At the recent International Student Awards our very own Sheela Kumaran received the award for Academic Excellence: Postgraduate (Research). The ceremony was held at the Government House of South Australia and the award was presented by His Excellency the Honourable Hieu Van Le AC, Governor of South Australia.
We asked Sheela what it meant to have her research recognised by the International Student Awards:
“I moved to Adelaide with a lot of aspirations in 2016 and my time in Flinders university has been extremely rewarding. For my doctoral thesis, I investigated the quality of life impacts of amblyopia and strabismus on adults living in Australia and India and developed country-specific, technologically advanced patient reported outcome measures. During my PhD, I established collaboration between study centres in Australia and India, made several scientific presentations and two peer reviewed publications. I am honoured to receive the Academic Excellence Award for Postgraduate Research from His Excellency the Honourable Hieu Van Le AC, the governor of South Australia, and Sean Keenihan, chair of StudyAdelaide. I have received many awards in the past, but this one is very special to me. As I am nearing the end of my PhD, I believe that this recognition by the International Student Awards will open new avenues to support my career goals. I consider this to be the first of many recognitions I aim to achieve as a researcher in future.”
Congratulations Sheela from all of us in the Office of Graduate Research and the Flinders HDR community.