University medallists 2017

Academic excellence recognition recipients

View the 2017 University Medallists below.

University Medallists 27 July 2017

The five University medallists presented below were recommended for the University Medal by the University Medal Committee following its meeting of 27 July 2017.

Hayyan Alrosan

Nominated by the Department of Linguistics, Faculty of Human Sciences

Hayyan Alrosan achieved 93.10 per cent for his Master of Research degree including a thesis mark of 95 per cent. He also obtained a Master of Arts in English/Arabic/English Translation and Interpreting (American University of Sharjah, 2012) achieving a GPA of 3.91/4 (first in his cohort). The examiners for his Master of Research thesis both commented on the rigour and thoroughness of his approach to his research with one giving the thesis a mark of 100 per cent.

Wilfred Gee

Nominated by the Department of Physics and Astronomy, Faculty of Science and Engineering

Wilfred Gee completed his undergraduate studies with a major in Astronomy at the University of Hawaii at Hilo, from which he graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Science degree in 2015. His course performance was consistently excellent, and he was placed on the Dean’s list and given membership in the Honour’s College. He has won numerous awards and competitive scholarships for his work across a variety of projects, including the Daniel K. Inouye Scholarship in Astronomy (2015) and the NASA Space Grant Fellowship (2015). During his thesis year at Macquarie, Wilfred received an award for Outstanding Presentation at the HDR Research Showcase (Nov 2016) as well as Best Overall Presentation at the Mt Stromlo Student Seminars (Dec 2016). His Master of Research thesis received an overall mark of 93 per cent and he earned an outstanding 98 per cent for the research training component of the degree.

Nishat Yasmin Koli

Nominated by the Department of Engineering, Faculty of Science and Engineering

Nishat Yasmin Koli demonstrated a consistently excellent performance in her previous degrees overseas and her research project for the Master of Research was challenging and broke new ground in the study of Radial Line Slot Array (RLSA) antennas. Her research involved critical analysis, understanding highly mathematical concepts and finding a solution to a very challenging practical problem in wireless communications. Despite the challenges, Nishat produced excellent research results, improving the performance of RLSA antennas beyond the state-of-the-art and hence advancing knowledge in relevant science and technology and achieving a final mark of 95 per cent. Her Master of Research thesis results will be a crucial part of a revolutionary antenna technology being developed in Macquarie University Engineering Department.

Nishanthi Raveendran

Nominated by the Department of Statistics, Faculty of Science and Engineering

Nishanthi Raveendran received an A- GPA average and first class honours for her previous study (providing the basis for the award of a highly competitive iMQRES scholarship), and a thesis mark of 90 per cent for her Masters of Research. The thesis was highly regarded by the two examiners, and her research has formed the basis for a poster presentation at the 60th annual meeting of the Australian Mathematical Society, a paper for oral presentation at the International Conference on Robust Statistics 2017, and a paper for publication as a communication paper of the 10th International Workshop on Computational Optimization.

Rebekah Stevens

Nominated by Macquarie Law School, Faculty of Arts

Rebekah Stevens has demonstrated exceptional performance in her Bachelor of Laws (LLB) and Bachelor of Arts studies. She has been awarded First Class Honours for her LLB, and has received a range of prizes during her studies: the Ashurst Prize in Law (2014), Lexis Nexis Prize for Law Journals (2015), Merit List (2016), Highest Achiever in Unit Award for Law447 (Session 1 2016), and the Macquarie Law School Prize for Advocacy (2016). Her research paper for Laws561 Advanced Research Project achieved a score of 95 per cent (the highest in her year) and an overall unit result of 92 per cent. Her Course Weighted Average of 83.78 was also the highest for her year.

University Medallists 22 February 2017

The nine University medallists presented below were recommended for the University Medal by the University Medal Committee following its meeting of 22 February 2017.

Ebony Daley-Carey

Nominated by the Department of English, Faculty of Arts

Ebony Daley-Carey received an excellent result for her Master of Research thesis (second highest in the Faculty of Arts 2016 MRes cohort) with both her examiners commenting on outstanding quality of her thesis. She received the Elizabeth M Liggins Prize in 2015 for her outstanding performance in Year 1 of the MRes program and achieved High Distinctions in each of her coursework units. Her candidature as an undergraduate was similarly impressive and she was awarded a total of six prizes for academic achievement. Ebony has recently had her first article for publication accepted (based on her thesis work) in the international peer-reviewed journal, Children’s Literature in Education.

Karen Gould

Nominated by the Department of Cognitive Science, Faculty of Human Sciences

Karen Gould received the highest overall grade of the 2016 Master of Research cohort in the Faculty of Human Sciences. Both examiners praised her thesis, declaring it exemplary and outstanding, and noted the strong clinical and theoretical basis of the work. She has previously been awarded the 2015 Australian Psychological Society Prize for the highest grade in Honours for her Bachelor of Arts (Honours) degree awarded by the University of New England. Karen also has a Graduate Diploma in Psychology from Monash University in which she achieved High Distinctions in all coursework units.

