The Williamson Family Award and Rex Williamson Prize 2017-2019

The Williamson Family Award and Rex Williamson Prize The impact of your gift 2017 - 2019

1

Message from the Vice-Chancellor It is no secret that education has the power to change a life; throughout history, knowledge has been the engine that drives human development. It has the potential to be a virtuous cycle that continuously drives innovation, empowering a population and producing benefits into the future for the generations to come.

But it can also represent a vicious cycle of educational disadvantage where poor educational outcomes affect young people’s life-long employment prospects, health and social connectedness.

At Deakin, a commitment to breaking down the barriers of educational disadvantage has been central to our purpose since the beginning. We recognise that widening access to tertiary education is essential to generating economic growth as well as individual success.

A fundamental Deakin value is that financial disadvantage, geographical location or family situation should not be a barrier to the benefits of a university education.

Like many of my generation, I was the first in my family to go to university and know firsthand the opportunities that education brings. I am so very proud to be part of an inspiring Deakin community that values fairness and equal access to opportunities, dedication in the face of adversity, innovative thinking, and the ability to bring others along in pursuit of a remarkable tomorrow.

Scholarships can make a real difference to the lives of talented people, including Indigenous students, those from rural and regional areas and others for whom the cost of education presents an impossible barrier. As one of our scholarship holders said last year: “...it’s the first time anyone has believed in me...”

I take this opportunity to personally thank you for your commitment and leadership in supporting higher education and helping to create the leaders of tomorrow. Your support is enabling a talented young Australian to achieve their goal, and it’s an investment in Australia’s future.

“It is no secret that education has the power to change a life.”

We look forward to your continued partnership with us in 2019 and beyond.

Professor Jane den Hollander AO Vice-Chancellor

A life-changing gift

The Deakin community is grateful to the Williamson family for its ongoing commitment to education through the Williamson Family Award and the Rex Williamson Prize.

First offered in 2009, the highly-regarded Williamson Family Award is given by the School of Medicine to the top performing Year 1 and Year 2 student from the previous year.

The Rex Williamson Prize is awarded annually in honour of Dr Rex Williamson, a widely-respected teacher and researcher who first joined Deakin University (or the Gordon Institute of Technology, as it was known then) in 1949.

Established in 1984, the Rex Williamson Prize is awarded to the highest-achieving PhD student enrolled in the Faculty of Science, Engineering and Built Environment (SEBE) or the Institute of Frontier Materials whose research involves a significant component of Chemistry.

Thank you for joining us in our mission to transform today’s students into tomorrow’s leaders, innovators and professionals.

We look forward to continuing to honour the legacy of Dr Williamson through this inspiring gift.

During his 34-year career at Deakin University, Dr Williamson became a key figure in the establishment of Deakin’s Geelong Waurn Ponds campus, which accepted its first student in 1977, and an inspiring mentor to thousands of students until his retirement in 1983.

3

Supporting our future leaders in medicine Joanna Skommer

Jordan Walter

Joanna successfully completed her studies in 2018. Today, Joanna is enjoying a fulfilling career as a Medical Doctor at Bendigo Health.

My double degree is very intense and involved, which makes it challenging to work during the university year. As a result, I work full-time during the six-week summer break to be able to earn enough money to support myself throughout the year. This means I don’t get any time off. The Williamson Family Award, which I greatly appreciate, has provided welcome financial assistance and helped me get through the third and most challenging year of my medical degree.

Bachelor of Medicine/Bachelor of Surgery Geelong Waurn Ponds campus Williamson Family Award recipient 2017

Alasdair Vu

Bachelor of Medicine/Bachelor of Surgery Geelong Waurn Ponds campus Williamson Family Award recipient 2017 Alasdair continues to work hard and persevere during his studies and is expected to graduate at the end of 2019.

Bachelor of Medicine/Bachelor of Surgery Geelong Waurn Ponds campus Williamson Family Award recipient 2018

There are so many reasons I chose to study Medicine and Surgery – but as with most Doctors, the primary reason is the opportunity to help people at one of the lowest points of their lives.

Medicine allows me to challenge myself and grow. I also love the opportunities Medicine gives you to get to know people. I’m definitely a people person and I love getting to know my patients and their families.

At the moment, my immediate goal is to pass my upcoming and final year exams and to obtain a Medical Internship for 2020 (hopefully at Barwon Health). I haven’t decided what I will specialise in but hopefully that decision will become clear over the next few years of working as a Doctor.

I have lived in Geelong my whole life (and was actually born at Baxter House at the Geelong Hospital) and I can’t wait to be working there next year and to start giving back to a community that has given me so much.

I think it’s important to acknowledge that the biggest benefit of receiving this award is not the financial aspect, but more of a psychological one.

