Flinders’ audio visual expertise recognised, alumni scoop PE prizes, STEM academy makes the shortlist for international honour, celebrity PhD candidate to air his documentary on ABC next year and the Caring Futures Institute wins its first award – while another Flinders institute hosts three-day forum in Singapore to address threats of deliberate mass destruction.
Young AV maestro recognised at awards night
Senior audio visual officer Leigh Hoppenbrouwers has been recognised for outstanding contributions to learning and teaching at the 2019 Association for Audio Visual & Education Technology Management Awards.
The award recognises Mr Hoppenbrouwers’ wealth of industry knowledge and commitment to his craft as a young AV professional.
The nomination outlined his positive attitude towards:
- a “we will make it work at any cost for the client with minimum disruption” attitude
- ability to work under pressure from AV systems not working correctly
- on the run remote troubleshooting / implementation
- directing a small team of techs for maintenance, support and lecture capture.
More information about the AV awards is available at https://www.aetm.org/awards/
Flinders alumni scoop prizes at 2019 PE Teacher Awards
Grange Primary School teacher Nick Warren has been recognised for exceptional work in the health and physical education field with the Norma Jenner Memorial Award for 2019 Primary HPE Teacher of the Year.
Flinders Alumnus Mr Warren received the award at the Australian Council for Health, Physical Education and Recreation SA (ACHPER) ceremony during Physical Education week, for his ongoing work promoting active and healthy lifestyles for primary school students through quality teaching at Grange School.
Mr Warren says the award recognises teachers “that use evidence-based research to inform their practice so they can reflect, seek constructive feedback, and regularly attend Professional Development to continually improve throughout their whole career.
“The award is important to me as it recognises a learning area each year that I believe to be the most important.
“As a HPE teacher I feel it is my duty to provide the best possible education for the children at my school as I was lucky enough to have educators throughout my schooling and tertiary education that did the same for my education. Essentially, I feel I am just paying back what I owe.
“It is nice to hear feedback, especially constructive feedback as it drives me to continually be better.”
Mr Warren wasn’t the only Flinders alumnus recognised for their ongoing teaching efforts – with Renee Chatterton, Scott Hughes and Billie Newton also selected for Physical Education awards after being nominated by their peers.
Organised by the Australian Council for Health, Physical Education and Recreation SA Branch, Physical Education week (11-15 November this year) promotes the importance of Health & PE and its role in the learning and development of students.
CFI wins consumer partnership award
The Caring Futures Institute has won the ‘Partnering with consumers in research’ award at the inaugural Health Consumers Alliance of SA Inc. Consumer Engagement Awards, presented in Adelaide.
The award recognises organisations for their commitment to partnering with consumers in the research sector.
Caring Futures Institute theme leader Professor Sally Robinson accepted the award on behalf of the institute and said she was delighted it had won its first award and was gaining recognition for its work.
“An important focus of Caring Futures Institute is involving consumers in research from the beginning, so that research has the best chance of leading to meaningful outcomes in the community,” Professor Robinson says. Read more
PhD’s doco to air on ABC next year
A high-stakes relationship drama documentary directed by Flinders PhD candidate (screen) Richard Jasek follows co-artistic directors of the Adelaide Festival as they traverse the globe to curate next year’s event.
The documentary (Adelaide Festival – working title) was announced as one of five South Australian productions set to screen next year on the ABC.
Set between production office, the international arts circuit, and backstage at the festival itself, the ABC says it “reveals the bickering and respect, accessibility and poise, intellectual brilliance and pure gut reaction that together creates an intangible magic”.
The film was produced by Southern Light Alliance, with assistance from the South Australian Film Corporation.
Richard Jasek is well-known in Australian film, having directed episodes of numerous TV series including Neighbours, The Secret Life of Us, McLeod’s Daughters and many others, together with documentaries for TV. He commenced his PhD at Flinders this year.
Spreading STEM joy in learning
The successful ‘STEM Enrichment Academy and STEM Women Branching Out Programs: Engaging Young Women in STEM’ at Flinders has been shortlisted in the top five entries in an international higher education competition.
College of Science and Engineering Associate Professor Maria Parappilly and others submitted the entry to the Engagement Leader of the Year Award category of the 2020 Asia-Pacific Triple E Awards on Entrepreneurship and Engagement Excellence in Higher Education.
The award recognises an individual who has demonstrated an outstanding leadership performance in the development of an institution’s or (academic or support) unit‘s engagement profile, with a focus on social and cultural impacts. Other finalists in the category were Ehud Keinan from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology; Lesley Hughes from Macquarie University; Norby Roque-Salonga from De La Salle University Manila, and Stephen Mavely from Assam Don Bosco University, India.
The ACEEU 2020 Asia-Pacific Triple E Awards will be held in Kochi, India on 10 January.
Associate Professor Parappilly, Dr Sharmil Randhawa and Professor Richard Woodman have recently published a new article, ‘Feasibility and Effectiveness of Different Models of Team-Based Learning Approaches in STEMM-Based Disciplines‘ in the leading Springer higher education journal Research in Science Education.
Professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics Woodman’s long-running nutritional research also has recently been picked up in a US video
This week Associate Professor Parappilly was nominated as one of South Australia’s most 30 inspirational leaders in The Advertiser. The Women of the Year awards, to be announced on 3 December, end a year-long campaign celebrating trailblazing historic and contemporary women to mark the 125th anniversary of South Australia’s nation-building decision in November 1894 to give women the right to vote and to stand for parliament – a first in Australia.
Progress in disaster response in ASEAN
The Torrens Resilience Institute (TRI) from Flinders recently held an Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Region Coordination Assessment discussing Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) coordination for deliberate events across the region.
The three-day event, held in Singapore, welcomed 37 participants from 13 countries including representatives from ASEAN Secretariat, World Health Organisation, Interpol, the Ministry of Public Health (Thailand and Malaysia), Office of International Cooperation, Department of Disease Control (Thailand), Emergency Preparedness and Response Division Singapore and the EU CBRN Centres of Excellence Initiative.
The assessment is part of the $1 million Project LINK, funded by the Government of Canada Weapons of Mass Destruction Threat Reduction program, for development of:
- a CBRN global database
- a smartphone app for in-field investigations of suspected deliberate biological events
- an ASEAN Region Coordination Assessment