Timothy Hansen

Nominated by the Department of Engineering, Faculty of Science and Engineering

Timothy Hansen demonstrated a sustained excellent academic record throughout his undergraduate Engineering and Science studies, with 33 High Distinction grades and 1 Distinction grade. He was the top ranking student in the 2015 Session 2 engineering cohort and he demonstrated mastery at the top level in all units of his electronic engineering major. His Science major in Physics was achieved with 7 High Distinction grades and 1 Distinction grade. Teaching staff involved with both majors commented on his exceptionally consistent and high performance, thoroughness of understanding and clarify of expression in his work.

Ciaran Mathewson

Nominated by the Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science and Engineering

Ciaran Mathewson has an exemplary Macquarie University student record. He completed a Bachelor of Science in 2013, completing a Major in Palaeobiology with a distinction average. Ciaran enrolled in the Master of Research in 2015 and completed Year 1 (the Bachelor of Philosophy) demonstrating an exemplary level of student performance in all 700 level units. He recently completed his Master of Research thesis to a very high standard with both reviewers indicating the thesis was extremely important and showed an extremely high level of scholarship, with the thesis grade illustrating the consistently high level of achievement in all his academic endeavours.

Lara Mottee

Nominated by the Department of Geography and Planning, Faculty of Arts

Lara Mottee Lara’s performance in all coursework was consistently outstanding, with exemplary performance in her Master of Research units. She received strong praise for her presentations, her ethics application and her final thesis, and was generous in her support for colleagues in her cohort in preparation for presentations. Her minor research project (HGEO810) contributed to a published paper (Mottee, L., Witt, K., Everingham, J., & Rifkin, W. (2015, October). Measuring cumulative socio-economic impacts of coal seam gas projects in the Western Downs: Building the case for a strategic monitoring framework. presented at the EIANZ Annual Conference, Perth, Western Australia, Australia). Lara was clearly the top student in the Department’s 2016 MRes cohort and received the 2016 Jim Rose Prize for Human Geography Honours.

Dieu-Linh Nguyen

Nominated by the Department of Applied Finance and Actuarial Studies, Macquarie Business School

Dieu-Linh Nguyen produced an outstanding thesis for her Master of Research titled “Impact of higher capital requirements on bank funding costs: Australian evidence”. She achieved a high distinction grade for her thesis year and is the first student in the three years of the MRes program in the department to achieve straight High Distinction grades in all eight of the year 1 coursework units plus the year 2 research thesis. At the undergraduate level from 2010 to 2012, she achieved 18 High Distinction grades and 3 Distinction grades on the way to her Bachelor of Applied Finance degree at Macquarie University. This included five prizes for top ranking in the following units: Introductory Statistics, Macroeconomic Principles, Microeconomic Analysis, Financial Econometrics and Applied Portfolio Management.

Matthew Pigram

Nominated by the Department of Engineering, Faculty of Science and Engineering

Matthew Pigram has clearly demonstrated a sustained excellent academic record throughout his entire undergraduate Engineering program, achieving 26 High Distinction grades and 4 Distinction grades. Matthew was the top ranking student in the 2016 Session 2 cohort, majoring in Computer Engineering with outstanding results in a range of highly theoretical 300 level units. His thesis, focussing on Software Engineering, was originally intended to be a Masters level project, and the results will be published at a high level international conference. Matthew also won the Jan Hext Prize in 2013 (Fundamentals of Computer Science), 2014 (Object-Oriented Programming Practices) and 2015 (Programming Languages).

Qirong Song

Nominated by the Department of Accounting and Corporate Governance, Macquarie Business School

Qirong Song has consistently demonstrated excellent academic performance throughout her Master of Research studies in Accounting in 2015 and 2016. She achieved High Distinctions in all seven units in 2015 and excellent results for her MRes thesis and has been awarded a scholarship for her three-year PhD program from 2017. Her MRes thesis has made an important contribution to international accounting research and was highly praised by the two external examiners, who noted that while it focussed on issues in mainland China her study has implications for international accounting regulators. Her thesis mark is the highest ever achieved by an MRes student in the Department of Accounting and Corporate Governance.

Laura Webster

Nominated by Macquarie Law School, Faculty of Arts

Laura Webster has an impressively strong academic record demonstrating her sustained excellence in her Bachelor of Laws studies. She performed consistently well across all of her compulsory and elective law units, achieving 5 High Distinctions and 17 Distinctions throughout her Law degree, and achieved the highest Course Weighted Average of the cohort graduating at the end of Session 2, 2016. She received a Dean’s Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Macquarie Law Community in 2015 as a successful team member of the Peden Moot team, which won the annual mooting competition against Sydney University for the first time in over 15 years. She also received the Macquarie Law School Prize for Modern Corporate Governance in 2016 and the Faculty of Arts Highest Achiever in Unit Award for LAWS536 (Modern Corporate Governance).