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Collaborators honoured with prestigious awards

DMTC has honoured brilliant young researchers and long-time collaborators at its 2019 Awards for Excellence.

Projects at the leading edge of technology advancement in the land vehicle and naval shipbuilding domains – working with industry primes like Thales Australia and BAE Systems and leading University and research agencies – were acknowledged with awards.

Michael Saleh, a senior structural engineer with ANSTO, picked up two awards for his leadership and contribution to the development of advanced and innovative modelling and testing regimes that will improve the safety and functionality of next generations of Defence equipment platforms.

Michael Saleh responds having received the Collaboration Award from DMTC CEO Mark Hodge and guest speaker Nicole Bradley (left)

Mr Saleh’s work on DMTC projects over nearly a decade was recognised, including previous work on blast and shock models for land vehicles and his current efforts to develop and validate modelling that will improve Defence’s understanding of the life-of-type of Navy ships.

Other award winners included:

• The project team involving BAE Systems, DST Group, QUT and Swinburne University that is enhancing corrosion monitoring on Navy surface ships;
• ANSTO researcher Dr Inna Karatchetseva for the partnership with Thales Australia to develop an Australian supply chain for critical components of sonar transducer equipment;
• DMTC-supported PhD candidate Mr Brodie McDonald from RMIT University and DST Group who won the strongly-contested Early Career Research award for his expert input to the complex numerical models to predict the performance of high-strength steels used in military vehicles.

CEO of ANSTO, Dr Adi Paterson, congratulated the award winners and their teams.

“These awards are another acknowledgement of the successful partnership between ANSTO and DMTC, and of the great outcomes that research and expertise can deliver for industry, in this case the defence industry,” Dr Paterson said.

Chief Defence Scientist Professor Tanya Monro with Early Career Research award winner Brodie McDonald. Photo: Steve Keough

DMTC CEO Dr Mark Hodge said every nominee for the awards, not just the winners, should rightly be proud of their contribution to DMTC’s goal of enhancing Defence capability.

“These awards are about acknowledging the quiet achievers and putting a spotlight on work that is proving to be significant now, but will be an even bigger contributor to Defence’s capability edge in the future.  Tonight’s winners are in illustrious company with previous awardees, and the overall body of winners is richer for their addition to it.

“In Michael Saleh’s case, we have an embodiment of the strong outcome-focus that is so evident right across the teams that make up the DMTC community. His absolute focus on collaboration – on leading a multi-disciplinary team to achieve collective goals – is to be commended.”