Past recipients

When Dirgayuza (Yuza) Setiawan was still at high school, he and some of his friends refurbished used computers and distributed them to community organisations and orphanages so that they could use them to run computer literacy classes. What began as a school project planted the seeds for his passion for sharing with others the life-changing potential of computer and internet literacy.

Yuza completed his Bachelor of Arts at the University of Melbourne in 2011 and in 2016 graduated from Oxford University’s Internet Institute Master of Social Science program in Social Science of the Internet.

He has authored 11 books on technology for Indonesian audiences, including "how to" guides for people new to using Facebook and Mac operating systems.

For the past three years, Yuza has been part of the NextGen@ICANN program, which brings together people interested in shaping the future of global internet policy.

He is also an Adjunct Fellow at the Center for Digital Society in Indonesia, Universitas Gadjah Mada's research centre on the study of modern digital societies.

Mohamed Khairat was still a Bachelor of Arts student when he founded Egyptian Streets, an independent English language media organisation in Egypt.

During a visit to Egypt in 2012, Mohamed perceived that there were major gaps in the kind of events and issues media outlets were reporting, and saw a need for change. His goal in establishing Egyptian Streets was to share stories that mattered, with a focus on driving social and cultural change by tackling key - and often sensitive - social and cultural issues.

What began as a blog in 2012 has in just a few years become one of Egypt's most important independent voices, with five permanent staff, over 30 contributors, and readership all over the world.

In addition to reporting on and sharing social and cultural stories, Mohamed has ensured that Egyptian Streets is actively involved in the community through partnerships with local non-government organisations, in local campaigns, and in fundraising for various social causes.

In 2018, Mohamed was named '30 Under 30 in Media & Marketing' by Forbes Europe and '30 Under 30 Arab' by Forbes Middle East for his role in founding Egyptian Streets.

He is currently a lawyer in the Projects & Development team at Allens, Melbourne.

Dr Ted Gott is Senior Curator of International Art at the National Gallery of Victoria and an Honorary Senior Fellow in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne.

He began his Bachelor of Arts studies intending to be a French teacher, but emerged with a passion for classics and art history, and subsequently completed a PhD on French symbolist painter Odilon Redon.

Ted has made a significant contribution to Australia's cultural life over the past 30 years. Having held curatorial positions at the National Gallery of Victoria, the National Gallery of Australia, and the Heide Museum of Modern Art, he has curated and co-curated over 25 exhibitions.

In 1994 he curated the exhibition Don't Leave Me This Way: Art in the Age of AIDS at the National Gallery of Australia. At a time when fear of AIDS was at its peak, it was - and still is - the first exhibition on the subject to be held at a national gallery anywhere in the world, and drew an audience of 140,000 people.

The gallery had expected less than a tenth of that number to attend the exhibition; but in Ted’s own words, "what [the exhibition] turned out to be was an incredible touch point that gave everyone who had been touched by the disease a place to go and express their emotion, and to find a cathartic outlet to express what they had gone through. It became an extraordinary phenomenon."

A writer and researcher, Ted has published widely on Australian, British and French art in books, catalogues, and journals, and has been actively involved in the mentoring of developing curators. A generous and enthusiastic speaker, he has given public lectures around the country in both metropolitan and regional areas.

The International Council of Museums Australia has praised Ted as "Australia’s pre-eminent curator in international art", whose "experience, attention to detail, knowledge of art and history, scholarly approach and easy communication style has seen many significant exhibitions developed and presented to Australian audiences that have enchanted and enlightened academic and general audiences alike."

In 2016, he was awarded a Knighthood from the French government, L'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Order of Arts and Letters), in recognition of his significant contribution to the field of art.

As an Honorary Senior Fellow in the School of Culture and Communication, Ted has also been an active contributor to the Faculty of Arts, the University and its alumni community. Over the past five years, he has been a regular volunteer guest speaker at University events, has delivered public lectures, and has contributed to numerous University and Faculty of Arts publications.

Joanna Murray-Smith is the 2019 recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award for her outstanding contribution to the arts community as Australia's most successfully produced female playwright.

Over the past 30 years, Joanna has forged a hugely successful writing career working across multiple genres including theatre, screen, opera and prose.

