Past recipients

Christos Tsiolkas is a Melbourne-based playwright, essayist, film critic, and award-winning author of six novels, and the short story collection Merciless Gods. He also wrote the monograph On Patrick White for the Writers on Writers series, and co-authored the dialogue Jump Cuts: An Autobiography with Sasha Soldatow.

His works have been adapted to both the big and small screens. His debut novel Loaded (1995) was made into the feature film Head-On directed by Ana Kokkinos and starring Alex Dimitriades. His third novel Dead Europe, which won The Age Book of the Year fiction award, was also adapted for cinema by Tony Krawitz.

His 2008 novel The Slap is possibly his best known, taking as its starting point a suburban barbecue in which a man slaps someone else’s child, and exploring the effects it has on the families who witnessed it. The book won the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize and was made into an ABC mini-series, and was then adapted for an American audience into a mini-series starring Peter Sarsgaard, Uma Thurman and Thandie Newton. Barracuda (2013) was also adapted as a mini-series, directed by Robert Connelly.

Christos has been shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award, longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and been awarded the Australian Literary Society Gold Medal. His most recent novel, Damascus, won the 2020 Victorian Premier’s Prize for Fiction. Christos’s work has been published extensively overseas as well as in Australia, and The Slap has been translated into 22 other languages.

Christos is also well known for his advocacy on queer issues and on behalf of the migrant and refugee community, specifically through his journalism. He has been a Cultural Ambassador for the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre since 2013 and is also a patron of Writers Victoria.

In his own words

I fell in love with reading from a very young age and I think that it is this love of books that inevitably led me to becoming a writer. I think it is true for all writers. I was very fortunate in that – being migrants to this country – my parents were so proud and encouraging of my reading. They sacrificed to give me an education that wasn’t possible for them back in their homeland. Dad would always buy me two books on Thursday, which was payday when I was a child; and as he couldn’t read English, he’d buy me anything off the bargain table: Dickens, Austen but also Harold Robbins, Henry Miller. It was a real gift. It taught me from a young age to read eclectically; and it also taught me that reading wasn’t only entertainment, that sometimes you had to work hard for the real rewards. From my mother I inherited my love of cinema. That splendid art has been crucial in inspiring me as a writer, to think of language as both the word itself but also the image.

Inspiration comes from the most unexpected places. Something you see outside a train window. A line of poetry. The world inspires and enters non-fiction whereas I think in fiction the inspiration is more tangential. I mean by this that I am more consciously musing and thinking on themes and questions when I approach an essay. But fiction comes from a more dream-like state. Not necessarily the unconscious itself, though dreams can inspire; but more a kind of daydreaming that is necessary to any artist. Doris Lessing used the word “fugging” and I think that is absolutely perfect word for that experience. You can be in that fugging state looking out the study window; or on a walk; or doing laps at the pool.  It’s our access to the netherworld.

I think I am very fortunate to have found a vocation in which I can work through doubt, confusion, sadness and disappointment. Fiction can accommodate questions and uncertainty, and it can also imagine futures and alternatives. I can put rage and melancholy into my work, explore the shadows, but emerge into real life and shrug it off.

The greatest challenge for any artist is discipline. It is only by doing the work, diligently sitting down at the desk and writing, that you learn the craft of writing. There is talent, I do believe that. But talent isn’t enough for the craft. I describe writing as the apprenticeship that never ends. One of the things you have to learn is how to separate the world you create from the real world you live in. Again, I think you come to understand this through discipline, approaching writing as work, as labour.  If you don’t learn this truth, then I think you are in danger of betraying those you love and care for in the real world (let’s call it the non-writing world).

Self-doubt can be lacerating and so often one of the greatest challenges. Again, I have found that it is only by sitting down at the desk – for me I have committed to at least a 1500-word limit a day for the last twenty-five years – that one can wrestle and beat that demon of self-doubt. It will return, it’s never truly vanquished, but I do think you can forget it when lost in the work. Envy too is a demon and a challenge. You have to acknowledge it and then ridicule it, learn to laugh at yourself.

It’s a genuinely humbling thing to have my work recognised by an institution where I first dived into philosophy and politics and the imagination, where I first explored the challenge of becoming adult, where I met so many of my friends (and many people I met in my student years remain friends). My partner was a student at the University of Melbourne.

