News

Recognition for high achievers

The achievements of individuals and teams across DMTC’s broad portfolio of programs have been recognised at the DMTC 2023 Annual Conference. Awards for Excellence were announced in seven categories.

Award winners demonstrate commitment to excellence and collaboration in activities as diverse as digital transformation, rapid virus detection, fabric and textile technology advances, new vaccine developments, maritime superconducting technologies, advanced computational modelling, state-of-the-art 3-D visualisation and mapping tools and more.

Credit: Steve Keough [note: Shawn Nielsen is pictured having accepted the Collaboration Award on behalf of Richard Taylor]

The awards were presented by guest speaker Mr Chris Deeble AO, CSC, the head of Capability Acquisition and Sustainment Group in Defence. Mr Deeble delivered the keynote address and the awards, and then stayed on to directly engage with a cohort of students and early career researchers from the DMTC community.

The awards and award winners included:

• The Collaboration Award – often described as the MVP Award, was presented to Associate Professor Richard Taylor from QUT. The nominators stressed Richard’s exceptional leadership and collaboration skills in managing a large multidisciplinary team of esteemed researchers within the QUT Power Engineering Research Group and the University of Wollongong’s Facility for Intelligent Fabrication. Richard has single-handedly managed all the projects within DMTC’s Australian Maritime Superconducting Technologies Program, that was established with support and funding from Defence through the Next Generation Technologies Fund. Richard has established a culture of collaboration and teamwork resulting in the successful completion of several research projects and establishing the global credibility of the program.
• The Project Leadership Award was presented to Dr Joanne Macdonald from Australian startup company BioCifer and the University of the Sunshine Coast. Joanne’s project team has developed and now commercialised a rapid diagnostic platform technology that is accelerating point-of-care detection of bacteria and viruses, and providing a capability advantage for deployed ADF personnel. The project also received a national innovation award commendation at the Land Forces event in Brisbane in 2022.
• The Research Partnership Award, for an individual DMTC project team member from industry who has provided critical industrial leadership or context to inform the application of research outcomes, was presented to Liberty Wagner from Bruck Textiles. Liberty is one of the Bruck representatives on a project with CSIRO and University partners to advance the development of breathable fabrics for combat uniforms that protect the wearer from a range of aerosolised threats.
• The Industry Partnership Award, for an individual researcher who has contributed significantly to the industrial capability being developed in a DMTC project, was presented to Luiz Bortolan Neto from ANSTO. Luiz has worked for 7 years on successive projects related to blast response modelling and life-of-type assessments for naval shipbuilding steels, developing and enhancing complex deformation and failure algorithms.
• The Early Career Researcher Award was presented to Dr Lawrence Webb from Deakin University. Lawrence received his PhD in 2019 and is an integral member of the HSSA project working to produce a new, modified sub-unit vaccine against Q Fever for use in humans. Lawrence has been instrumental in delivering essential vaccine material for the project and developing novel tests to analyse the vaccine material.
• The Capability Improvement Award, for a project team who has achieved a significant breakthrough or improvement in technical capability in their field of endeavour, was presented to the Smart Enough Factory delivery team. This project is a direct response to the need for defence supply chain businesses to be literate in the concept of Industry 4.0. The Program has – to date – enabled more than 30 Victorian SMEs and many more across Australia to commence digitalisation of their manufacturing operations and identify tailored next steps appropriate to their business.
• The SoldierOn Award, for an individual who embodies DMTC’s values and has a strong work ethic and is a ‘quiet achiever’, was presented to Jasmijn Westerveld from Synth Technologies. ‘Jazz’ is a highly skilled and talented individual who has made significant contributions to Synth and is valued by the team and project stakeholders alike for her dedication to her work, exceptional leadership skills, customer engagement abilities, and willingness to assist her colleagues.

DMTC warmly congratulates all of the award winners.