Actor and Flinders graduate Melissa Bergland (BA Hons, 2007) received a Logie as the Most Popular New Female Talent at the Australian television industry awards in April for her role as Jenny Gross in the Channel 7 family drama Winners and Losers. The show’s second series will screen in mid-2012.

The Dietetics Association of Australia, the peak body for nutrition and dietetics professionals, has made an Outstanding Contribution Award to Flinders University’s Associate Professor Jane Scott. Anationally and internationally recognised researcher in the field of breastfeeding and public health, she has more than 75 academic publications to her credit. As well as working in numerous accreditation reviews as a member of the Australian Dietetic Council, Associate Professor Scott has assisted many individuals as a mentor.
The citation said that both “the DAA and the profession are greatly enriched by Jane’s achievements”.

Flinders staff member, Ms Nettie Flaherty (pictured), a senior lecturer at the Centre for Remote Health in Alice Springs, has won the Mary Moylan Award for 2012.

The award, made by the Northern Territory Branch of the Australian Association of Social Workers, recognises the dedication and achievement of NT social workers and specifically acknowledges an individual whose exemplary practice has made a difference to the profession.

Ms Flaherty has worked as a social worker, manager, educator and researcher in the Northern Territory since 1995. Her work has been with children and their families in the areas of child protection and maternal and child health, and she has held senior positions in several of the government agencies concerned.

“Nettie has successfully translated her extensive experience into developing education and training for child protection workers and primary care workers generally,’ said Professor John Wakerman, Director of the Centre for Remote Health.

Ms Flaherty is also carrying out research into the practice of child protection workers for a PhD.

“She provides a role model for other experienced remote health professionals in utilising her experience to train others and develop our understanding of effective remote practice,’ Professor Wakerman said.

“We are very proud of her and this is due recognition of her enormous contribution over many years.”

Flinders creative writing PhD student Threasa Meads is currently in Western Australia as Emerging Writer-in-Residence at the Katharine Susannah Pritchard Writers Centre.

The residential program is open to newer and established writers from around the world.

Threasa, whose first memoir, Nobody, was shortlisted for The Australian/Vogel Literary Award in 2008, will spend a month at the centre, where she will mentor aspiring writers and presenting a workshop on developing character and voice in fiction and life-writing.

She also has the use of an isolated cottage to work on her current manuscript of continued memoirs, Singing Up the Bones.

Threasa is one of the founders and organisers of Speakeasy, a quarterly event that publicly showcases creative writing from Flinders.

Flinders University’s Professor Iain Hay has been honoured by the New Zealand Geographical Society, which has presented him with its most prestigious award.

According to the citation for the Distinguished New Zealand Geographer Medal, Professor Hay’s “broad contribution to scholarship is infused with a quest to     incorporate core human values into geographic research and pedagogy”.

“Iain’s work has vigorously sought to advance an ethical stance in research practice, to introduce a wider range of qualitative methodologies into the   implementation of study design and methods, and to promote the adoption of creative and critically aware teaching practice,” the citation states.

The author of several books on research and teaching methods as well as a popular study guide for undergraduates, Professor Hay was awarded the Prime Minister’s Australian University Teacher of the Year in 2006 and honorary doctorate from the University of Canterbury for his work on the geographies of domination and oppression.

He has promoted international networks of scholarship in geography and played a lead editorial role for a number of journals.
Recently, as an ALTC Discipline Scholar for the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities, he has helped to develop agreed national minimum academic standards for undergraduate majors. He is currently President of the Institute of Australian Geographers.

Elysia Low Pei Chin, a Malaysian student in the Nutrition and Dietetics course at Flinders, has received a Merdeka Award from the Australia-Malaysia Business Council of South Australia (AMBCSA).

The Merdeka Awards were established in 1998 by the AMBCSA to recognize the top final-year Malaysian students studying at South Australia’s three universities. In addition to celebrating Malaysia’s Independence Day, the objectives of the awards include encouraging Malaysian students to excel not only in their academic achievements, but to be all-rounders.

This year, all three awards went to female students.

Ms Low, from Kuching in Sarawak, will graduate from her Bachelor’s degree this year. As well as being the secretary of the Malaysian Students Association in South Australia, she has worked with the Royal Flying Doctor Service in the Australian outback.

The Merdeka Awards Patron and a former Chancellor of Flinders University, Sir Eric Neal AC CVO, congratulated the winners and commended the contribution made by the AMBCSA through the awards to the South Australia-Malaysia relationship.

“These students represent the potential future leaders of the professions, of business and of government in Malaysia, and their already strong ties with South Australia are reinforced by the awards,” Sir Eric said.?

Three Flinders screen graduates recently travelled to the 2011 Cannes film festival with mentor Mario Andreacchio, an established Adelaide-based producer and filmmaker.

With the assistance of a grant from the Helpmann Academy, Brendon Skinner, Simon Williams and Megan Huitema accompanied Mr Andreacchio to the festival to gain experience of the business end of the film industry. They met potential distributors and backers for Snowgum, a family-genre feature film they will make under Mr Andreacchio’s guidance.

The trio have previously made short films together, operating as Short Focus Films. The most recent, Toot Toot (2010), has been screened at several international film festivals.

Kylie Stothers, a social worker and academic working at the Centre for Remote Health in Katherine, has won the Unsung Hero Award at the recent National Rural Health Conference in Perth. The award recognises “people who work tirelessly for their community and make an enormous contribution to local issues”. It is presented every two years at the National Rural Health Conference.

A Jawoyn woman from Katherine, Kylie has worked throughout the NT since graduating 12 years ago. Her passion is to see local people gain quality education and come back to their communities with knowledge and skills that can help provide change.

Kylie is an active member of the local community, a social worker, educator and researcher, and an active committee member of a number of local and national organisations. Kylie said she was “surprised but delighted” to receive the award, and paid tribute to her family for their continual support for her in her work.

The Centre for Remote Health is a joint initiative of Flinders and Charles Darwin universities.

Flinders screen studies graduate Amy Gebhardt has been chosen by legendary Australian film director and producer Dr George Miller to make a short film about the Australian summer experience for the YouTube and Screen Australia initiative, Map My Summer.

Dr Miller will mentor Amy in making the film, which will employ raw footage from the Map My Summer online promotion. The short film is scheduled to premiere at the Sydney Film Festival in June 2011
After graduating in law and arts with a major in film from Flinders in 1998, Amy became a writer/director and cinematographer before undertaking a Masters of Directing at the Australian Film and Television and Radio School.

She has directed several short films and commercials, winning the Kodak Young Director’s Award in 2008.

For more information on the Map My Summer project, see www.screenaustralia.gov.au/mapmysummer

Flinders medical biotechnology PhD candidate, Ms Jing Jing Wang, is the South Australian winner of the prestigious Ausbiotech-GlaxoSmithKline Student Excellence Award for the best presentation of PhD research, which is investigating a possible novel treatment for skin cancers.

AusBiotech and GlaxoSmithKline hold the annual competition as an initiative to encourage more students to pursue research and careers in bio-sciences and to reward early-career successes.

Ms Wang’s presentation described her project on the properties and mechanisms of potential anti-cancer compounds (xanthones) extracted from the pith of the tropical fruit mangosteen.

The judges were impressed with the relevance of her discoveries to human health, and breadth and depth of her work, which included new knowledge on complex skin cancer pathways and the ability to control them for treatment solutions and prevention.

Ms Wang will represent South Australia against five other State winners in the national finals, which will be held at the Ausbiotech Conference in Adelaide from October 16 to 19.