All that is important, and I am deeply grateful for it, but it is the sacrifice of my parents that I want to honour in this award. I’ve been thinking a lot about sacrifice in this bizarre year of 2020 that began with fire and then has been dominated by the astounding changes wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic. I think those working-class migrant and refugee generations have so much teach us about fortitude, about resilience, and about gratitude. My parents, like so many of their peers, witnessed hardships that are unimaginable to my generation. My good fortune, which includes this award and this recognition, was made possible by their commitment and their sacrifice.

I was seventeen, and it was my first year at Melbourne Uni, and one day my Uncle Kosta dropped me off. He parked on Elgin Street, pointed up to one of the buildings, and then said to me, “I helped build that, I was a labourer on that site.” He gave me a light, playful slap on the cheek. “We’re proud of you being the first of our children to be here, Christo,” he said, “but don’t ever forget where you came from.” He then laughed, gave me a kiss goodbye, and said, “Go, go off and be a bloody scholar!”

I want to say thank you to that generation for literally building this nation, laying all these foundations that we now take for granted. This is a real honour.

Image credit: Zoe Ali.

Dr Genevieve Timmons is an international consultant in philanthropy and grant making. She has been actively involved with philanthropy for more than three decades, working with numerous philanthropic entities, promoting thought leadership and pioneering approaches to organised giving in Australia and New Zealand. Throughout her career, she has specialised in engineering contemporary philanthropic strategies to address disadvantage, promote diversity and build capability for people facing disadvantage to lead their own advancement.

Current professional appointments are with the Paul Ramsay Foundation and the Naomi Milgrom Foundation. Board appointments include the Fellowship for Indigenous Leadership, TOM Melbourne and Studio Schools Australia. Recent past board appointments include the Philanthropy Australia Council, founding director and strategic adviser for the Mornington Peninsula Foundation, founding director and Chair of the Inner North Community Foundation, board member with Australian Community Philanthropy, and Ambassador of the Victorian Foundation for Survivors of Torture. She is also an Adjunct Professor at Swinburne University.

In her own words

My first encounters with philanthropy were actually when I was very young, growing up in a family of five kids in a country town where we were the beneficiaries of the generosity of other people. Our family was not well off. Like a lot of others in the town, we weren’t destitute, but living week to week on Dad’s income. Although we were the recipients of charity, we were never made to feel poor or disadvantaged, and with well-meaning philanthropy through our church we were provided with affordable housing and an education. We were recruited as leaders in our community as we grew up, which has stood us all in good stead to lead meaningful and productive lives. This was an indelible family and community experience for me in understanding first-hand how philanthropy can work.

I started working in philanthropy in Melbourne in the late 80s, when the number of people visible in the sector could barely have filled a combi van. There were some early leading foundations, but the style of giving was largely random acts of generosity based on well-meaning hunches. It was really a serendipitous opportunity – I had completed my Bachelor of Arts and Diploma of Education and was waiting to be assigned to a teaching role, but there was a delay of 18 months in being placed at a school in Victoria at the time. So I took on work opportunities to work in the not-for-profit sector, including being a founding staff person at the CERES project in Brunswick which was another great chance to see the impacts of catalytic philanthropy. I spent five years with CERES, converting an eight-acre tipsite into a community environmental park, which is now flourishing after 40 years of investment by community, government and philanthropy.

Philanthropy is being re-engineered and is emerging as a more powerful concept in our contemporary world, in Australia and globally. It is growing in significance for a number of reasons, but mostly because the art and science of philanthropy is  now more informed than ever. The impact of the philanthropic dollar is increasingly visible, and more people now have the option to deliver significant returns for society by harnessing effective professional discipline, creativity and values. Contemporary philanthropy is also becoming democratised. We are waking up to the fact that we don’t have to be mega-wealthy to start giving for social purpose, or to run businesses with social impact in mind. This means more people, with modest and significant wealth, are choosing to use their money to build a society that is just, creative and economically and environmentally sustainable.

