The prestigious 2009 Queensland Young Tall Poppy Science Awards and the Queensland Young Tall Poppy Scientist of the Year $10,000 prize were announced in Brisbane last night at UQ's Customs House.
Three of the five new 2009 Young Tall Poppy Scientists for Queensland are from UQ, including the Queensland Tall Poppy Scientist of the Year, Dr David Copland.
The awards celebrate the achievements and leadership of young Queensland scientists in both research excellence and communication to engage the community.
The young scientists will give their time next year reaching out to teachers, school students, parents and the broader community around Queensland and across Australia as part of the Tall Poppy Campaign run by the Australian Institute of Policy and Science.
UQ winners are:
Queensland Young Tall Poppy Scientist of the Year 2009:
Dr David Copland
Young Tall Poppy Science award winners:
• Dr David Copland, School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences and UQ Centre for Clinical Research, for research that attempts to discover how the brain recovers the ability to communicate after serious injury;
• Dr Brett Ferguson, Centre for Integrative Legume Research, for investigating the signaling interactions required for “legume nodulation” at the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Integrative Legume Research; and
• Dr Michael Piper, Queensland Brain Institute, for work that aims to identify how the brain develops from a simple sheet of stem cells within the embryo.
Queensland Chief Scientist, Professor Peter Andrews AO jointly presented the awards with UQ Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor Max Lu.
The Queensland Young Tall Poppy awards and campaign are supported by The University of Queensland and Griffith University. The Young Tall Poppy of the Year award is also supported by the Queensland Institute of Medical Research and QUT. National seed funding for expanding the Tall Poppy campaign to Brisbane is from the Department of Health and Ageing.
Further details: http://www.aips.net.au/190078.html
