Three Flinders University academics have been shortlisted among the South Australian nominees for this year’s Australian of the Year Awards, which will be announced next Monday 12 October.
As widely anticipated, Professor Nicola Spurrier has been nominated for the 2021 SA Australian of the Year. The Chief Public Health Officer, paediatrician and physician delivered Flinders University’s 2020 Chalmers Oration recently, which is now available to view online. She has academic status within the College of Medicine and Public Health.
Professor Richard Bruggemann has been nominated for 2021 SA Senior Australian of the Year. Professor Bruggemann is a disability advocate with academic status in the College of Nursing and Health Sciences. Earlier this year he was appointed to a new South Australian Government role to assess orders designed to protect the community and people living with a cognitive impairment or mental incapacity, from the spread of COVID-19.
Pamela Catcheside, within the College of Science and Engineering, has also been nominated for 2021 SA Senior Australian of the Year. Ms Catcheside is a mycologist (fungi expert) and an honorary research associate at the State Herbarium. She is also a Flinders University alumna, having completed her Diploma in Teaching at the University in 1978. Together with her husband, Emeritus Professor David Catcheside, she has been surveying and identifying fungi species for decades and contributing to new insights on their uses.
The awards feature 16 nominees across four categories. Winners will be announced at a live-streamed event from the Adelaide Oval on 12 October, with the national winners to be announced on 25 January 2021.