Celebrating success

Sleep health expert Professor Danny Eckert has been honoured with a prestigious international award, while other successes include a student triathlete with the golden touch, and an out-of-this-world international conference win.

International prestige for sleep health expert

Professor Danny Eckert

Matthew Flinders Professor Danny Eckert was recently awarded the Meier-Ewert Prize for outstanding contributions to sleep medicine at an award ceremony at the opera house in Frankfurt, Germany.

Professor Eckert was awarded the Meier-Ewert Prize by the Deutsche Gesellschaft Zahnarztliche Schlafmedizin (DGZS) – the German Society of Dental Sleep Medicine – for his contributions to the field of precision medicine for sleep apnoea, including major contributions to understand how mandibular advancement therapy works and which patients are most likely to respond based on his pioneering sleep apnoea endotyping approaches.

The DGZS recently hosted its annual conference, where Professor Eckert was the keynote speaker and delivered a presentation titled: “New directions for targeted therapy for obstructive sleep apnoea.” This presentation showcased the collaborative sleep research conducted by the team at FHMRI Sleep Health/Adelaide Institute for Sleep Health.

Anu’s got the golden touch

Anu Francis wins gold at the Para Triathlon World Cup in Portugal.

Following a silver medal at her World Triathlon Para Series debut in Wales, Bachelor of Exercise Science and Master of Clinical Exercise Physiology student Anu Francis has won a gold medal at the Para Triathlon World Cup in Portugal.

This achievement takes her one step closer to her dream of competing in the Paris 2024 Paralympics. It also secures her selection in the Australian team for the World Championships, which will be held in Abu Dhabi on Thursday 24 November.

Out-of-this-world international conference win

Flinders staff have played vital roles to help Sydney secure the 2025 International Astronautical Congress, which was announced during the 2022 conference held in Paris last week.

Professor Melissa de Zwart representing Flinders University at the International Astronautical Congress 2022.

Professor Melissa de Zwart is Deputy Chair of the Sydney 2025 bid, as well as Deputy Chair of the Space Industry Association of Australia which led the bid alongside the Australian Space Agency and the NSW Government. The cohort of organisations has been working on the bid for the past 12 months, building on work done by the Andy Thomas Foundation that secured a successful bid for the international conference in Adelaide during 2017.

Associate Professor Alice Gorman and Dr Justin Chapman, Chapman University.

Associate Professor Alice Gorman was also involved in the bid as a member of the bid Advisory Board. Both Associate Professor Gorman and Professor de Zwart were part of the team that ran the successful Adelaide International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in 2017. Stephanie Wan, Adjunct, led several key presentations in Paris that provided a significant contributor towards the bid’s success, and Dr Kat Hasani Robison provided support to the bid team during the conference week in Paris.

Professor de Zwart, Stephanie Wan and Dr Kat Hasani Robison.
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