Awards and achievements

Swinburne lecturer awarded Victorian Professional Engineer of the Year

October 2023

Swinburne Architectural Engineering lecturer Daniel Prohasky has been named Victorian Professional Engineer of the Year at the Engineers Australia Excellence Awards and will go on to represent the state for the Australian title on 29 November.  

Mr Prohasky was nominated for his contribution to innovative engineering practice through translating his visionary concepts into sustainable, inclusive, and ethical local manufacturing projects Curvecrete and Milkdrop. This extensive involvement allows him to touch various community aspects, underscoring the vibrancy and innovative potential in engineering. 

With a passion for mentoring architectural engineering students around the country, Mr Prohasky is also the founding lecturer in Architectural Engineering at Swinburne and was the 2019 Design Faculty Innovation Fellow.

“The architectural engineering approach is one that can be used for multiple engineering challenges, and I’m thrilled it’s getting recognition”, says Mr Prohasky.

“I’m really excited to use this platform given to me by Engineers Australia to reinvigorate conversations about using architectural engineers to solve sustainability challenges at both a city infrastructure scale and a product design scale.”

Swinburne teams win at iAwards 2023

Professor Prem Prakash Jayaraman has led a Swinburne University of Technology team to win at the national iAwards 2023.

Swinburne won the Government and Public Sector Solution award for a project delivering Internet of Things (IoT) sensors and 5G connectivity to waste collection trucks. The 5G garbage trucks solution was supported by $1.18 million in funding from the Federal Government’s Australian 5G Innovation Initiative and worked with Optus and Brimbank City Council. The solution’s Swinburne team included Professor Dimitrios Georgakopoulos, Associate Professor Hadi Ghaderi, Associate Professor Chris McCarthy, Dr Abdur Rahim Mohammad Forkan, Dr Yong-Bin Kang, Dr Felip Martí, Shane Joachim, Rohit Kaul, Anas Dawod and Dr Abhik Banerjee.

The win follows the team's success in the Victorian iAwards round in August 2023, where Swinburne was also a merit recipient for the Technology Platform Solution category led by industry partner VidVersity. VidVersity, an education learning platform company, delivered an innovative Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered video assessment tool called VidVersity DL, jointly developed with Swinburne. The platform uses advanced Natural Language Processing (NLP), AI to innovate video-based learning through automatic question generation and answer assessment. The Swinburne team included Dr Yong-Bin Kang and Dr Abdur Forkan.

The iAwards program is an initiative of the Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA) and is Australia’s longest running innovation recognition program.

Swinburne Professor elected to the International Design Society’s Advisory Board

Swinburne Professor of Product Design Engineering, Boris Eisenbart, elected to the Advisory Board of the International Design Society

With over 800 members, the international Design Society is the largest society globally for the promotion of design research and hosts a series of conferences, seminars, workshop and special interest groups dedicated to advancing scientific discourse about design. Through networks and events, the society promotes an interdisciplinary community of academics and industry experts aiming to develop effective means of designing solutions that an increasingly complex and globalised society needs to thrive.

At the head of the society, the board of management relies on the Advisory Board Members to advise, guide and support the directors in developing and furthering the aims and objectives of society and the research community more widely. Advisory Board Members are elected from within the community and serve a term of 6 years, with the potential to be re-elected for a second term. Boris has been serving in special interest groups of the society for a number of years and has helped organise the International Conference on Engineering Design, the largest conference of its kind and the flagship conference of the society, in 2019 and 2023.

“It is a great honour for me to have been elected into the Advisory Board. There was strong competition with several other, well-known candidates from the community, and it is certainly a recognition by the community of the work I have been doing,” Professor Eisenbart said.

Swinburne Director’s International Practitioner Fellowship is helping solve Australia’s cybersecurity shortage

Pictured: Paul Goudie

Congratulations to Swinburne University of Technology’s Director of Business, Design, Media and Information Technology (VET), Paul Goudie, who has been awarded an International Practitioner Fellowship, funded by the Victorian Skills Authority, to research cybersecurity capability in the workforce worldwide.

Australia aims to become the most cyber-secure nation in the world by 2030. However, the country needs over 30,000 qualified cybersecurity professionals in the next four years.

