety across a dynamic in complex school. The school of art and design technical team have been able to ensure that traditional pedagogical practices have been moved online while providing exceptional technical support to students studying remotely and overseas. The willingness of the team to contribute to course adaptations and innovations as well as their contributions to the return to campus planning processes and the coordinated manner in which tasks were split and responsibilities were shared is exemplary. I would now like to call on the team lead Jeremy Lepisto to accept the award on behalf of the entire team and say a few words. Oh wow, thank you so much. This is a wonderful surprise, especially for a team that's worked so hard over such an avalanche of adventures over the past few years. Thank you ANU. Thank you CAS, RSHA. Thank you to our head of school, Beck Davis, who gave us a nomination and the leadership, especially with our return to campus intensive work. Suzanne Knight, our school manager and Amy Kermans for their leadership through COVID and return to campus and especially the team. It's been amazing. It's a small team. We're centralizing all of our efforts to do what we can to open the school back up, deal with the 1938 building and yeah, just make things happen. So thank you so much. It's amazing. Thank you. Thank you so much Jeremy. Thank you for you and the team and your leadership in these COVID affected times. Back to you Helen. Thanks so much Dominique and I think it's it's really heartening that the chat has gone completely crazy over the awards that you were announcing which I think says something for just how highly regarded all of the colleagues are for the incredibly difficult and challenging work that they've been doing and doing so well. So congratulations to all of you. I'd now like to invite the Vice Chancellor Brian Schmidt to present the Claire Burton Award for excellence in equity and diversity and the 25 and 40 year service awards. Brian, thank you and good to be back to you from the Vice Chancellor's residence. Our next award was named in memory and celebration of Dr. Claire Burton, the Claire Burton Award for excellence in equity and diversity. Dr. Burton made a broad ranging unique contribution to the advancement of women in Australia including those in the tertiary sector. This year's recipient led an initiative that intended to redefine her school's culture and one that was based on the premise of inclusion and respect. Associate Professor Amy King established and chaired Coral Bell School Gender Equity Working Group that used open discussion and data to reduce barriers for women and to promote equal opportunity across the school. Her work has enabled the school to develop principles and best practices within recruitment, research, publishing, teaching and learning. This achievement has led several schools across campus to follow suit and consult with her on matters of gender equity. So congratulations Amy. I'd like now to invite you to say a few words. Well, thanks so much Brian. I'm really flattered and surprised to have been nominated by my colleagues for this award and very grateful for it. So thank you. A huge thanks first and foremost to my colleagues within the Bell School who joined me as part of the Gender Equity Working Group to spearhead this work. I think collectively we turned what was frankly, you know, feelings of frustration and often anger and despair into something really positive and it's been wonderful to work with so many colleagues across the Bell School in hopefully developing this cultural change over the last few years. But equally importantly I very much want to thank women within my own school who have pioneered work in this area before me who inspired me and those across the university in the ANU Gender Institute but in all of the colleges women and men who've led gender equity initiatives of their own and who gave me so much advice on things that that we could do in the Bell School. So thank you very much and I look forward to passing on any thoughts that we have developed out of our process to others in the university. Thank you. Thank you Amy and this really is a splendid example of how our community continues to learn and evolve. When I started as Vice Chancellor just about six years ago Coral Bell had a real challenging reputation and well it's not perfect yet it's come a long ways and Amy thank you for helping Coral Bell in that journey. Thank you. We have two finalists for the Claire Burton Award. Our first finalist is a team that developed a new program from recruitment to curriculum development by incorporating principles of diversity and inclusion at its very core. The team developed the master of applied cybernetics program by bringing together students and staff from various backgrounds, disciplines, and life experiences. They use different languages in their recruitment and support functions while their cohort and staff included individuals from theater to engineering. Please join me in congratulating the student recruitment experience and curriculum development team of the School of Cybernetics led by Professor Catherine Danielle. Our second finalist is the COVID-19 ICU triage team which is led by Dr. Brett Schultz and Dr. Imogen Mitchell. This team developed a strategy by working together with patients and community members the ACT health programs to ensure equal opportunities were given to patients who needed to be admitted to the ICU with COVID-19 irrespective of their background. With such an initiative and research strategy the team played a crucial role in the nation's pandemic response whilst prioritizing patients' human rights. Again please join me in congratulating the COVID ICU triage team on being named the finalist for 2021. Back to you Helen. Thank you so much Brian. I think I need to bring you back Brian because you're presenting the 25 and 40 year service awards. This year we have a large number of staff members who have delivered 25 years of service to the university. I was I had my 25th award last year but we also have two staff members who have delivered 40 years of service to the university. Mr. Jeffrey Barlow from the infrastructure services and Professor Teddy Mattis from the College of Health and Medicine. This is a significant milestone and one that you should both be incredibly proud of. Your loyalty, your dedication to A&U is admirable and has in no small way contributed to what has been achieved over these four decades. The complete list has been posted in the chat and I do encourage you to congratulate your colleagues on this milestone either tonight or in the weeks ahead. As this evening comes to a close I would like to invite you all enjoying me and celebrating the 2021 recipients. If you have a drink in hand and I am getting one that is going to magically appear out of shot I will give you a second to charge your glasses. We're drinking a local Canberra bubble here by the way made by one of my colleagues. Can I ask you to raise your glass as we toast our 2021 recipients. Congratulations again to everyone on your fantastic achievements and Helen I'm going to hand back to you to wrap things up. Cheers. Cheers Brian and cheers to everyone. This has just been such a thrill to be part of. It's great to see such commitment, such dedication and such support for all colleagues across the university. Whatever they're doing, whatever part of the university they work in. The congratulations and the genuine celebration that there has been on the chat has just been quite wonderful. It's certainly been an occasion worthy of my somewhat bedraggled feather boa and I'm really delighted to have been asked to host this evening's event. So all it remains for me to say now is congratulations to all of you once again and let's look forward to a perhaps hopefully less challenging year next year but certainly another year where I have absolutely no doubt be celebrating some more fantastic achievements by our colleagues. So thank you all very much and good evening.