The Graduate Medal for Research Excellence has become the Graduate Medal for Research Innovation. To be eligible in 2026 nominees must:聽
_self
h2
2026 Alumni Award nominations are now open
cmp-call-to-action--ochre
Don鈥檛 be afraid to choose a research problem that鈥檚 difficult, especially if solving it could have a significant impact.
Dr Daniel Balzer is a multi-award-winning researcher from the School of Chemistry. His PhD research focused on the understanding of how charge and energy move in disordered materials. His work solved a major open problem in his field that had remained unsolved for decades. He applied the innovative theoretical techniques he developed to organic semiconductors, and the insights drawn from this work will be key to the next generation of solar energy.
During his time as an undergraduate at the University of Sydney, he was awarded the University Medal. His PhD research earned him a series of awards including the Postgraduate Research Prize for Outstanding Academic Achievement, the Prize for Outstanding PhD Thesis, the Paulette Isabel Jones Career Award, the Le F猫vre Lectureship, the Westpac Future Leaders Scholarship, and the Science Centenary Fund Scholarship.
Daniel鈥檚 work has been published in six Nature-Index journals and praised by Professor Jenny Nelson of Imperial College London as being 鈥渙f considerable value to the wider research community."
Daniel pioneers creative solutions to tackle the world鈥檚 energy crisis. He is passionate about STEM education and communication, and helping students find joy in problem solving.
I'm currently working as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Sydney with Ivan Kassal, where I鈥檓 developing my PhD research into open-source software to make advanced modelling tools accessible to the wider scientific community. I鈥檓 also working with international collaborators to apply this work to the current state of the art organic solar cell to better understand why it performs so well, and how we could design even better ones. Looking ahead, I鈥檓 excited by opportunities that will allow me to continue contributing to research, STEM education, and the global transition to clean and renewable energy.
Juan Pablo Molina Ortiz is a research scientist at the CSIRO. He undertook the majority of his PhD research in computational biology at the Charles Perkins Centre, using metabolic modelling to study complex biological systems. 聽
His PhD relied on advanced models of the metabolic networks to study the nutritional interactions that arise between gut microbes. From there, he created a platform that samples the metabolic profile of hundreds of microbial strains under various nutritional environments computationally.鈥
His work is considered to be truly interdisciplinary, combining medicine, biology and computational modelling, and will have lasting impacts on personalised medicine into the future.
Jos茅-Miguel Bello y Villarino鈥檚 career was already well established when he decided to undertake a PhD in Law. He served as a member of the Diplomatic Corps of Spain and served in diplomatic postings in Eastern Europe, West Africa, South-East Asia and Central America. His last position before moving to Sydney was Deputy Head of Mission in Islamabad.鈥
His PhD research on corruption and international law is highly regarded by his peers and mentors. During his studies he was awarded a University Postgraduate Award (cat. 5), the Walter Reid scholarship and a Fulbright-Schuman scholarship for the exchange programme at Harvard Law School. His dissertation was praised as 鈥渁 masterful combination of trenchant normative argument and level-headed practical recommendation鈥. Since graduating, he has taken up a contract at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision Making and Society, based at the Law School, conducting research on the governance of artificial intelligence.聽
Dr Nikki-Anne Wilson鈥檚 contribution to the field of dementia research has been recognised by multiple first-author papers in high-impact journals, a co-authored publication and 15 international and local presentations at conferences and symposia. Nikki-Anne鈥檚 contribution to the academic community is equalled by her extensive science outreach as an in-demand speaker and mentor.
Dr Marilena DeMayo鈥檚 research focuses on improving understanding of autism and interventions. She developed a model to facilitate a greater understanding of the divergent processes in autism, review autism treatments, investigate brain differences in children with autism and designed a world-first clinical trial investigating oxytocin for children with autism. She is an active contributor to the Brain and Mind Centre, chairing the Higher Degree by Research group and being a member of the organising committee of the first Brain and Mind Centre symposium.
Dr Michelle Barakat-Johnson is a leading senior health professional in nursing practice, a lecturer and a recognised national leader. Her doctoral research on hospital-acquired pressure injury (HAPI) used implementation science to guide a new approach and inform practice change. This resulted in a 51.4% decrease in HAPI incidence and substantial organisational cost savings as well as the formation of a NSW pressure injury collaborative. She was awarded the prestigious Excellence in Innovation in Research award from the NSW Health Nursing and Midwifery sector in 2019.
Explore the annual Alumni Awards, featuring four Graduate Medals and four Alumni Awards.