December 17, 2015

Renowned higher education leaders receive honorary awards

Four great Australian leaders, including David Gonski and  Catherine Livingstone, receive Honorary awards.

Four great Australian academics and higher education leaders received Honorary awards from UOW this week during end of year graduations (16-18 December).

Professor JIM Hill

Professor Jim Hill, an internationally recognised leader in applied mathematics who joined UOW in 1975 as a budding young Lecturer and would go on to dedicate 35 years of outstanding service to this institution, has been appointed an Emeritus Professor.

Born in Blackburn, England, Professor Hill spent his formative academic years at the University of Durham in the United Kingdom and then the University of Queensland, receiving a Bachelor of Science (First Class Honours) and his PhD from the latter.

Professor Hill took up a lectureship at UOW in 1975, the year it was established as an independent institution, and was subsequently appointed Professor of Mathematics and to the first University Personal Chair at UOW in 1988.

Throughout his time here, he played a major role in establishing the reputation of the University as a place of notable international mathematics research and was instrumental in establishing the University’s early research reputation.

Professor Hill has published more than 300 research articles and gained almost $5 million in research funding.

His peers have described him as “one of the leading applied mathematicians of our time” and in 2008, Professor Hill received the Australian and New Zealand Industrial and Applied Mathematics (ANZIAM) Medal, their highest honour, in recognition of his research achievements and his sustained contribution to Applied and Industrial Mathematics.

Since leaving UOW in 2010, he has held professorial positions at the University of Adelaide and at the University of South Australia, but continues to collaborate with UOW in the field of nanotechnology

Professor Kurt Lambeck AO

Professor Kurt Lambeck has been recognised with a Doctor of Science (Honoris Causa) for his distinguished contribution to the Earth Sciences and his leadership and service at the international level. Professor Lambeck’s work on the mathematical modelling of geophysical data, which enable scientists to produce the most realistic estimations of sea-level changes – past, present and future.

Born in the Netherlands, Professor Lambeck and his parents came to Australia in a converted troop ship as part of the ‘flotsam and jetsam’ of displaced persons after World War II. His parents, who were Dutch Resistance fighters, would become part of the diverse and vibrant fabric of Wollongong and surrounds.

After attending school in Wollongong and studying surveying at the University of New South Wales, Professor Lambeck was offered a scholarship to the University of Oxford, where he received his PhD.

After several appointments around Europe, North America and the UK, Professor Lambeck joined the Australian National University in 1977 as a Professor of Geophysics in the Research School of Earth Sciences and has loyally served that institution since that time and is now recognised as a renowned scholar in the mathematical modelling of geophysical data.

Receiving the 2012 Balzan Prize, it was noted Professor Lambeck’s findings “have radically modified climate science” and “revolutionised concepts in the geosciences crucial to our understanding of the solid Earth”.

Professor Lambeck has been honoured with appointments to the Order of Australia, the Legion of Honour (France) and the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic. He was the President of the Australian Academy of Science from 2006 to 2010 among other prestigious postings.

He is an Honorary Fellow of the GeoQuEST Research Centre at UOW, whose interdisciplinary focus on environmental and climate change research has never been more pressing.

Mr David Gonski AC

Mr David Gonski was bestowed a Doctor of Laws (Honoris Causa) for his significant contributions to education in Australia at every level.

The Chancellor of the University of New South Wales, the institution from which UOW was born before its independence was declared 40 years ago, Mr Gonski is a renowned figure in Australian public life.

In 2010, Mr Gonski was asked to chair a committee tasked with making recommendations regarding funding of education in Australia. The report, known as the ‘Gonski Report’, proposed significant government funding increases to Australian schools.

“More than simple shorthand for endorsing the Review of School Education, ‘Give a Gonski’ has come to mean something else, something not about governments or funding arrangements or legislative instruments,” UOW Vice-Chancellor Professor Paul Wellings said.

“‘Give a Gonski’ represents a hopefulness, a practised and focused means of thinking about a future not limited to the next budget or the next decade or even the next generation: a future that might come about as a shrewd gift from us, here and now, to distant and unknown others whose hopes and needs we cannot yet anticipate but may be enabled by judicious and sagacious management of our public affairs.”

Pursuing careers in law and business over four decades, it is estimated Mr Gonski has served on dozens of boards and he is sometimes described as the “Chairman of Everything,” not entirely in jest.

He currently serves as Chairman of the ANZ Board of Directors, Chairman of the Coca Cola Amatil Limited Board and Chairman of the Sydney Theatre Company Board.

Mr Gonski is also a notable philanthropist, serving as patron for the Australian World Orchestra, the Australian Indigenous Education Foundation, and also the youth mentoring organisation the Raise Foundation.

In 2007, he was honoured with a Companion of the Order of Australia.

Ms Catherine Livingstone AO

The Australian Financial Review's Business person of the year Ms Catherine Livingstone was presented with a Doctor of Science (Honoris Causa) for her commitment to innovation and leadership.

Recently announced as the new Chancellor of the University of Technology Sydney from December 2016, Ms Livingstone is a pre-eminent business leader whose roles have encompassed finance, governance and management, culminating in her current appointment as the President of the Business Council of Australia. 

Born in Nairobi before immigrating with her family to Australia in the 1960s, Ms Livingstone studied accountancy at Macquarie University, graduating with first class honours, and was soon a Chartered Accountant with Price Waterhouse.

Ms Livingstone went on to hold a number of high profile roles, including Director of Telstra since 2000 and was elected Telstra Board Chairman in 2009, President of the Australian Museum Trust, Chairman of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation and CEO and Managing Director of Cochlear Limited, where she successfully took the company to market in 1995.

The Cochlear Implant has improved the quality of life of many people around the world. In the time that Ms Livingstone led the company, there were significant product innovations that brought the audible world to those to whom it might have been lost forever.

Until recently, she was a member of the Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Council, where she took on many government assignments over recent years, including as a Member of the Advisory Panel for the Australia in the Asian Century White Paper and a Member of the National Innovation Systems Review Panel.

Ms Livingstone was awarded the Centenary Medal for service to Australian society in business leadership, and in 2008 was awarded the Officer of the Order of Australia for service “to the development of Australian science, technology and innovation policies, to the business sector through leadership”.

She has campaigned for gender diversity on corporate boards and the need to provide supportive and flexible workplaces for women and acknowledge unconscious biases in recruitment.