I found out about receiving this award at the end of a really challenging week, and it gave me such a massive mental and motivational boost.

Knowing that I had won this award was a real motivator. There are so many times when I doubt my own abilities and being able to look back at this achievement is a very real reminder that I can do this.

Additionally, being able to put such a prestigious award on my CV has a very big impact on my job prospects. Thank you for being so generous in funding this award because its impacts are great.

A big thank you for supporting this award. This degree is hard work, and it means so much to have my achievements recognised. Thanks for supporting the next generation of Doctors.

Jordan pictured left.

Daniel Henry

Doctor of Medicine Geelong Waurn Ponds campus Williamson Family Award 2018 & 2019 This award was quite the honour and not something that I had ever expected I would receive. The money from the award was very helpful for me as I have a young family, so this extra bit of money allowed me to get a laptop and some equipment for my studies.

Prior to studying medicine, I worked as a Geologist in several areas in remote Australia. From this work, I was able to see how these areas were isolated from health services. I hope that by studying medicine, I am able to give back to these areas of Australia which are so isolated from healthcare services.

“I hope that by studying medicine, I am able to give back to these areas of Australia which are so isolated from healthcare services.“

I’m still amazed at how broad a career in medicine can be so at this stage I’m just enjoying learning about the human body, disease processes, and the human condition.

Last year I was the Treasurer of the Nursing, Occupational Health, Medicine and Allied Health (NOMAD), Deakin’s Rural Health club. This was a great experience and we were able to run a lot of events to promote rural health pathways for health students across Deakin.

Thank you for supporting this award, it wasn’t something I was expecting but it was nice to be recognised for the hard work I had put in during the year.

5

Yvette Gasser

Doctor of Medicine, Geelong Waurn Ponds campus Williamson Family Award 2019 After receiving the Williamson Family Award, I purchased a ticket to attend the International Student’s Surgical Conference, which is to be held in Melbourne this year. I have a keen interest in anatomy and, for this reason, I am interested in pursuing some kind of surgical specialty in the future. Attending this conference will enable me to interact with medical students who share my enthusiasm for anatomy and surgery and provide me with the opportunity to attend various surgical skills workshops. Engaging with surgeons will also help me to gain into this career path.

In addition to this, next year I will be moving out of my family home in Werribee, so that I can live close to University Hospital Geelong, where I will be completing the clinical years of my degree. This scholarship will assist with the costs associated with my relocation to Geelong.

First and foremost, I found a career in medicine to be enticing as I feel that helping individuals to manage and improve their health is an immense and unique privilege, providing clinicians with the opportunity to directly make a positive contribution to their patients’ lives.

In addition, while it is sometimes daunting to reflect upon the fact that one can never know all there is to know in medicine, I thoroughly enjoy learning and challenging myself and, as such, found the promise of continual learning in a medical profession extremely appealing. Likewise, I greatly value the opportunities for and importance of collaboration between medical professionals in providing optimal patient care.

I am very excited to immerse myself in the clinical environment next year, when I do commence the clinical years of my training, and learn about all of the opportunities that do exist. Regardless of the specific career path that I do pursue, I am hoping to participate in medical education in the future, as one of the aspects of medicine that I enjoy the most is the inter-generational mentoring and the bidirectional exchange of knowledge that can take place in such interactions.

I was recently very excited to learn that I will be participating in a five-day inter-professional learning placement in the Northern Territory in September with thirteen other second year medical students.

I would like to express my sincerest gratitude to the Williamson family for this award and, more generally, for helping to support the education of Deakin medical students.

7

Niki Burns

Doctor of Philosophy Geelong Waurn Ponds campus Rex Williamson Prize recipient 2017 Niki successfully completed her PhD in Analytical Chemistry in 2017. Today, Nicki has co-authored a number of medical journal articles and works at Deakin University’s Centre for Biotechnology, Chemistry and Systems Biology.

Daniel Eyckens

Doctor of Philosophy Geelong Waurn Ponds campus Rex Williamson Prize recipient 2018 The Rex Williamson Prize greatly assisted me in the cost of living and the purchase of a new laptop which I used to write my thesis.

Further, the prize is a great addition to my CV and will hopefully help me to acquire future employment.

Prior to my graduation, I had already commenced work as a PostDoctoral Researcher at Deakin University. There is a direct link from my PhD studies to my new position, as I am still working in synthetic and materials chemistry.

The field of Chemistry is fundamentally at the heart of almost everything that we interact with on a daily basis. It is incredibly important to all areas of life, and research in this area has the ability to enhance everything from clean drinking water to human life expectancy and technological advances.