To address this skills gap, Mr Goudie’s research will explore how Victorian training providers can scaffold learning to teach the emerging technical skills employers require to fast-track students’ cybersecurity careers. Additionally, he will investigate digital apprenticeships as a solution to close the gap between traditional education and the ever-evolving cybersecurity industry.

Later this year, Mr Goudie will travel to the United Kingdom and the United States to meet with government agencies, including the US Departments of Defence and Homeland Security, and leading technology companies like Salesforce and Microsoft, known for their deep cybersecurity expertise.

The Victorian Skills Authority partners with the International Specialised Skills Institute by funding the VSA International Skills Fellowship and focuses on developing opportunities for building quality and excellence in Victoria’s vocational education and training workforce. 

Swinburne structural engineer joins women in STEM leadership program

Senior Lecturer in Swinburne’s Department of Civil and Construction Engineering, Dr Jessey Lee, has been accepted into the veski women in STEM sidebyside mid-career leaders program in 2023. Launched in 2018, the program offers workshops and networking opportunities to empower women in STEM to achieve their career goals.

A structural engineer with over a decade’s industry experience, Dr Lee’s research focuses on fastenings to concrete, timber, steel and modular constructions. She’s also helping decarbonise the construction industry through a CRC-P grant in collaboration with Swinburne industry partner ROBOVOID, using Swinburne-jointly developed recycled plastic to make lighter, more sustainable concrete panels. The product is already having an impact globally, with concrete panels used in buildings from Geelong, Victoria, to Mumbai in India.

Through the veski women in STEM program, Dr Lee hopes to build new collaborations and partnerships across academia, industry and government, while paving the way for future generations of women in engineering.

“I look forward to meeting other fabulous women in STEM and being inspired to do even greater things. As a strong advocate for girls in STEM, I hope to encourage future generations of young women to pursue STEM careers, because you can’t be what you can’t see,” Dr Lee says.

Swinburne lecturer recognised with Entrepreneurship Educator of the Year Award

Senior Lecturer in Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Swinburne Dr Eryadi Masli has won second place in the 2023 Entrepreneurship Educator of the Year Asia Pacific Award category from the Accreditation Council for Entrepreneurial and Engaged Universities (ACEEU). 

Dr Masli received the award at the Triple E Awards, a global recognition of efforts towards the quest for entrepreneurship and engagement in higher education. 

The category recognises an individual who has demonstrated an outstanding performance in the design and delivery of an entrepreneurship course.

Dr Masli convenes the Venture in Action unit at Swinburne, which is a capstone in the Master of Entrepreneurship and Innovation.

This unit develops students’ understanding of their own ability to lead, manage and launch an enterprise as it moves through the stages of growth to market and beyond. Through Dr Masli’s innovative approach, students work together with Swinburne scientists that have developed cutting-edge inventions to help take their work from the lab to the marketplace.

Throughout the unit, Swinburne students receive authentic experiences of what it takes to develop and build a startup, while Swinburne scientists gain access to the knowledge of entrepreneurs experienced in market-ready business models and products to translate their inventions into commercial opportunities. 

Past students have collaborated with some of Swinburne’s most prominent and innovative scientists to launch their startups, such as mDetect, NovaSense BioMedical and SensFit Technologies. 

Prestigious STEM Ambassador roles for Swinburne experts

Swinburne experts Professor Virginia Kilborn and Professor Geoffrey Brooks will forge stronger ties between science, technology and public policymakers as two of Science & Technology Australia’s new intake of STEM Ambassadors.

Professor Kilborn, Swinburne’s Chief Scientist, will be the STEM Ambassador to the Member for Calwell, Maria Vamvakinou, and Professor Brooks, a metallurgical processing expert, will be the STEM Ambassador to the Member for Casey, Aaron Violi.

They will meet regularly with their Parliamentarians to deepen ties between Parliament and the STEM sector and help politicians access expert advice on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

A growing number of Parliamentarians seeking regular expert advice on complex science and technology issues saw Science & Technology Australia appoint a record-breaking 26 STEM Ambassadors in 2023.

The STEM Ambassadors are drawn from Science & Technology Australia’s member organisations and come from a diverse range of academic backgrounds and interests.

The prestigious program – which began in 2019 – creates opportunities for science experts to share their expertise to assist evidence-based policymaking.

