Graduate Research School

The Graduate Research School makes annual awards of Prizes for Higher Degree by Research Achievements.

In 2009, six prizes of $1000 each were offered for the best work accepted for publication in 2008 by an enrolled PhD, professional doctorate or Master's by Research student from any discipline.

To be eligible for these awards, a candidate must have been enrolled in a PhD, professional doctorate or Master's by Research degree at the University of Western Australia at the time the work in question was prepared and submitted for publication (in the case of work accepted for publication) or completed, displayed or performed (in the case of creative work).

The applications in each category were assessed by a panel of senior academic staff, representing a range of disciplines relevant to the work submitted. Each panel provides to the Board of the Graduate Research School a shortlist of recommended applications. The Board determines the winner in each category. 

2009 Winners and Special Commendations

Biological Sciences

Winner - Dr Holly Rose Chinnery (Anatomy and Human Biology)

‘Cutting Edge: Membrane Nanotubes In Vivo: A Feature of MHC Class II+ Cells in the Mouse Cornea’, in Journal of Immunology

Special Commendation - Ms Hanne Cathrine Lie (Psychology and Animal Biology)

‘Genetic Diversity Revealed in Human faces’, in Evolution

Clinical Medicine and Dentistry

Winner - Dr Harin Ashley Karunajeewa (School of Medicine and Pharmacology)

‘A trial of combination antimalarial therapies in children from Papua New Guinea’, in The New England Journal of Medicine

Special Commendation - Dr Paul Rameri Salama (School of Surgery)

‘Tumor infiltrating FOXP3+T regulatory cells show strong prognostic significance in colorectal cancer’, in Journal of Clinical Oncology

Creative Works

The panel has recommended that no award should be issued in the category this year.

Humanities and Social Sciences (Qualitative)

Winner - Ms Isla Macphail (School of Humanities)

Highest Privilege and Bounden Duty: A Study of Western Australian Parliamentary Elections 1829-1901

Special Commendation - Ms Margaret Amelia Dorey (School of Humanities)

‘Controlling corruption: regulating meat consumption as a preventative to plague in seventeenth-century London’, in Urban History, vol.1, May 2009

Humanities and Social Sciences (Quantitative)

Winner - Mr David Erceg-Hurn (School of Psychology)

‘Modern robust statistical methods: An easy way to maximise the power and accuracy of your research’, in American Psychological Association

Special Commendation - Ms Monique Robinson (School of Psychology)

‘Pre- and postnatal influences on preschool mental health: A large scale cohort study’, in Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry

Mathematics, Physical Science and Engineering

Winner - Mr Kenji Shimizu (Centre for Water Research)

‘Energetics and dampening of basin-scale internal waves in a strongly stratified lake’, in Limnology and Oceanography

Special Commendation - Miss Danielle Barrington (Environmental Systems Engineering)

‘Application of Hydrogen peroxide for the Removal of Toxic Cyanobacteria and other Phytoplankton from Wastewater’, in Environmental Science and Technology