Woodward Medallists
| Winner | Report |
|---|---|
| 2023 | |
2023 Woodward Medal in Humanities and Social Sciences Associate Professor David McInnis | Associate Professor David McInnis of the School of Culture and Communication in the Faculty of Arts was awarded the 2023 Woodward Medal in HASS for his groundbreaking work in early modern literary studies, particularly his work on lost plays and his co-creation of the Lost Plays Database. His monograph, ‘Shakespeare and Lost Plays: Reimaging Drama in Early Modern England,’ represents a pinnacle of scholarship, redefining our understanding of Shakespeare's oeuvre. The book's outstanding reception, extensive media coverage, and public engagement highlight its transformative impact both within and beyond academia. |
2023 Woodward Medal in Science and Technology Dr Jennifer Juno | Dr Jennifer Juno of the School of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences was awarded the 2023 Woodward Medal in STEM for her significant contributions to T cell immunity and viral infections research. Dr Juno's exceptional ability to apply her viral immunology expertise to the complex landscape of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic showcases her scientific creativity and adaptability. As Anthony Kelleher, Director of the Kirby Institute, UNSW Sydney, noted, “Dr Juno’s body of work has provided critical insights into the nature of protective T cell immunity against an emerging pathogen and is likely to inform the development of next-generation antiviral vaccines”. |
| 2022 | |
2022 Woodward Medal in Humanities and Social Sciences Dr Tanya Josev
| Dr Tanya Josev of the Melbourne Law School was awarded the 2022 Woodward Medal in Humanities and Social Sciences, for her book The campaign against the courts: a history of the judicial activism debate. This work evaluates the popular frameworks by which courts have been assessed in Australia, but also interrogates the circumstances in which an overly simplistic, bifurcated form of analysis has now gained prominence in popular discourse about the judicial system. The central thesis has been relied upon by scholars working across various disciplines; and it has had a significant impact on the legal profession, the judiciary and on public discourse itself. |
2022 Woodward Medal in Science and Technology Dr Luke Kelly | Dr Luke Kelly in the School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences was awarded the 2022 Woodward Medal in Science and Technology for his suite of articles on ‘Fire and Biodiversity in the Anthropocene’. Dr Kelly’s research revealed that changes in the fire patterns threaten more than 4,400 species across the globe with extinction, including 19% of birds, 17% of dragonflies and 16% of mammals that are classified as critically endangered, endangered or vulnerable and also highlighted the ways we can help promote biodiversity and stop extinctions. |
| 2021 | |
2021 Woodward Medal in Humanities and Social Sciences Professor Andrew Walter
| Professor Andrew Walter from the School of Social and Political Sciences in the Faculty of Arts was awarded the 2021 Woodward Medal in Humanities and Social Sciences, for The Wealth Effect: How the Great Expectations of the Middle Class Have Changed the Politics of Banking Crises (Cambridge UP, 2019) and two related articles in 2019 and 2020 examining the politics and social effects of banking crises and bailouts over nearly two centuries. Nominator Robyn Eckersley from the Faculty of Arts states that “The Wealth Effect and the related journal articles make a major contribution to understanding key long-term shifts in the management of financial crises by governments, with significant implications for the future in relation to addressing not only future financial instability and crises but also other systemic problems such as inequality and declining public trust in democracies”. |
2021 Woodward Medal in Science and Technology Dr Alexander Wood | Dr Alexander Wood of the School of Physics in the Faculty of Science was awarded the 2021 Woodward Medal in Science and Technology for his suite of publications in Nature Physics, Science Advances and Physical Review Letters, each of which constitute landmark demonstrations of quantum sensing and the first direct observation of the effects of physical rotation on quantum systems. |
| 2020 | |
2020 Woodward Medal in Humanities and Social Science Professor Farrah Ahmed
| Professor Farrah Ahmed of the Melbourne Law School was awarded the 2020 Woodward Medal in Humanities and Social Sciences, for her publications, Religious Freedom under the Personal Law System and Remedying Personal Law Systems, which are highly original and innovative contributions to Personal Law. The book is a timely contribution to an ongoing debate which addresses important yet overlooked aspects of the personal law system. |
2020 Woodward Medal in Science and Technology Professor Bruce Campbell | Professor Bruce Campbell from Melbourne Medical School at the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences was awarded the 2020 Woodward Medal in Science and Technology for his suite of breakthrough publications on Endovascular |
| 2019 | |
