The awards recognise the impact of our research and celebrate our Early and Mid-Career Researcher’s academic achievements. They’re broken into two main categories:
- 2025 Impact Award recognising research with significant impact that aligns with the Institute’s, Faculty and University’s strategic priorities.
- 2025 Early and Mid-Career Researcher (EMCR) Awards recognising excellence in academic achievement by our graduate researchers and early-mid career researchers with particular reference to the Institute’s, Faculty and University’s strategic priorities.
This year the Early and Mid-Career Researcher (EMCR) Awards include two new Awards for 2025:
- Excellence in Consumer Engagement
- Excellence in Integrating Research and Teaching
Now in its sixth year, the EMCR Awards were initiated in 2019 by the EMCR Committee to recognise excellence in academic achievement by our students and early-mid career researchers. The awards are also aimed at providing EMCRs the opportunity to cite this Award in their CV as testament to their achievements.
With a large number of applications received this year, our Institute Executive wish to thank everyone who took the time to apply and congratulate all applicants for your impressive work – the calibre of all applicants was extremely high.
Presented by the CEO of Cancer Council Victoria, Todd Harper, EMCR Award recipients received an award certificate and a $500 prize and the IHT Impact Award winners received an award certificate and a $1000 prize to be allocated for education or research.
Thank you to the 2025 judging panels:
- EMCR Awards: Steve Allender, Lisa Barnett, Matt Fuller-Tyszkiewicz, Catherine Bennett, Pat Nicholson, Renee Fiolet, Stephanie Bennetts and Victoria Brown.
- Impact Awards: Aneta Stefanidis, Michelle Jeavons, Alison Hutchinson, Gary Sacks, Stephanie Chappell and Wade Kelly.
Introducing our 2025 EMCR Award Winners
Research Excellence Individual Awards
Individual Awards for Research Excellence aims to recognise researchers with an excellent track record in terms of quality and contribution to science. There are three categories for individual awards:
Individual Graduate Research Award
Current students or students’ one-year* post thesis PhD submission for research conducted between 2023-2025.
Hannah Jongebloed, QPS
Hannah is an investigator on the Carer Hub and on the Optimal Care Pathway for rural and remote Australia and two national consultancies funded by Cancer Australia ($148,000 & $129,000). Hannah undertakes local, national, and international interdisciplinary research within and beyond the cancer sector. She collaborates broadly within the Institute for Health Transformation, across the Faculty of Health, and with external academic and non-academic institutions. She has 23 publications in total, including 16 peer reviewed publication and seven government reports, with a further 2 under review. 12 of her 16 peer reviewed papers are in Q1 journals.
Individual ECR Award
This award is for emerging researchers with less than 5 years* post PhD or other research related employment for research conducted between 2022-2024.
Equal Winners – Adyya Gupta and Navoda Liyana Pathirana, GLOBE
Adyya Gupta, GLOBE
Adyya has secured $1M in competitive research funds since 2021 (including as Lead, Chief investigator), including both internal and external funding.
Her publication record includes:
- 44 peer-reviewed publications with another 10 currently under. 85% of peer-reviewed articles are in Q1 journals. She also has
- 14 national and international evaluation reports
- 3 book chapters
- 3 translation summaries
Her publications are cited in over 40 government policy documents globally in the areas aligned with Sustainable Development Goals.
Navoda Liyana Pathirana, GLOBE
At 2.5 years post-PhD, Navoda has 17 publications with another 4 research articles under review. My publications include 14 peer-reviewed articles and 3 high-level translational reports.
She currently work across two faculties- Faculty of Health and Faculty of Science and Built Environments—and has consistently collaborated across disciplines throughout her research career. She lead the interdisciplinary, award-winning, multi-million-dollar #DigitalYouth study, which integrates public health policy expertise from GLOBE with AI research from IISRI at Deakin University.
Individual MCR Award
Awarded to experienced researchers 5-10 years* post PhD or other research related employment for research conducted between 2022-2024.
Winner – Lan Gao, DHE
Values Based Leadership
This award is to recognise EMCR researchers who exemplify behaviour consistent with IHT’s values: Collaborative, Integrity, Equity, Inclusive (also Deakin value), Excellent (also Deakin value) and Dynamic (also Deakin value).
Winner – Ha Le, DHE
Excellence in Consumer Engagement
This award is designed to recognise outstanding contributions to meaningful, inclusive, and impactful consumer involvement in research activities by EMCR researchers in their research project or program of work. This award is offered across all EMCR Categories.
Winner – Helena Rodi, QPS
Excellence in Integrating Research and Teaching
This award recognises researchers who have equal to or more than 30% (on average) teaching load in the last three years. It is designed to ensure equitable access to the awards programs for researchers who balance research endeavour with their teaching responsibilities.
Winner – Emily Tomlinson, QPS
Introducing our 2025 IHT Impact Award Winners
This Award has been designed by the Institute’s Impact Pillar to recognise research with significant impact and that is in alignment with the strategic priorities of the Institute, Faculty and University.
Winner (Team) – Sally Schultz, Jane Jacobs, Erica Reeve, Kathryn Backholer, Colin Bell
Project Title: Assessing School Nutrition Environments in Europe and Central Asia
Highly Commended (Team) – Edith Holloway, Jane Speight, Elizabeth Holmes-Truscott, Timothy Skinner, Jennifer Halliday, Sarah Manallack.
Project Title: LISTEN: Low Intensity Support To ENhance emotional wellbeing in diabetes
