Highest ophthalmology honour for Professor Smith
Distinguished Professor Justine Smith, FRANZCO, PhD, FARVO, is the newest recipient of the Joanne G. Angle Award — the highest service honour by the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology in recognition of her outstanding leadership and contribution in support of the Association’s mission over 20 years.
Professor Smith has been a member of the Association’s editorial board for the ARVO research journal, the Annual Meeting Program and ARVO Foundation Award Committees and the ARVO Board of Trustees, where she has held the role of President and Executive Vice President in recent years.
As a Distinguished Professor at Flinders and a Senior Consultant Ophthalmologist at Flinders Medical Centre, Professor Smith leads a research team focused on improving outcomes against inflammatory eye diseases and runs a uveitis clinic for patients with these conditions.
As an Association member for more than 20 years, Professor Smith served on its Annual Meeting Program Committee (representing the Immunology/ Microbiology Section and serving as chair), the ARVO Foundation Awards Committee, the ARVO-EBAA Eye Bank Working Group, the Global Mentorship Working Party and the Leadership Development Working Group, which she chaired. She has also been a member of the editorial board for ARVO journal Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science (IOVS) and the ARVO Board of Trustees, where she held the leadership roles of President (2013-14) and Executive Vice President (2017-22). Read more about Distinguished Professor Smith in ARVONews.
Symposium promotes gender equality
An International Symposium on promoting gender equality and social cohesion through women’s entrepreneurship in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region will come to fruition thanks to the input of Flinders University.
Flinders has teamed up with its Dubai-based partners, Manipal Academy of Higher Education—MAHE, Dubai, and Universities in Cairo, Egypt, to make this initiative a reality.
The Council for Australian-Arab Relations grant 2023-24, which promotes gender equality and empowers women entrepreneurs in the Middle East and North Africa region, was launched by Flinders University’s Dr Ashokkumar Manoharan and Associate Professor Janice Jones on International Women’s Day 2024.
Members of the Australian Egyptian Society and Mrs Eman Aly, Founder of Emy Art Shop, were present at the launch to offer their insightful perspectives.
The international symposium will include presenters from Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and Dubai. The project has been funded by the Council for Australian-Arab Relations, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
New handbook earns international attention
An important academic volume on English-language universities co-edited by Associate Professor Werner Botha of the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences was recently published by Routledge, and has received stellar reviews in the international academic community.
The 38-chapter Routledge Handbook of English-medium Instruction deals with policies and practices in English-medium instruction (EMI) in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. It discusses the theoretical and disciplinary background to EMI in higher education delivery in diverse international contexts.
Associate Professor Botha co-edited this work with Prof Kingsley Bolton (Stockholm University) and Dr Benedict Lin (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore), and has also contributed to seven chapters in the volume.
This success follows Dr Botha being named among the top 250 researchers in their fields, as ranked by The Australian newspaper’ annual Research 2020 liftout. He was one of 66 researchers in various disciplines of health and medical sciences listed for the highest number of citations from papers published in the past five years in the top 20 journals in their field. Other Flinders experts listed were Emeritus Professor Peter Frith (for his highly-cited pulmonary disease research in medical and health sciences), affiliate academic Distinguished Matthew Flinders Professor David Currow (hospice and palliative care) and graduate Dr Duncan Taylor (forensic science).
Dr Botha, whose research interests include language variation, educational linguistics and the sociolinguistics of English in higher education, came to Flinders University’s College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences this year after a stint at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He is also co-editor of the recently published Handbook of Asian Englishes.
Filmmakers speak about their new film
Flinders Film alumni will be special guests for an In-Person Filmmaker Q&A Session at the Palace Eastend Cinema on Thursday, March 14, with writer/director/producer Indianna Bell and director/editor/producer Josiah Allen, talking about their new film – You’ll Never Find Me, which chilled and thrilled audiences across the festival circuit.