Research Impact Award Finalists
Awarded to individuals or teams who have provided outstanding supervision to Higher Degree by Research candidate.
Daughters and Dads Active and Empowered Team
Professor Philip Morgan, Dr Lee Ashton, Dan Lee, Associate Professor Narelle Eather, Dr Myles Young, Kirsten Smith
‘Daughters and Dads Active and Empowered’ is an evidence-based program that engages fathers and father-figures with their primary school-aged daughters to enhance physical activity, sport skills, wellbeing, gender equity and the father-daughter bond. Innovative, collaborative partnerships with government, industry, schools, councils and peak sporting bodies have seen the program scaled across Australia and internationally. More than 6,200 participants have benefited, leading to prestigious accolades for research excellence and impact, including commendation by the World Health Organisation.
SWAP IT: Enhancing Children's Dietary Intake One Lunchbox at a Time
Associate Professor Rachel Sutherland, Associate Professor Nicole Nathan, Professor Luke Wolfenden, Professor John Wiggers, Dr Jannah Jones, Dr Anna Rayward, Dr Alison Brown, Dr Courtney Barnes
Australian children consume over three servings of discretionary foods from their lunchboxes daily, driving poor dietary habits and chronic disease risk. SWAP-IT, an innovative digital school lunchbox program, has been co-designed, piloted, and scaled to 1,200+ schools nationally, improving over a million meals weekly. Multiple research trials demonstrate SWAP-IT enhances children’s nutrition, is cost-effective, and well-received by parents and schools. SWAP-IT is now embedded in health policy and recognised by WHO as an exemplar nutrition program. We would like to acknowledge and thank a range of external collaborators and partners that are integral to implementation and scale up research and research impact. Our collaborators and partners include HNE Local Health District, NSW local Health Districts (Health Promotion Units), Government and Non Government Prevention agencies (Cancer Council Victoria, Health and Wellbeing Qld, Preventive Health SA, Tasmanian Department of Health, WA Department of Health, NSW Ministry of Health and NSW Department of Education), Aboriginal and Multicultural health and Industry Partner Audiri.
Teachers and Teaching Research Centre
Laureate Professor Jennifer Gore, Dr Drew Miller, Steve Hannan, Tom Carey, Wendy Taggart, Dr Leanne Fray, Dr Sally Patfield
An unparalleled program of research involving 1,400 teachers and 14,500 students from 430 schools in three states has demonstrated the profound impact of the Quality Teaching Rounds professional development program on teaching quality, teacher morale, and student academic achievement. The 2020 launch of the non-profit QT Academy social enterprise provides a sustainable model for delivering impact at scale, engaging more than 7,500 teachers from seven countries and benefiting more than one million school students.
The University of Newcastle acknowledges the traditional custodians of the lands within our footprint areas: Awabakal, Darkinjung, Biripai, Worimi, Wonnarua, and Eora Nations. We also pay respect to the wisdom of our Elders past and present.