Joanna’s stage works have been regularly performed by many Australian companies - the Melbourne, Sydney and Queensland Theatre Companies, Black Swan State Theatre Company, Opera Australia, Malthouse Theatre, Red Stitch and La Mama, to name a few - but have also found audiences around the world. Her plays appear regularly on the West End, have been staged at the National Theatre in London and on Broadway, and have been performed in over two dozen languages.

Joanna has been recognised by numerous prestigious Australian literary awards, including the Commonwealth Medal for Services to Playwriting, the Victorian Premier's Literary Award, the NSW Premier's Literary Award, Braille Book of the Year, and the inaugural Mona Brand Award for Screen and Stage Writing. She has won Green Room Awards and AWGIE (Australian Writers' Guild) Awards, been long-listed for the Miles Franklin Award, nominated for an Oliver Award, AFI Awards, the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, and the International Susan Blackburn Play Award.

Joanna contributes to writing communities locally and internationally by sharing her knowledge with aspiring writers through workshops and masterclasses. She has lectured at UCLA and at the New York Stage and Screen Festival, and closer to home, speaks frequently to school students studying her plays as part of the high school curriculum.

In 2012, Joanna was made a Vice Chancellor's Fellow at the University of Melbourne in recognition of her standing in the arts community. As part of this position, Joanna addressed aspiring writers, performers and directors at the University of Melbourne about creative responsibility, ethics, discipline and resilience, as well as on the fundamentals of creative writing. She also mentored students on their individual writing projects.

Kon Karapanagiotidis OAM is the CEO and founder of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC) and a fierce advocate for rights of people seeking asylum, refugees and Indigenous Australians. He is also a human rights lawyer, teacher, social worker, and philanthropist.

Growing up in a small Victorian country town in the 70s and 80s as part of a Greek working-class family, Kon experienced racism first-hand. These early experiences - and learning about his grandparents’ experiences as refugees fleeing the Pontic genocide in Anatolia - ignited in Kon a passion for human rights.

Kon founded the not-for-profit Asylum Seeker Resource Centre at the age of 28. Then a TAFE teacher of welfare studies, Kon had discovered that asylum seekers in the community were living without basic support. With 40 of his students, he started a new charity as part of an educational project - a student-run food bank, launched from a small Footscray shopfront with food donated from local businesses.

The ASRC started that same year, in 2001. In Kon’s own words: "I started with a simple vision: I wanted to create a place of hope and welcome where no one was turned away. A centre that stood for justice, that was willing to be at the coalface when and where it mattered for people. Where dreams of freedom burned brightly in the hearts of all who entered."

Eighteen years later, the ASRC is the largest independent human rights organisation for refugees and people seeking asylum in Australia providing not only food and material aid, but support services, primary health services, and education and employment programs. Without any government funding, each year it advocates for, supports and empowers over 4,600 people seeking asylum.

Jenna Davey-Burns is passionate about creating change. Since graduating from the University of Melbourne in 2011 Jenna has worked across not-for-profit and government sectors as a gender and human rights policy specialist.

Some of the many important projects Jenna has been involved in include, working with Christine Nixon to assist women affected by the 2009 Black Saturday Bushfires, inter-governmental policy work with the United Nations Inter-Agency project on anti-human trafficking in Bangkok and most recently, advising on the implementation of the Royal Commission into Family Violence with Djirra.

Jenna has been a Director on the board of Cambodian Kids Can since 2014, an organisation dedicated to improving educational opportunities for young women in Cambodia, and on the board of the Queen Victoria Women's Centre since 2016.

"Sometimes the biggest life lessons come when you least expect them. 12 months ago, I was hiking in Nepal when tragedy struck. Despite my efforts at CPR, a young woman who was hiking with us died. Three days after that trip my brother called and told me our father had passed away.

It was that week that crystalized life's lessons for me. Simply put, those life lessons are finding resilience, embracing the community and speaking the truth.

The biggest thing I've embraced in the last 12 months, is to take every precious moment of life and savour it. To this room full of inspiring people, I wish you all the best and to continue to take every opportunity life offers and to make it count."

Linh Do

BA 2013

Linh Do has worked tirelessly on environmental issues for the past decade. She is passionate about social change and reducing inequality.

Linh's environmental advocacy has seen her connect with a wide range of stakeholders, from high school students to the United Nations and the Reuters Foundation. She led the Australian Conservation Foundation's community organising program and has worked with Climate Action Network International. In 2010 Linh co-founded the online community engagement platform, OurSay. Most recently, Linh served as publisher and editor-in-chief of newswire service, The Verb, where she worked with an international team to localise and humanise stories from the UN Climate Change negotiations.

