The NSW Premier's Prizes for Science & Engineering, formerly known as the NSW Science and Engineering Awards, are an Australian series of awards for excellence in science, awarded by the office of the premier of New South Wales. There are several categories, the top award being the NSW Scientist of the Year. The 2024 NSW Scientist of the Year is mental health researcher Helen Christensen.
The prizes, originally known as the NSW Science and Engineering Awards, [1] have been awarded since 2008. [2]
In 2015 the name of the awards was changed to NSW Premier's Prizes for Science & Engineering. [3]
They were established "to recognise and reward the State’s leading researchers in science and engineering for cutting edge work that generates economic, health, environmental or technological benefits for NSW". [1] They also "aim to raise community awareness and appreciation of the important contribution scientists and engineers make to our daily lives and encourage careers in both fields". [3]
The 2024 NSW Scientist of the Year is mental health researcher Helen Christensen, from UNSW Sydney. [3]
In 2012, Emma Johnston was named NSW Scientist of the Year for Excellence in Biological Sciences (Plant, Agriculture and Environment). [1]
The University of New South Wales (UNSW), also known as UNSW Sydney, is a public research university based in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is one of the founding members of Group of Eight, a coalition of Australian research-intensive universities.
The Millennium Technology Prize is one of the world's largest technology prizes. It is awarded once every two years by Technology Academy Finland, an independent foundation established by Finnish industries, academic institutions, and the state of Finland. The patron of the prize is the President of Finland. The Millennium Technology Prize is Finland's tribute to innovations for a better life. The aims of the prize are to promote technological research and Finland as a high-tech Nordic welfare state. The prize was inaugurated in 2004.
Hugh Francis Durrant-Whyte is a British-Australian engineer and academic. He is known for his pioneering work on probabilistic methods for robotics. The algorithms developed in his group since the early 1990s permit autonomous vehicles to deal with uncertainty and to localize themselves despite noisy sensor readings using simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM).
Martin Andrew Green is an Australian engineer and professor at the University of New South Wales who works on solar energy. He was awarded the 2021 Japan Prize for his achievements in the "Development of High-Efficiency Silicon Photovoltaic Devices". He is editor-in-chief of the academic journal Progress in Photovoltaics.
The Eureka Prizes are awarded annually by the Australian Museum, Sydney, to recognise individuals and organisations who have contributed to science and the understanding of science in Australia. They were founded in 1990 following a suggestion by science journalist Robyn Williams.
Toby Walsh is Chief Scientist at UNSW.ai, the AI Institute of UNSW Sydney. He is a Laureate fellow, and professor of artificial intelligence in the UNSW School of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of New South Wales and Data61. He has served as Scientific Director of NICTA, Australia's centre of excellence for ICT research. He is noted for his work in artificial intelligence, especially in the areas of social choice, constraint programming and propositional satisfiability. He has served on the Executive Council of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence.
Helen Christensen (AO) is the Scientia Professor of Mental Health at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. She has been the Board Director of the Black Dog Institute since 2022. She is also a former executive director and Chief Scientist at the Institute, having led the organisation from 2011 to 2021.
Michelle Yvonne Simmons is an Australian quantum physicist, recognised for her foundational contributions to the field of atomic electronics.
Katharina Gaus was a German-Australian immunologist and molecular microscopist. She was an NHMRC Senior Research Fellow and founding head of the Cellular Membrane Biology Lab, part of the Centre for Vascular Research at the University of New South Wales. Gaus used new super-resolution fluorescence microscopes to examine the plasma membrane within intact living cells, and study cell signalling at the level of single molecules to better understand how cells "make decisions". A key discovery of Gaus and her team was how T-cells decide to switch on the body's immune system to attack diseases. Her work is of importance to the development of drugs that can work with T-cells in support of the immune system.
