ASM recognises established and emerging leaders in Australian microbiology
In 2025, the ASM is proud to announce it has conferred 34 awards to members of our society from a range of microbiology subdisciplines and career stages to recognise their efforts and contributions to the field. Recipients will receive their award at the ASM national meeting, which will be held in South Australia from 14-17 July 2025 at the Adelaide Convention Centre. A summary of the awards and their 2025 recipients can be found below. Further information on the awards ASM offers each year can be found here: https://www.theasm.org.au/member-awards
Jim Pittard and Frank Fenner awards:
Named after distinguished Australian microbiologists, the Jim Pittard and Frank Fenner awards recognise contributions of Australian research scientists who have made important contributions to microbiology at early stages (Jim Pittard) or formative stages (Frank Fenner) of their career. In 2025, the Jim Pittard award winners were Heema Vyas (University of Adelaide), Rhys Parry (University of Queensland) and Zahra Islam (University of Melbourne). Frank Fenner awardees included Danielle Ingle (University of Melbourne), Kelly Wyres (Monash University), Sacha Pidot (University of Melbourne) and Yue Qu (Monash University). Recipients (pictured below) will deliver plenary presentations at the national meeting.
ASM 2025 Jim Pittard award recipients (left to right): Heema Vyas, Rhys Parry and Zahra Islam
ASM 2025 Frank Fenner award recipients (left to right): Danielle Ingle, Kelly Wyres, Sacha Pidot and Yue Qu
Teaching awards:
In addition to recognising contributions to research, the ASM also recognises important leaders in the microbiology education space, who shape the next generation of Australian microbiologists. The David White and Cheryl Power awards recognise excellence and/or innovation in microbiology teaching in Australia by established (David White) or early career (Cheryl Power) educators. This years’ recipients of the David White and Cheryl Power awards were Senaka Ranadheera (University of Melbourne) and Rina Wong (Edith Cowan University), respectively. The ASM also offers a Teachers Travel award to support microbiology educators to attend both the national meeting as well as the national microbiology educators conference (EduCon). This year, the ASM awarded this honour to three recipients; Katelyn Mroczek (La Trobe University), Sophie Paquet-Fifield (University of Melbourne) and Yu May Soh (University of Melbourne).
Communications:
This year, the ASM announced a new award to recognise an Australian microbiologist making important strides in science communication and engagement. The inaugural recipient of this award was Gal Winter (University of New England).
Distinguished service awards:
The ASM relies on its members to volunteer their time to keep the society running so we can continue to provide exciting benefits and opportunities to our membership. To recognise those individuals who have made substantial contributions to the society over a sustained period, the ASM provides Distinguished Service Awards. Nominated by their peers, the ASM wishes to congratulate this years’ Distinguished service award recipients including Belinda McEwan (Royal Hobart Hospital), Catherine Satzke (Murdoch Children’s Research Institute), Ipek Kurtböke (University of Sunshine Coast), Jai Tree (University of New South Wales), Jim Manos (University of Sydney), Steve Petrovski (La Trobe University) and Tania Veltman (University of Adelaide).
Awards supporting students and Early Career Researchers:
Another new award this year was the Student/ECR international travel award to support an ASM member to support conference attendance and a lab visit overseas. Four recipients were awarded; Andrey Verich (The Kirby Institute), Kraiwut Jansriphibul (RMIT), Brianna Atto (University of Tasmania) and Jilong Qin (Queensland University of Technology).
In addition, each state runs a competition to send the best student and ECR from each state to present their research at the national meeting. This year, the Nancy Millis (student) award recipients were Ashleigh Kropp (Monash University, VIC), Jarrad Pritchard (University of Wollongong, NSW/ACT), Lachlan Walker (University of Queensland, QLD), Yu Wang (University of South Australia, SA/NT) and Ashley Johnson (University of Western Australia, WA). ECR award recipients were Chris Connor (University of Melbourne, VIC), Hannah Brown (University of Technology Sydney, NSW/ACT), Johanna Richter (University of Queensland, QLD), Benjamin Liffner (University of Adelaide, SA/NT) and August Mikucki (The Kids Research Institute).