Lucy Leigh rewarded for her academic success

PhD student Lucy Leigh has been awarded the 2012 Vice Chancellor’s Award for Outstanding Research Candidates based on her academic success in statistics.

She was up against all domestic students who commenced their research higher degrees this year and it was a combination of her GPA, publication history and research work experience that set her out as a winner.

Lucy completed a Bachelor of Medical Radiation Science before graduating with a Bachelor of Maths. She then spent two years working full time at the Research Centre for Gender Health and Ageing and contributed to a number of papers and reports before commencing her PhD with the School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences in February this year.

Her impressive portfolio includes working as a contributing author for one paper that was accepted to the Journal of Women and Ageing, as well as contributing to annual reports for the Australian Longitudinal Study of Women’s Health. Recently, Lucy also presented at the 2012 Statistical Conference in Adelaide in collaboration with her supervisor, Irene Hudson and two other researchers.

Lucy said that it was her practical work experience and under graduate degree that gave her a good foundation to commence her higher research degree, but she was still shocked to receive the award.

“When I decided to apply for my PhD, to be honest I wasn’t even sure I’d qualify given I didn’t complete honours, so you can imagine my surprise at winning this award. It just goes to show that it doesn’t matter if you pick the wrong degree first or decide to take a break, because you can still get there in the end,” she said.

Lucy said that her plans for the future are to concentrate on finishing her PhD and she aims to base her main analysis on data from the Australian Longitudinal Study of Women’s Health.

For more information on research higher degrees, visit http://www.newcastle.edu.au/students/research-higher-degree/future-students/