The Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science were presented by the Prime Minister assisted by the Hon Bob Baldwin, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry at the Prize Dinner in the Great Hall of Parliament House on Wednesday 30 October. More about the winners below.
Terry Speed Terry Speed doesn’t expect to see headlines reading “Statistician cures cancer” any time soon. But he knows that the right mathematics and statistics can help researchers understand the underlying causes of cancer and reduce the need for surgery. A mathematician and statistician, he has written elegant theoretical papers that almost no-one reads. But…
Angela Moles If you were a pharmaceutical company searching for a natural plant compound to use as the basis for a new line of drugs, where would you begin? Until recently, this question was a no-brainer. Everyone knows that tropical forests contain the widest diversity of species, all fighting for survival and defending themselves physically…
Andrea Morello People have speculated about the potential of quantum computers for decades—how they would make child’s play of constructing and testing new drugs, searching through huge amounts of data and ensuring that information was fundamentally secure. But it all seemed like science fiction. No-one really knew how to build one, despite lots of clever…
Sarah Chapman Each year in early July, when its 700 students are on holiday, Townsville State High School becomes the headquarters for one of the races in Australia’s V8 Supercar series. But before and after the race the Year 11 science students are hard at work, slopping their way through the nearby mangroves, and wading…
Richard Johnson Model pterosaurs flying overhead, a new insect in the terrarium by the window, a cool video on non-Newtonian fluids on the SMART board down the front—every time the students of Rostrata Primary School in Perth’s southern suburbs enter Mr Johnson’s science lab, there’s something new. Nothing keeps them away from school on science…