Science shines at Eureka Prizes

By Dan Gaffney
August 20, 2008

UNSW researchers have won an unprecedented six Australian Museum Eureka Prizes - the "Oscars" of Australian science. The UNSW tally is the highest by any institution in the 19-year history of the Eureka Prizes. Five members of the UNSW Faculty of Science shared in the awards.

Eureka Prizes reward outstanding achievements in Australian scientific research, leadership and innovation, communication and journalism and school science.

Twenty prizes worth over $200,000 were awarded to scientific leaders, innovative researchers, science educators, journalists and schoolchildren before a "who's who" of Australian science, government, academia and industry at a gala event at Sydney's Royal Randwick Racecourse.

Professor Richard Kingsford won the Australian Government Eureka Prize for Promoting Understanding of Science. The Director of UNSW's Wetlands and Rivers Research Laboratory, in the School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, Professor Kingsford is a tireless campaigner, researcher, educator and policy expert on Australia's wetlands, inland rivers, floodplains and their ecology. For more than a quarter of a century he has documented and drawn attention to the destruction of Australia's wetlands and the knock-on impacts on resident and migratory shorebirds. He also won a Eureka Prize in 2001, for environmental research.

The Land & Water Australia Eureka Prize for Water Research and Innovation went to UNSW's Professor Matthew England, Dr Caroline Ummenhofer, Dr Alex Sen Gupta, Dr Agus Santoso and Dr Mike Pook, for discoveries linking ocean temperature and rainfall. The group's discovery of a predictive link between sea surface temperatures in the Indian Ocean and drought seasons over Australia, Indonesia and Africa is helping agriculture reduce costs by planning for weather extremes. The UNSW team was led by Professor England, Co-director of the Climate Change Research Centre, who also won a Eureka Prize in 2006, for environmental research. Dr Pook is from CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, in Hobart.

Three other researchers affiliated with the Faculty were among the finalists:

Entomologist Professor Gerry Cassis for the ABRS Eureka Prize for Outstanding Taxonomic Research;
Dr Leigh Sheppard, Senior Research Associate, Centre for Materials Research in Energy Conversion; and, Adriana Downie (UNSW/Technical Manager, BEST Energies Australia) for the British Council Eureka Prize for Young Leaders in Environmental Issues and Climate Change.

Professor Robert Clark won the CSIRO Eureka Prize for Science Leadership. He was honoured for his leadership in making Australia a world-leader in nanotechnology and quantum information science. Director of the ARC Centre for Quantum Computer Technology, Professor Clark is making Australia a leading contender to build the world's first quantum computer. Quantum computers will have far-reaching applications in areas such as genetic engineering, biomedical science, weather prediction, finance and security.

The evening's standout winner was 23 year-old UNSW solar-cell scientist Nicole Kuepper, who won two Eureka Prizes for her research. A PhD student and lecturer in the School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering, Ms Kuepper was voted Australia's favourite scientist in the Eureka Prizes People's Choice Award and received the British Council Eureka Prize for Young Leaders in Environmental Issues and Climate Change.

She has developed a simple, cheap way of producing solar cells in a pizza oven that could eventually bring power and light to the two billion people in the world who lack electricity. Nicole hopes that her technology will mean cheap, clean and green energy for developing countries, providing electricity to 2 billion of the world's poorest people.

UNSW's School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering for won the IAG Eureka Prize for Innovative Solutions to Climate Change for pioneering achievements in efficient, low-cost solar cell technology. In 2007 the School pioneered a way to boost by 50 percent the efficiency of an economical type of solar cell, a breakthrough that could make solar power a more affordable form of renewable energy. The advance could see the price of an installed solar system for an average house fall from around $20,000 to $15,000.

Australian Museum Eureka Prizes

UNSW science media contact: Dan Gaffney - 0411 156 015.

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