2019 Woodward Medal in Humanities and Social Sciences Dr Tarunabh Khaitan | Dr Tarunabh Khaitan of the Melbourne Law School was awarded the 2019 Woodward Medal in Humanities and Social Sciences for his book, A Theory of Discrimination Law (OUP 2015, Oxford Scholarship Online 2015, South Asia edition 2015, paperback 2016), which is an “engaged and unified theoretical account of discrimination law” (Khaitan). Not only has this single-authored work received universally high acclaim from esteemed academic peers as a field-defining work of scholarship, but it has already demonstrated substantial impact on judicial bodies such as the European Court of Human Rights, the UK and Indian Supreme Courts, as well as other judges and legislators across multiple jurisdictions. |
2019 Woodward Medal in Science and Technology Associate Professor Laura Mackay | Associate Professor Laura Mackay from Biomedical Sciences at the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences was awarded the 2019 Woodward Medal in Science and Technology for her suite of ground-breaking articles on tissue-resident memory T cells (TRM cells). Mackay’s research challenged the widely accepted belief that immune protection was largely conferred by T cells found in the blood, and showed that TRM cells are distinct from blood-borne T Cells and represent humans’ “best line of defence against disease” (Mackay). |
| 2018 | |
2018 Woodward Medal in Humanities and Social Sciences Professor Cordelia Fine | Professor Cordelia Fine of the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, Faculty of Arts, was awarded the 2018 Woodward Medal in Humanities and Social Sciences, for her internationally-esteemed and widely debated book, Testosterone Rex (2017). This book aims to unmask and debunk pervasive myths about biological sex – that the inequality of the sexes is biological rather than cultural – and offers a highly engaging and novel account of neuroscientific and psychological discussions that speaks to a broad range of audiences. |
2018 Woodward Medal in Science and Technology (joint awardees) Professor Geoffrey McFadden Professor Katherine Kedzierska | Professor Geoffrey McFadden from the School of Biosciences, Faculty of Science, was jointly awarded the 2018 Woodward Medal in Science and Technology. for his malaria research. Professor McFadden is internationally recognised for discovering that malaria parasites are related to plants and retain a vestige of the photosynthetic compartment (the chloroplast) that defines plants and algae. A major global malaria prophylactic (doxycycline) targets the structure McFadden identified and has likely saved many thousands of lives. In recent years, McFadden has sought to further understand the intricate metabolism of the malaria parasites throughout its complicated life cycle across the two hosts: humans and mosquitoes. Professor Katherine Kedzierska, of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology in the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, was jointly awarded the 2018 Woodward Medal in Science and Technology for her suite of work on H7N9 influenza and immunity. Her suite of articles translates basic research from mice to clinical settings, using cutting edge multi-disciplinary approaches and strong collaborative links between immunologists, virologists, clinicians, Indigenous academics, the WHO Influenza Centre and researchers in the Asia-Pacific region. Her work provides novel insights into vaccines and therapeutics to protect against severe influenza. |
| 2017 | |
Woodward Medal in Humanities and Social Sciences (joint awardees) | Associate Professor Kristen Rundle, Co-Director of the Centre for Comparative Constitutional Studies, Melbourne Law School, was a joint recipient of the 2017 Woodward Medal in Humanities and Social Sciences for her book exploring the legacy of noted legal philosopher Lon L. Fuller, titled Forms Liberate: Reclaiming the Jurisprudence of Lon L. Fuller. Associate Professor Frederik Vervaet of the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, Faculty of Arts, was a joint recipient of the 2017 Woodward Medal in Humanities and Social Sciences for his study of political structures and power in Rome, The High Command in the Roman Republic: The Principle of the summum imperium auspiciumque from 509 to 19 BCE. |
Woodward Medal in Science and Technology Associate Professor Devi Stuart-Fox | Associate Professor Devi Stuart-Fox from the School of Biosciences, Faculty of Science, received the 2017 Woodward Medal in Science and Technology for her research into the biology of colour – how it is produced in nature, perceived by animals, and how the diversity of nature’s colours evolved - presented in “Accelerated speciation in colour‐polymorphic birds” in Nature 485 (2012). |
| 2016 | |
Associate Professor Margaret Young (Woodward Medal in Humanities and Social Sciences) | Associate Professor Margaret Young, of the Melbourne Law School, was awarded the 2016 Woodward Medal in Humanities and Social Sciences for her book Trading Fish, Saving Fish: The Interaction between Regimes in International Law (Cambridge University Press, 2011). The book aims to reshape current theoretical and structural questions about international law while addressing urgent questions of environmental sustainability. |