Linh's work has been featured in a wide variety on publications including Al Jazeera, Vogue, the Huffington Post and the Washington Post. In 2013, Linh was named a World Economic Forum Global Shaper, Australian Geographic Young Conservationist of the Year, and one of Junior Chamber International's Outstanding Young Persons of the World.

"My Bachelor of Arts degree has given me the ability to embrace a world full of complexities, where I may not always have the answer but certainly always the desire to ask myself 'how am I going to make a positive impact today'.

To the current students in the room, I hope that once you graduate you start to figure out the answer to the question of how you are going to use your Arts degree to make a difference in this world."

Awarded for contribution to the Faculty and University that has been outstanding in both scope and influence across many years, Professor Patricia Grimshaw has demonstrated scholarships in the field of women's history and tireless commitment to the promotion of history among women in Australia and internationally.

Professor Patricia Grimshaw has made an extraordinary contribution to women's history, academia and the wider community in her long career. Amongst an extensive list of achievements, Professor Grimshaw has been recognised as a Fellow of both the Australian Academy for Social Sciences and Australian Academy for the Humanities, served as Head of the University's Department of History and Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Arts. Professor Grimshaw was President of the International Federation for Research in Women's History and, as a Director of the National Foundation for Australian Women, was instrumental in establishing the Australian Women's Archives Project, a register of Australian women who have contributed to Australia.

Professor Grimshaw developed a pioneering course on women's history, Changing Concepts of Women's Place, an initiative which led to the creation of a centre for the history of women.

In March 2008, Professor Grimshaw was inducted into the Victorian Honour Roll of Women for pioneering women's history. In the same week, the University of Melbourne launched the Patricia Grimshaw Mentor Excellence Awards to honour her contribution as a mentor of students and colleagues.

Dr Nadera Hayat Burhani is an internationally-educated medical doctor, specialized in obstetrics and gyneacology. Dr Nadera was Deputy Ministers of Reproductive Health and Mother and Child Health and the Health Care Service Provision in the Ministry of Public Health in Afghanistan (2005 - 2012).

A ceaseless campaigner for women's rights, and a member of the Women Rights Defense Association, she was an elected representative of Afghan women in three Grand Assembles. Dr Nadera is responsible for the health program of Radio Rabia Balkhi that broadcasted for women awareness in Balkh province of Afghanistan.

In 2015, Dr Nadera obtained two graduate degrees, one in Public Policy and Management from the University of Melbourne, and the other in International Public Health from Liverpool University of United Kingdom studied via correspondence. Dr Nadera also holds a Diploma in International Health Regulation and an Advance Certificate after conducting a research from Geneva Medical University.

Currently, she is working as a Health Delegate/ Primary Health Care, Doctor in Ukraine and representing the Australian Red Cross through the Geneva International Committee of Red Cross.

Dr Nadera's award was accepted on her behalf by her son Fayaz Hayatullah.

"My mother started her journey from a mud house in a war-torn region of Afghanistan. She went on to become a doctor, senator and deputy minister and returned to study, she now holds multiple master's degrees in a variety of fields. My mother says, 'Tonight's ceremony is a very auspicious moment for me, I want to say that I am truly grateful for this honor."

Stephanie Alexander is a prolific and bestselling author and food writer and an internationally renowned chef. Her book the Cook's Companion has sold more than 500,000 copies and is often referred to as 'the bible'.

Stephanie has always had a commitment to training and mentoring young people. She was awarded an Order of Australia (OAM) in 1994 for her services to the hospitality industry, to tourism, and for encouraging young apprentices.

Since 2001 Stephanie has been devoted to the development of the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation. She believes that the earlier children learn about food and where it comes from, the better their food choices will be.

"My years at the University of Melbourne were extremely significant in my life chiefly because of the friendships I made. Although my achievements have not been in the academic field, I still regard myself as an educator.

14 years ago, I started the not for profit Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation. Concerned about the prevalence of obesity and its link to diabetes and other chronic diseases, I saw little if anything being offered to young children that might positively influence their food choices. I knew it had to be a program that involved pleasure, not prohibition. How we choose to eat can contribute joy as well as good health and can promote tolerance, confidence, environmental understanding and protection of our food security."