Professor Rachael McDonald inducted as Fellow into Occupational Therapy Australia Research Academy

Swinburne’s Industry Engagement team recognised for strategic partnership framework

Pictured above, Swinburne's Industry Engagement team, Blair Warren-Smith, Daria Cecchini, Dominique Goodwin, Daniel Ritlewski (and absent: Jacqueline Embry) developed an account management framework for Swinburne's strategic partners.

Swinburne’s Industry Engagement team has been named winner of the Strategic Partnerships award at the University Industry Innovation Network (UIIN) Excellence Awards, recently held in Budapest, Hungary. This award is in recognition of the team’s development of an account management framework of Swinburne’s strategic partners. 

The UIIN Excellence Awards recognise outstanding contributions within the higher education sector. This year, UIIN recognised and promoted the outstanding contributions of the community's top performers across seven categories in the areas of university-industry interaction, entrepreneurial and engaged universities, and the future of higher education.

The Strategic Partnerships Award recognises novel and outstanding work in the approach, development, and management of strategic partnerships between universities and external stakeholders. 

Swinburne’s Industry Engagement team created a methodology to track and evaluate the university’s partnerships according to a set of criteria that measure the impact, breadth, and depth of our industry engagement activities. The account management framework is articulated around Swinburne’s four moon shots, ensuring alignment to our Horizon 2025 vision. The abstract for the framework was developed by Associate Director, Industry Engagement, Daria Cecchini and former Director, Industry Research Engagement and Business Development, Ros Hore. 

The introduction of the framework has provided transparency and a common approach for the university’s key partners; empowering Swinburne to build, strengthen and consistently manage partnerships. 

Professor Matthew Bailes awarded The Shaw Prize in Astronomy for 2023

Pioneering astrophysicist Professor Matthew Bailes has won the prestigious Shaw Prize in Astronomy, known as the ‘Nobel of the East’. He shares the USD$1.2 million award with Professor Duncan Lorimer and Professor Maura McLaughlin. 

Professor Matthew Bailes is an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow and the Director of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery (OzGrav). He founded the Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing at Swinburne in 1998, and is a world leader in the study of pulsars, fast radio bursts and gravitation.

In particular, he has played a pivotal role in the development of a new branch of astrophysics, fast radio bursts, developing pioneering instrumentation and software that led to Australia’s early dominance of the field. 

The Shaw Prize is an international award, honouring individuals who have made outstanding contributions in academic and scientific research. Established in 2002, it is awarded annually in three categories – Astronomy, Life Science and Medicine, and Mathematical Sciences.

Read more about Professor Bailes and his work at Swinburne. 

Swinburne researcher recognised at International Conference on Building Materials

Swinburne PhD researcher Janitha Madhavie Migunthanna won the Best Student Paper Award at the 8th International Conference on Building Materials and Construction in Kyoto, Japan, for her paper “Waste clay brick binders for low-carbon concrete pavement construction”. The research will soon be available in Springer book series Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering. Janitha was sponsored by Swinburne University of Technology during her research for her travel to Japan.

Swinburne cognitive neuropsychologist joins internationally renowned scientific journal board

Cognitive neuropsychologist Professor Susan Rossell has joined the Editorial Board for international scientific journal Neuropsychopharmacology (NPP). NPP is a Springer Nature journal focusing on understanding the advancement of brain and behaviour and is the official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP).

Professor Rossell is a cognitive neuropsychologist and Professorial Research Fellow at Swinburne’s Centre for Mental Health. She also holds adjunct positions at Monash Alfred Psychiatry Research Centre and at St Vincent's Health. Professor Rossell has published extensively and received both the International and European award for Young Investigator into Schizophrenia Research.

Sustainable Future award for Swinburne researcher

Professor Mark Adams has been recognised for his outstanding contribution to an innovative planet, winning the Excellence in Research Impacting a Sustainable Future category in the Australia & New Zealand Scopus Researcher Awards 2022.

Professor Adams' research contribution centres on the management of bushfires in a changing climate, water use, soil carbon, carbon sequestration and the sustainability of forests.

Professor Adams demonstrated a strong presence in international publication, citation data, and presented an inspiring story, as well as reflecting the values of equality, diversity and inclusion in his work.

Find out more about Professor Adams recent work on acacia woodlands, which has major implications for climate modelling.