Emma Letitia Johnston is an Australian marine ecologist and academic. As of 2024 she is the Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research) at the University of Sydney, due to take up her appointment as Vice Chancellor of the University of Melbourne from February 2025. She was formerly dean of science and Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research) at the University of New South Wales, as well as president of Science & Technology Australia.
Martina Heide Stenzel is a Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of New South Wales (UNSW). She is also a Royal Australian Chemical Institute (RACI) University Ambassador. She became editor for the Australian Journal of Chemistry in 2008 and has served as Scientific Editor and as of 2021, as Editorial Board Chair of RSC Materials Horizons.
Veena Sahajwalla is an inventor and Professor of Materials Science in the Faculty of Science at UNSW Australia. She is the Director of the UNSW SM@RT Centre for Sustainable Materials Research and Technology and an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow.
Mary Josephine O'Kane, AC an Australian scientist and engineer, is the Chair of the Independent Planning Commission of New South Wales. She is also a company director and Executive Chairman of O’Kane Associates, a Sydney-based consulting practice specialising in government reviews and research and innovation advice to governments in Europe, Asia and Australasia.
Anthony Steven Weiss is an Australian university researcher, company founder and entrepreneur. He is the leading scientist in human tropoelastin research and synthetic human elastin. He holds the McCaughey Chair in Biochemistry, heads the Charles Perkins Centre Node in Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine, and is Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biotechnology at the University of Sydney. His discoveries are on human elastic materials that accelerate the healing and repair of arteries, skin and 3D human tissue components. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. Weiss is on the editorial boards of the American Chemical Society Biomaterials Science and Engineering, Applied Materials Today (Elsevier), Biomaterials, Biomedical Materials, BioNanoScience (Springer) and Tissue Engineering. He is a biotechnology company founder, promoter of national and international technology development, and has received national and international awards, including the Order of Australia.
Rose Amal is an Australian chemical engineer, currently serving as Scientia Professor and ARC Laureate Fellow in the School of Chemical Engineering at the University of New South Wales, Australia, where she is the director of the Particles and Catalysis Research Group. Previously she was director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Functional Nanomaterials (2010–2013). From 2012 to 2015 she was named in the Engineers Australia list of Australia's Top 100 Most Influential Engineers. In 2014 she became the first female engineer elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science.
Karu P. Esselle is an Australian scholar, professor, engineer, scientist and inventor. He is the Distinguished Professor in Electromagnetic and Antenna Engineering at University of Technology Sydney, Australia. He is the leader of the MetaSteerers Team, which won Australia's national 2023 Department of Defence Eureka Prize for Outstanding Science in Safeguarding Australia. He was named Australia's Professional Engineer of the Year for 2022 by Engineers Australia - the national body that oversees engineering practice and profession in Australia. Eureka prizes are considered the Oscars of Australian Science. He is also a visiting professor of electronic engineering at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia.
Kaarin Anstey is an Australian Laureate Fellow and one of Australia's top dementia scientists. She is Co-Deputy Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research (CEPAR) at the University of New South Wales, Australia, where she is Scientia Professor of Psychology. Kaarin Anstey is an Honorary Professor at the Australian National University and a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. She is a Director of the NHMRC Dementia Centre for Research Collaboration, Senior Principal Research Scientist at NeuRA and leads the NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence in Cognitive Health and the UNSW Ageing Futures Institute.
Glenda Margaret Halliday is an Australian neuroscientist. As of 2021, she is a professor at the University of Sydney and research fellow in the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC). She was named 2022 NSW Scientist of the Year.
The Sydney Institute of Marine Science (SIMS) is a research institute focused on marine science in Sydney, Australia. It is a partnership among four Sydney universities: Macquarie University, the University of NSW (UNSW), the University of Sydney, and the University of Technology Sydney (UTS).
The NSW Science and Engineering Awards were initiated in 2008 to recognise and reward the State's leading researchers in science and engineering for cutting edge work that generates economic, health, environmental or technological benefits for NSW.