Image: Professor Sandra Eades AO

Burnet Institute Board Member Professor Sandra Eades AO and longstanding staff member Professor Robert Power AM are among eminent Australians acknowledged for their outstanding community service in the 2022 Australia Day Honours.

And we offer our warmest congratulations to associates and collaborators with close ties to Burnet who were also recognised, including:

• Former Burnet Board Member Dr Alan Finkel AC, for his eminent service to science, to national energy innovation and research infrastructure capability, to climate change and COVID-19 response initiatives, and to science and engineering education;
• Mark Sullivan AO for distinguished service to medical research, to business and to education; and
• John Hartigan AO for distinguished service to the media industry, to Indigenous welfare, and to sport.

Professor Eades was appointed an Officer in the General Division (AO) for distinguished service to medical research, to Indigenous health, and to professional organisations.

A Noongar woman at the forefront of Aboriginal health, in 2003 Professor Eades became the first Aboriginal medical doctor to be awarded a PhD for her research into the causal pathways and determinants of health among Indigenous infants.

She is currently Dean of Curtin University Medical School and Associate Dean (Indigenous) at The University of Melbourne and was appointed to the Burnet Board in August 2020.

Image: Professor Robert Power AM

Professor Power was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for significant service to medicine in the field of international development and research, and to education.

A social scientist with expertise in HIV prevention and social behavioural research, Professor Power has vast international development experience with major Australia Aid and USAID programs in Asia.

He’s a former Director of Burnet’s Centre for Harm Reduction and Head of Burnet’s Centre for International Health and remains active as a consultant for several of the Institute’s research and public health projects following his retirement from key leadership roles in December 2019.

Image: Dr Alan Finkel AC

An inventor, researcher, entrepreneur, educator, policy advisor, and philanthropist, Dr Finkel was made a Companion of the Order of Australia after having been awarded an AM in 2006, and AO in 2014.

Dr Finkel was Australia’s Chief Scientist from 2016-2020 and is currently Special Adviser to the Australian Government for Low Emissions Technologies.

Image: Mark Sullivan AO and Burnet Director and CEO Professor Brendan Crabb AC in 2019

Mr Sullivan has a longstanding relationship with Burnet as the founder of Medicines Development for Global Health, which was created to undertake the end-to-end development of drugs for neglected diseases.

In 2018 Mr Sullivan’s research and advocacy was critical to US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of new treatments for onchocerciasis, or river blindness, which is estimated to infect 20 million people globally, including one million with vision loss.

It was first case of an Australian-sponsored novel drug achieving FDA approval, and the first case of a non-profit organisation achieving approval without a pharmaceutical industry partner.