As we deal with the fallout of the COVID 19 pandemic in 2020, it is particularly encouraging to see how philanthropic organisations and individuals are responding nimbly and creatively.  I salute our membership organisations such as Philanthropy Australia, Australian Community Philanthropy and the Fellowship for Indigenous Leadership, among others, who are seizing the opportunity for powerful leadership, providing a platform for collective support and action to ensure the optimal value of philanthropic dollars is secure in such uncertain times.

I am thrilled to have been awarded this honour, not only because my own work has been recognised, but also because it signals an important coming of age for philanthropy and social investment as a field of endeavour in 2020 and beyond. And I’m deeply grateful to have been involved with philanthropy during this time of emergence, growth and change in organised giving and social generosity.

My ambition for the future of philanthropy in Australia, and across the world, is that the power of the philanthropic dollar continues to be better understood and valued, as more people become involved with the democratisation of giving, and join the ‘savvy money’ movement. Savvy money is about using our money as a form of agency to create the type of society we want to be part of.

Another ambition for the future is that we reclaim and renew the original definition of philanthropy, first coined during the oldest traditions of Latin and Greek philosophers of more than 2000 years ago. For those unsure of what philanthropy is, you will find it in the dictionary between two other words, philanderer and philatelist, all three derived from the Latin word phila, to love: to love women (possibly too much); to love stamps; and in the case of philanthropy, to love humanity by giving freely for the benefit of others. The word philanthropy in 2020 is still defined in ancient terms as a love of humanity, but this must embody a frank and fearless love, one that will draw us closer to collective social and political goals where the needs of everyone are respected, and their contributions valued.

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Associate Professor Alison Inglis is a leader in the field of art curatorship, art museum studies and art history, contributing not only to the Faculty of Arts through her teaching over several decades, but promoting the University of Melbourne through her outreach into the community.

Since 1995 she has coordinated the Master of Art Curatorship, one of the few art curatorship courses in Australia. The fact that many of her students now work in the museum sector in Australia and overseas is testament to her inspirational teaching. She sits on the board of Museums Victoria, was appointed Emeritus Trustee of the National Gallery of Victoria in 2010, and was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in this year’s Australia Day awards for service to education and to the museum and gallery sector. She has helped organise international conferences, published articles, curated exhibitions, and co-edited and co-authored significant books.

Her recent research includes two projects funded by the Australian Research Council: one examined British and Australian colonial portraits from 1700–1900; and the other investigated exhibitions of Australian art between 1968–2014. Both these important projects expanded the strength and scope of Australia’s understanding of its visual culture, both historically and in the contemporary sphere.

In her own words

I’m not sure when my love of art first began, but I can still remember my amazement and delight when, as a very small child, I first encountered the public sculptures in the Ballarat gardens. One in particular stands out in my memory: the very dramatic figure group titled The Flight from Pompeii. The power of art to fire the imagination continues to amaze and intrigue me to this day.

I have always gained great pleasure and satisfaction from teaching at the University – where the students’ curiosity and enthusiasm constantly provide new perspectives on the subject under discussion. At its best, teaching proves to be a vibrant interaction that challenges you to re-think your assumptions.

The Art Curatorship program celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, making it one of the oldest continuous art curatorship programs in the world! Art Curatorship emerged as a specialisation within Art History’s postgraduate teaching in 1990 in response to the increasing professionalisation of the museum sector, and the program has continued to evolve and expand ever since. To me, one of the most important things about art curatorship is that it continues to promote the essential interaction between tertiary education and our cultural community. I am very proud to be associated with this course and all its remarkable teaching staff, students and alumni.

I am honoured to be awarded this Faculty of Arts Alumni Award. I have had the great pleasure of working at the University for over three decades and am thrilled to receive this recognition, which I accept not only for myself but also on behalf of my many wonderful students and generous and supportive colleagues.

Image credit: Sharon Walker.

Saiful Bakhri is a conservator at the Bali Cultural Heritage Preservation Office and a cultural heritage conservation consultant who has led conservation projects focused on disaster preparedness and recovery.

While studying archaeology in Indonesia, Saiful observed that Indonesia had a lack of conservators despite an abundance of cultural artefacts. He came to Melbourne to study the Master of Cultural Materials Conservation in the hope that through his studies he would develop knowledge and skills which he could take back home.

