Pictured left to right: The late Dr Alastair Lucas AO, Dr Lindi Masson with Professor Brendan Crabb AC, Professor Joshua Vogel
Fostering a talented workforce creates the next generation of research leaders. Thanks to your support, that’s precisely what we’ve been able to do through the Burnet Staff Awards 2023. Fellowships, prizes, and travel grants play a big part in shaping researchers. They provide an important opportunity to attend overseas conferences, expand their research, receive mentorship, maintain their career while being a primary caregiver, develop networks, strengthen their CVs, form collaborations, enhance technical skills, and importantly help establish research careers.
Special thanks to the below donors, trusts, foundations, and estates who supported the Burnet Staff Awards in 2023.
The Miller Foundation Public Health & The Miller Foundation Biomedical Research
The Miller Foundation is a very generous and long-term supporter of Burnet Institute.
2023 winners: Jenny Cao, Emily Adamson, Dr. Katherine O’Flaherty, and Dr. Liriye Kurtovic.
Geoffrey Stewardson Travel Grant
Thanks to Geoffrey Stewardson for his ongoing support of this travel fellowship for researchers working in the area of HIV.
2023 winner: Sarah Amir Hamzah.
The Hon Geoffrey Connard Travel Fellowship
This award is supported by the estate of The Hon. Geoffrey Connard, a politician and Burnet’s first chairman. We acknowledge his foresight and generosity in leaving provision for this grant in his Will.
2023 winners: Annie McDougall and Clarissa Moreira.
Pictured: Dulcie Lautu
Pauline Speedy Biomedical Research Fellowship
With thanks to Jenny Tatchell for her ongoing support of this fellowship in memory of her late partner.
2023 winner: Dulcie Lautu.
Harold Mitchell Foundation Postgraduate & Postdoctoral Travel Fellowship
Harold Mitchell has supported Burnet Institute for many years and is a passionate advocate and supporter of medical research.
2023 winners: Ellen Kearney and Dr. Michael Curtis.
Margaret Harrison Parental Leave Grant
Very special thanks to Margaret Harrison for her ongoing support.
2023 winner: Stephanie Levy.
The Alastair Lucas Prize for Research Excellence
Alastair Lucas AO was a long-serving Board Director and Chair of Burnet Institute and a tireless advocate for medical research in Australia. This prize, established thanks to donor contributions, in memory of Alastair Lucas, celebrates research excellence and supports career development for one very deserving Burnet researcher every two years.
2023 winner: Dr. Lindi Masson.
The prize will support Dr. Masson’s research focused on the vaginal microbiome and its association with increased risk of HIV and sexually transmitted infections, and adverse reproductive health outcomes more generally. It will give her the opportunity to build her research program in Australia and South Africa.
“I’d like to thank and acknowledge the women who participate in our studies. Nothing that we do could be done without their generosity and giving their time to take part in our work.”
Named in honour of founding directors of the Burnet and Austin Research Institutes, Professor Ian Gust AO and Emeritus Professor Ian McKenzie AM, the Gust-McKenzie Medal is presented annually to an outstanding mid-career Burnet staff member in recognition of excellence in research and/or public health.
The Gust-McKenzie Medal
Named in honour of founding directors of the Burnet and Austin Research Institutes, Professor Ian Gust AO and Emeritus Professor Ian McKenzie AM, the Gust-McKenzie Medal is presented annually to an outstanding mid-career Burnet staff member in recognition of excellence in research and/or public health.
2023 winner: Professor Joshua Vogel.
The Crockett Murphy Award
Established in 2014 to honour the contributions of former staff members Dr. Sue Crockett and Clare Murphy, open to support Burnet staff outside Australia. Both Sue and Clare were really cherished members of the Burnet family. This award is specifically to support Burnet staff not in Australia.
2023 winners: Dr. Win Htike in Myanmar, and Ruth Bala in PNG.
Pictured: Dr Michelle Scoullar with picture of the late Dora Lush inset
Dora Lush Academic Excellence Award
Supported by Dr. Margaret Lush and family and named in memory of Dora Lush who worked with Sir Macfarlane Burnet (see story following).
2023 winner: Dr. Michelle Scoullar.
"I am absolutely thrilled to receive this Dora Lush award. It makes a huge difference to what I’m able to consider when it comes to sharing my research at conferences or undertaking professional development. I’d like to say a huge thank you to the family of Dora Lush who have continued to enable this award, and have increased it in recent years; it makes the world of difference!”
Dora Lush and her legacy
Dora Lush was two months shy of her 33rd birthday in May 1943 when she died after a needle-stick injury. That makes 2023 the 80th anniversary of her death, and Burnet is pleased to take this opportunity to acknowledge Dora Lush’s scientific excellence and her ongoing legacy at Burnet Institute.
In a time when women were expected to resign when they married, Dora dedicated her life to a career in science. She worked for a time in London, in the midst of the WWII air-raids, focusing on the influenza virus, and later alongside Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet (Mac Burnet) in a small team examining viruses and the human immune system.
While conducting experiments on the deadly scrub typhus infection in 1943, Dora accidentally pricked her finger with an infected needle. Scrub typhus posed a serious health risk to Australian soldiers engaged in jungle warfare in Papua New Guinea during World War II. Within a week, she had symptoms of the disease – fever, headache, rash. She died a few weeks later, and sadly, it was discovered soon after that scrub typhus could be treated with antibiotics.
Margaret Lush, Dora’s niece, and her family fund an annual academic excellence award at Burnet Institute in the name of Dora Lush, a woman who lived and ultimately died for science.
