2023 UTS Vice-Chancellor’s Awards for Research Excellence

These annual awards recognise the outstanding contribution UTS staff make towards helping shape the world we live in. Below are the winners for 2023.

Research medals

Chancellor’s Medal for Research Excellence

This award honours outstanding research at UTS that demonstrates sustained research excellence at the highest level over a period of several years.

Award winner

Distinguished Professor Simon Darcy, UTS Business School

Finalists

Distinguished Professor (CT) Chin-Teng Lin, Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology

Professor Philip Hansbro, Faculty of Science

Distinguished Professor Simon Darcy

VC Research Awards 2023: Simon Darcy

VC Research Awards 2023: Simon Darcy transcript

A great deal of our research revolves around the international convention on the rights of persons with disabilities, which folds into the history of the Disability Discrimination Act, the N.D.I.S. and of course the outcomes of the most recent Disability Royal Commission. It’s important work that you’ve got a baseline, so that you know whether you’re improving, being appropriate, effective and efficient, so that you’re bringing about social change.

UTS Medal for Research and Teaching Integration

This award recognises an academic or a team of academics for their outstanding research and outstanding teaching at UTS, especially those who demonstrate their ability to successfully integrate research, teaching and learning across a range of research and teaching activities.

Award winner

Dr Maiken Ueland, Faculty of Science

Finalists

Associate Professor Alexandra Crosby, Thomas Lee, Jesse Adams Stein, Katherine Scardifield, Bridget Malcolm, Cameron Tonkinwise, Peter McNeil, Treena Clark, Abby Mellick Lopes, Mark Titmarsh and Lin Wei​, Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building

Associate Professor Nathan Langford, Faculty of Science

Dr Maiken Ueland sitting at a desk in a lab

VC Research Awards 2023: Maiken Ueland

VC Research Awards 2023: Maiken Ueland transcript

My research is focusing on developing new technology to locate missing persons, and the way we're going about that is we've developed electronic nose technology – copying what the dogs do. So, we're chemically sniffing the air and trying to pick up where the victims are. And in the future, what I'm imagining is having a whole range of these electronic noses on drones, so we know where to focus our search efforts.

UTS Medal for Research Impact

This medal is awarded for research that has achieved considerable impact outside the academic community, including within the creative and/or professional practice(s). It recognises the contribution that research makes to the economy, society, environment or culture beyond the contribution to academic research.

Award winner

Professor Bronwyn Hemsley, Faculty of Health

Finalists

Professor Justin Seymour, Faculty of Science

Distinguished Professor Tuan Van Nguyen, Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology

Bronwyn Hemsley sitting at a desk

VC Research Awards 2023: Bronwyn Hemsley

VC Research Awards 2023: Bronwyn Hemsley transcript

My research grew out of problems in the sector relating to the support of people with communication difficulty. In particular, people with swallowing difficulty face a big problem with the risk of choking. We need to do more work around our 3D food printing to make that more accessible, and to see if we can improve the variety of texture-modified foods for people with swallowing difficulty.

Research awards

Supervisor of the Year Award

Award winner

Professor Shoudong Huang, Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology

Research Leadership and Development Award

Award winner

Associate Professor Jia Jia Zhou, Faculty of Science

Research Excellence through Collaboration or Partnership Award

Award winners

Professor Stella Valenzuela, Distinguished Professor Dayong Jin, Professor Shanlin Fu, Associate Professor Charles Cranfield, Dr Gungun Lin, Dr Andrew Care and Dr Olga Shimoni, Faculty of Science

Early Career Research Excellence Award

Award winner

Dr Amy Freeman-Sanderson, Faculty of Health

Research Management and Development Award (Professional Staff)

Award winner

Sarah Angus, Research Advancement