Founder's Day 2020
Dear Colleagues,
At this time of the year we would have normally celebrated the 39th Founder’s Day. It is my great hope that the 40th anniversary will be in our new auditorium. Founder’s Day, as we all remember, is that annual opportunity to gather old friends and new to recognise not only our long continuous history, but also new achievements over the past year. While the social activity that this day would have provided cannot happen this year I did not want to let some of the personal highlights of our staff and students go unconnected to the tradition that is Founder’s Day. Sadly, some of our usual prizes were unable to be awarded this year but I remain confident we will have a full complement next year.
30 Years of Service My congratulations go to the following who are familiar and long contributing colleagues. They will be awarded with engraved clocks to commemorate their milestone;
- Steve Battisson
- Vladimir Bazhanov
- Dennis Gibson
- Rob Elliman
Carver Prize - John Carver Prize - Best Honours Students Awarded to the top Honours students in 2019. The Carver Family are gratefully thanked for their enduring gift of the Best Honours Prize and the Carver Seminar Series. Congratulations, Sam and Matt.
Carver Seminar Series Held just over a month ago, this year’s competition was one of our best and very enjoyable. My congratulations again to all the participants.
- Dean’s Prize - Disha Kapasi
- Director’s Prize - Karun Paul
- John Carver Prize - Matthias Wurdack
- People’s Choice - Anthony Leung
The Dunbar Honours Scholarship Established as a bequest from the late Prof Noel Dunbar, who founded the Physics education program in the early 1960’s, this scholarship aims to attract top physics students from Australia and New Zealand to the ANU. Best wishes to all Honours students this year currently preparing their theses.
- Mr Navneet Krishnan
- Mr Benjamin Slimming
- Mr Thomas Bartlett
- Mr Caspian Nicholls
- Mr Michi Hartnett
Robert and Helen Crompton Award Helen and Bob created this travel award to assist students with career development and pursue collaborative opportunities. Congratulations to Kirill and Disha who will be among the first to travel when things open up again.
- Kirill Koshelev
- Disha Kapasi
Chennupati and Vidya Jagadish Endowment Fund The Jagadish Family established this endowment 5 years ago to give students and researchers from developing countries the chance to travel to the Research School of Physics to pursue collaborative research for up to 12 weeks. The Award provides researchers an important opportunity to form international links with colleagues while raising the profile of their home country in the field of physics. The awards for this year were granted before travel restrictions so we have offered awardees deferral of their grants until 2021.
- Mr Vivek Maurya
- Mr Rimika Jaiswal
- Mr Vibhore Mendiratta
- Ms Fathima Harsha T
- Mr Ling Siang Moh
- Ms Aishwarya V Nair
- Dr Wai Ming Loh
Jagadishwar Mahanty Prize for the Best Thesis First awarded in 1999, this is a tribute to the life of one of our most outstanding Theoretical Physicists, Prof. J Mahanty. As always, the committee had a tough time to pick the Best Thesis submitted in 2019. Our congratulations go to;
Alexander Bray “Strong field sub-femtosecond electronic processes”
Promotions While recognised late last year, it is tradition to highlight at Founder’s Day so I again congratulate all those promoted in 2019.
Ben Buchler (Level E) Elena Ostrovskaya (Level E) Andrey Sukhorukov (Level E) Steve Tims (Level D) Vaness Robins (Level D) Rob Ward (Level D) Lindsey Bignell (Level B) |