Three UON research leaders awarded prestigious fellowship

Wednesday, 7 October 2015

Three University of Newcastle (UON) research leaders are among the distinguished health and medical scientists elected as Fellows of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences (AAHMS).

Three UON research leaders awarded prestigious fellowship

Professor Julie Byles, Laureate Professor Paul Foster and Professor Christopher Levi join 74 new fellows, adding to the existing Fellowship of 131.

Professor Julie Byles is Director of the Research Centre for Gender, Health and Ageing, a Priority Research Centre at UON that includes the World Health Organisation Collaborating Centre for International Longitudinal Studies on Gender, Ageing and Health. She is the director of the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health at the University.

Laureate Professor Paul Foster is an international leader in respiratory disorders and the Director of the UON's Priority Research Centre for Asthma and Respiratory Disease, the Director of VIVA (Vaccines, Immunology, Viruses and Asthma) at the Hunter Medical Research Institute and is the University's Chair in Immunology.

Conjoint Professor Chris Levi is working on more than eight groundbreaking research projects improving stroke treatment options for patients including working with fellow UON researcher Professor Mark Parsons as the principal investigators on a global acute stroke trial.

Former UON Vice-Chancellor, Professor Emeritus Nicholas Saunders, was also honoured as one of 13 outstanding individuals who joined Sir Gustav Nossal with an honorary Fellowship.

New Fellows are drawn from all states and territories across Australia from all aspects of health and medical science across clinical practice and allied health care, and the fellowship acknowledges a significant contribution to academic medicine in Australian.

Academy President, Professor Ian Frazer, said the election of the new Fellows reflects the international standing of their contribution to health and medical science through research, leadership and service.

"Their future contribution to the field will contribute to ensuring that users of the healthcare system in Australia are offered the best quality of care using the latest in advances in health research," Professor Frazer said.

This election brings to six the number of UON academics that are Fellows of the Academy with Laureate Professor Nick Talley, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Global Research), a founding Fellow of AAHMS and is a member of the Academy's executive.

Earlier this year UON Vice-Chancellor, Professor Caroline McMillen, and Pro Vice-Chancellor Health and Medicine, Laureate Professor John Aitken, were made Fellows of the nation's newest learned Academy.

The Academy promotes the continued development of quality health care through research leadership, mentorship of future researchers, and provision of expert opinion to the public and government.


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