When I received the prize, it was my final year of my PhD and the next steps were to gain full-time employment, which I was fortunate enough to achieve shortly after submission of my thesis.

Since receiving the Rex Williamson Prize, I have completed my PhD and graduated in February 2019. My PhD, which was synthetic organic chemistry-based, had successful results and was accepted by 10 peer-reviewed journals.

In addition to many thanks, I wish to assure the Williamson family that receiving this prize greatly assisted me in completing the final year of my PhD and thesis. This is both on a financial and emotional level. Writing a thesis is extremely difficult and both emotionally and mentally draining.

Receiving a prize like this was a positive influence on my studies and the boost I needed to continue and complete what I consider to be one of the most difficult parts of a PhD.

“Receiving a prize like this was a positive influence on my studies and the boost I needed.”

Lachlan Soulsby

Doctor of Philosophy Geelong Waurn Ponds campus Rex Williamson Prize recipient 2019 The Rex Williamson Prize has made life easier by providing financial assistance for every day expenses such as food, warmer clothes for winter, fuel for travel (especially to university), assistance for car maintenance costs and also exercise equipment.

For all of these reasons, the prize has greatly helped make studying easier.

I am passionate about Chemistry as I feel it is the perfect mix of theoretical and practical learning. It allows you to learn about how particular mechanisms and phenomenons work, as well as being able to do practical work like make up solutions and operate different instruments and machines.

My long-term plans are to start my career in either academia as a Post-Doctoral Researcher or a position in industry. I have yet to decide which of these directions I will take but as I get closer to finishing my PhD, I will learn more about my preferences. In the next six months, I also hope to take a brief break before moving into a full-time role and continue doing practical demonstrations at university.

I would like to say thank you very much to the Williamson family.

Having the previous prize recipients’ Honour Board near my office and seeing the name of my current supervisor, Professor Paul Francis, on the board, as well as other people I know such as Dr Zoe Smith, made me aspire to achieve what they did. It instills me with confidence to know I can follow in their footsteps and have a successful academic career.

Being awarded the Rex Williamson Prize for 2019 has given me the confidence that I can achieve all that I aim to if I put my mind toward it. It also acts as a great enhancer at being able to promote myself to potential future employers and colleagues.

9

Deakin at a glance OUR RANKINGS

FOR EVERY 100 DOMESTIC STUDENTS

Among the Top 1% of universities worldwide* Ranked in the Top 50 young universities in the world** #1 in Victoria for skills development^

there are...

14,951

11,887

2 3 8 13 17 22 61 78

495

244

STUDENT SATISFACTION

OUR FACULTIES

61,693 Course enrolments

17,068

16,607

Business & Law

Arts & Education

Science, Engineering & Built Environment

Health

Cross Institution

who are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders from a non-English speaking background who have some level of disability from low socio-economic areas who were born overseas from a regional or remote location females who live in a major city

Non-Award

#1 in Victoria for student satisfaction for nine consecutive years (QILT) #1 in Victoria for graduate employment outcomes (Graduate Outcomes Survey)

OUR CAMPUSES

#1 in Australia for Deakin’s Careers service (Australian Association of Graduate Employers)

OUR STUDENTS

by student numbers...

32,141

15,528

8,181

5,243

Melbourne Burwood

Geelong Waurn Ponds

Cloud (Online)

Geelong Waterfront

600

Warrnambool *

ShanghaiRankings Academic Ranking of World Universities 2018 QS and Times Higher Education Young University Rankings 2018

**

15,986

14,691

Postgraduate students

International students

1,907

747

Higher Degree by Research students ^2018 Student Experience Survey

Non-award course enrolments

Transforming lives through philanthropy Thank you for your continued support of Deakin students through the Williamson Family Award and the Rex Williamson Prize.

Deakin’s Advancement team is delighted to share with you our dedicated news source for the valued members of our Philanthropic Family, dKin DIFFERENCE. This e-newsletter is our way of recognising your commitment to Deakin and sharing stories that represent the remarkable ways that gifts like yours are making a difference. https://blogs.deakin.edu.au/dkin-difference For further information or to register to receive a copy of dKin DIFFERENCE, please contact:

Adriana Sobolewski Philanthropic Relations Coordinator Donor Relations, Deakin Advancement a.sobolewski@deakin.edu.au 03 52227 8391 0418 882 193 Emily Laurie Scholarship Program Officer Donor Relations, Deakin Advancement emily.laurie@deakin.edu.au 03 9244 5303 0419 822 775

11

deakin.edu.au Deakin University CRICOS Provider Code: 00113B

Deakin Advancement Greenwood Park Building 1 Level 2, GB3 301 Burwood Highway Burwood VIC 3125 Phone: +61 3 9244 5150 Email: advancement@deakin.edu.au