While a student at the University of Melbourne, Saiful founded Konservaction, a student-led Indonesian/Australian working group focusing on the conservation of Indonesian heritage which provides an international platform for students to develop skills in project management, workshop delivery and cross-cultural learning. Konservaction's two grant-funded projects saw six University of Melbourne students implement conservation projects with Balinese collecting institutions.

Saiful's focus as an emerging conservation professional is on building cultural material conservation as a profession in Indonesia in order to advance heritage care in the region. Having graduated in 2018, Saiful is now actively engaged in providing cross-cultural exchange opportunities between University of Melbourne students and museums in Bali.

In his own words

I am very humbled to achieve the Faculty of Arts’ Rising Star Award for Young Alumni 2020. This award is not only a reminder for me not to limit myself, but also serves as a milestone for me to continue serving communities and conserving cultural heritage.

I enjoy working on archaeological and ethnographic objects most of all. These objects are quite challenging to work with because they are mostly made from a combination of various materials. Also, when they belong to the communities, they are usually sacred so the custodians will hold some obligatory rituals prior to the treatment. This certainly will affect the decision-making process in conservation.

I think conserving our culture essentially means conserving our diverse identities which eventually will lead to a more peaceful and respectful world. It may sound cliché, but a world without culture might be bland.

The artists and craftsmen in Bali never fail to inspire me. In Bali, there are still locals who use traditional methods to sculpt stones, bricks and timber in order to decorate temples, create beautiful statues and so on. I personally believe these people will be excellent collaborators for conservators.

I would like to present this award to the Grimwade Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation, particularly to Professor Robyn Sloggett for her subject, RESPECT, where she gave me invaluable insights and inspired me to work in unconventional ways. I would also like to thank Dr Marcelle Scott, a thoughtful mentor in two projects that my colleagues and I undertook in Indonesia during our studies, and last but not least, to Dr Nicole Tse, my supervisor, for the thoughts, inputs, and unwavering support during my studies.

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Christie Ding, originally from China, graduated with a Bachelor of Arts majoring in Media and Communications in 2012. After several years working in Melbourne’s media industry, she saw a gap in the market. With her experience and understanding of both Chinese and Australian cultures, she decided to establish her own multicultural brand experience agency, Brand Catalyser, which focuses on building connections between Australian businesses and Chinese markets.

Brand Catalyser was established in 2017 with just four staff. It now employs 15 people, has over 50 clients and in 2019 opened its Adelaide office. As Brand Catalyser grows, Christie also provides internship opportunities to Faculty of Arts students (most of them international students) through the Arts Internship Program, offering both personal guidance and hands-on practical experience in the industry. Some of these interns have gone on to transition to being part-time or full-time employees.

Brand Catalyser has been recognised by the Victorian Government as a service provider within the Asian Gateway Voucher program, which helps Victorian businesses to build their Asia capabilities and grow their market development capabilities.

In her own words

After working in the advertising and marketing field for many years, I have realised that as advertisers we actually have more power than we thought to influence and change the community. Hence, the work we do is extremely important and needs to be designed carefully to ensure we are making a positive impact on the community. With Australia being so close to Asia, it makes good business sense to offer Australian companies an end-to-end marketing service that is comprised of culturally-tailored communications that hit – rather than miss – the mark.

Brand Catalyser is my greatest achievement with over 15 employees and a portfolio of more than 50 clients including Go Healthy, Natio, Alibaba, Vic's Meat, Mirvac and Cherry Hill Orchards. I’m extremely proud of my team, who are making Brand Catalyser a better agency, and giving me the confidence to embrace any upcoming challenges. They are passionate about what they are doing, and always bring in new ideas and new concepts to achieve better results for our clients.

I feel honoured and grateful for such recognition of the work I have done so far. It inspires me to continue doing what I am doing, it gives me confirmation that if you are doing something wholeheartedly and are open to new things, you will be rewarded one day.

I would like to give my most sincere thanks to my business partner Hazel Hu, who has been my best friend, mentor and business partner who has helped build the team of Brand Catalyser from day one. I also want to thank my team, who has been doing an amazing job on a daily basis. And last, I want to thank my clients, who have been really supportive and open-minded in working with my team to overcome all challenges.

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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."