Dear staff,
Happy New Year! I hope you had an enjoyable and relaxing break over the festive season and feel refreshed and ready for the start of a new year.
QTAC offers
Yesterday, over 4,700 prospective students received offers to study with us in Semester 1, adding to the 4,716 made in the December round.
QTAC delayed yesterday’s offer round from last Thursday, and I would like to take the opportunity to sincerely thank our PBI, Admissions, Future Students, ITS, and Marketing and Communication teams who worked tirelessly to manage the impact of this delay. Top-up rounds will continue over the coming weeks, as we look forward to welcoming our new cohort of students next month.
UQ Dutton Park
With the start of the new year, I am delighted to say that the UQ School of Pharmacy site (PACE building) adjoining the Princess Alexandra Hospital has now officially become the University’s fourth campus, to be known as UQ Dutton Park.
In addition to Pharmacy, the site currently houses the Queensland Alliance for Environmental Health Sciences and UQ Healthcare’s Cornwall Street clinic.
The campus is in close proximity to the Translational Research Institute (TRI) which is home to UQ’s Frazer Institute, the Mater Research Institute-UQ, and other biotech facilities within the Queensland Government’s Boggo Road Cross River Rail Priority Development Area.
UQ researchers secure $43m in NHMRC grants
Just prior to Christmas, we received the wonderful news that 37 UQ research projects secured more than $43 million through the National Health and Medical Research Council’s (NHMRC) Ideas, Investigator, Development, and International Collaboration grant schemes. Congratulations to the researchers for their success through these very competitive schemes.
Recent UQ award winners
A number of UQ staff and students received prestigious awards over the summer period.
In early December, 6 UQ students were selected as New Colombo Plan Scholars for 2024, including 2 who received the prestigious title of ‘Fellow’. Congratulations to Liam Lyttle, Samantha Dash, Milind Bordia, Kimberely Climo, Harold Shaw and Angus Watson. These students will gain very valuable global experiences this year in Singapore, Hong Kong, New Caledonia and Fiji, as part of the Federal Government’s flagship initiative to boost ties across the Indo-Pacific region.
Also in early December, Associate Professor Artem Pulemotov, from UQ’s School of Mathematics and Physics, was awarded the Australian Mathematical Society’s (AustMS) 2023 Teaching Excellence Award. The awards were announced during the AustMS Annual Meeting, which was hosted at our St Lucia campus. Additionally, 2 UQ students – Tara Kemp and Rhuaidi Bourke – received the awards for the best student presentations at the conference.
And congratulations to Dr Elvis Okoffo, from the Queensland Alliance for Environmental Health Sciences (QAEHS), who was recently awarded the Max Day Environmental Science Followship Award by the Australian Academy of Science for his work researching the extent of microplastic pollution in Moreton Bay. Dr Jiaying Li, also from QAEHS, was highly commended for her project on combating the threat of antimicrobial resistance in urban water systems.
Learning and Student Experience Roadmap
A draft version of our Learning and Student Experience Roadmap – outlining UQ’s strategic priorities for teaching and learning, and student support, experiences and engagement through to 2032 – has been released for consultation. We are inviting all staff to provide feedback on the draft Roadmap via a short survey, which will remain open until Thursday 25 January. This consultation process is designed to ensure the final Roadmap reflects the priorities of the whole UQ community.
UQ lake reopens at St Lucia
I’m delighted to report that the lake at St Lucia has now reopened and is available for the UQ community to enjoy. With the first stage of the UQ lake and amphitheatre renewal project complete, there is now just a small section of the amphitheatre that will remain closed until the middle of this year as work continues on the construction of a pavilion for outdoor events and performances.
My sincere thanks to the P&F team and the Fauna Repopulation Control Group for the great work they have done to restore this iconic area of our St Lucia campus.
I hope you have a great week.
With best wishes
Debbie