Associate Professor Stephen Leslie (Woodward Medal in Science and Technology) | Associate Professor Stephen Leslie from the School of Mathematics and Statistics and the School of Biosciences, and a member of the Centre for Systems Genomics, was awarded the 2016 Woodward Medal in Science and Technology for his research into the fine-scale genetic structure of the British population. Stephen is recognised for his study using newly developed statistical approaches to reveal at unprecedented levels of detail the subtle genetic differences between peoples from different regions of the British Isles, reported in the journal Nature (519: 309-314, 2015). |
| 2015 | |
Associate Professor Barbara Keys (Woodward Medal in Humanities and Social Sciences) | Associate Professor Barbara Keys, of the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, was awarded the 2015 Woodward Medal in Humanities and Social Sciences for her book Reclaiming American Virtue: The human rights revolution of the 1970s (Harvard University Press, 2014). |
Professor Gordon Lynch (Woodward Medal in Science and Technology) | Professor Gordon Lynch, of the Department of Physiology, School of Biomedical Sciences, was awarded the 2015 Woodward Medal in Science and Technology for his research into treatments for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD). Professor Lynch is particularly recognised for his work in discovering the potential of heat shock proteins to ameliorate pathology in DMD reported in the paper "Hsp72 preserves muscle function and slows progression of severe muscular dystrophy" Nature 2012; 484, 394-398. |
| 2014 | |
Professor Sundhya Pahuja | Professor Sundhya Pahuja, of the Melbourne Law School, was awarded the 2014 Woodward Medal in Humanities and Social Sciences for her book, Decolonising International law: Development, Economic Growth and the Politics of Universality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011). The book makes an important and original contribution to understanding global inequality, and international law's role in its production and maintenance, as well as in struggles against it. |
Professor Ashley Bush | Professor Ashley Bush, of the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, was awarded the 2014 Woodward Medal in Science and Technology for his research into causes of and treatments for neurodegeneration, in particular his work defining the role of tau proteins in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease, reported in the paper "Tau deficiency induces a parkinsonism with dementia phenotype by impairing APPmediated iron export" Nature Medicine 2012; 18(2), 291-295. |
| 2013 | |
Professor Anne Orford | Professor Anne Orford was the winner of the 2013 Woodward Medal in Humanities and Social Sciences. Professor Orford holds the Michael D Kirby Chair of International Law and she is also an Australian Research Council Future Fellow at the Melbourne Law School and is the author of International Authority and the Responsibility to Protect. The book analyses one of the most significant developments in the normative framework of international relations since the United Nations was created – the emergence of the ‘responsibility to protect’ concept. |
Professor Dale Godfrey | Professor Dale Godfrey from the Department of Microbiology and Immunology in the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences was the winner of the 2013 Woodward Medal in Sciences and Technology. Professor Godfrey’s work has advanced our understanding of the immune system and has the potential to be translated into improvements in disease prevention, diagnosis and treatment. |
| 2012 | |
Associate Professor David Goodman Professor Ingrid Scheffer | Article |
| 2011 | |
Professor Ary Hoffmann Professor Ivan Marusic Dr Vicente Pérez de León | Article |
| 2010 | |
Professor Peter Stuckey Dr Sarah Biddulph | Article |
| 2009 | |
Dr Bryan Fry Dr Michelle Foster | |
| 2008 | |
Professor Frank Caruso Professor Simon Marginson | Article |
| 2007 | |
Associate Professor Antonia Finnane Dr Andrew Greentree | Article |
| 2006 | |
Professor Joshua Gans Dr Stuart Wyithe | Article |
| 2005 | |
Professor Cynthia Hardy Associate Professor Robyn Eckersley Associate Professor Tien Yin Wong | |
| 2004 | |
Associate Professor Stephanie Trigg Associate Professor John Sader | Associate Professor Stephanie Trigg, Department of English – The Woodward Medal in Humanities and Social Associate Professor John Sader, Department of Mathematics and Statistics – The Woodward Medal in Science and Technology |
| 2003 | |
Professor Paul Carter Professor Geoff McFadden | Article |
| 2002 | |
Dr David Heckel Professor Richard Teese | Dr David Heckel (Genetics) for discovering a gene associated with pesticide resistance in insect pests. Professor Richard Teese (Education Policy and Management) for research on VCE |
| > 2001 | |
Dr Janice Stockigt Professor John Hopper | Professor John Hopper, Director of the University’s Centre for Genetic Epidemiology, and Dr Janice Stockigt of the Faculty of Music, were awarded the University’s inaugural Woodward Medals. The annual awards—one in Science and Technology and one in Humanities—are for research considered to have made the most significant contribution in these fields. |