The James Cook Medal
The James Cook Medal is awarded periodically by the Royal Society of New South Wales for outstanding contributions to science and human welfare in and for the Southern Hemisphere.
Nominations for the award close on 30 September of each year. A letter of nomination and the nominee's full curriculum vitae should be sent to the This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
The medal is presented at the Society's Annual Dinner.
The James Cook Medal was established in 1947 with funding by Henry Ferdinand Halloran. Halloran, who joined the Society in 1892 as a 23-year-old, was a surveyor, engineer and town planner. He did not publish in the Society's Journal but he was a very enthusiastic supporter of research. Henry Halloran funded what were to become the Society's two most prestigious awards, the James Cook Medal and the Edgeworth David Medal, the latter being an award for promising young scientists.
James Cook Medal 2020
The winner of the James Cook Medal for 2020 is Scientia Professor Richard Bryant AC FASSA FAA FAHMS of UNSW (Sydney). Professor Bryant has made many seminal advances in the diagnosis, treatment, and identification of neural, genetic, and cognitive markers of post-traumatic psychopathology. His work has challenged the pre-existing notions of acute psychological response to trauma leading to major policy and practice shifts internationally in relation to how trauma survivors are managed. Professor Bryant has translated his findings into improving the mental health of communities throughout the Southern Hemisphere (as well as many trauma-affected countries in the northern hemisphere).
James Cook Medal 2019
The winner of the James Cook Medal for 2019 is Scientia Professor Matthew England FRSN FAA of the UNSW Climate Change Research Centre. Professor England is recognised as one of the world’s foremost experts in how the world’s oceans control regional and global climate on time scales from seasons to millennia. His field of research spans physical oceanography and climate dynamics, where he has written seminal papers on Southern Ocean water-mass formation, Antarctic ocean-atmosphere-ice interactions, climate modes of variability, and ocean ventilation processes. Importantly, in the context of the James Cook Medal, England has a sustained track record of outstanding research and discovery in areas that make an impact on human welfare, both here in Australia and across other regions of the Southern Hemisphere, including improved predictions of rainfall and climate variability, discoveries of the oceanic drivers of severe drought and flooding rains, and quantification of the impacts of climate change and the fate of ocean pollution.
James Cook Medal 2018
The winner of the James Cook Medal for 2018 is Professor Elizabeth Elliott AM FAHMS. She is Professor at the University of Sydney Clinical School and a practising paediatrician. This prize recognises Professor Elliott’s significant contributions to improving the health and quality of life, as well as human rights, of ill and disadvantaged children in Australia, the Asia Pacific and beyond. Her translational research has been at the forefront of advances in evidence-based paediatrics, rare diseases, gastroenterology and foetal alcohol spectrum disorder.
List of Past Recipients of the James Cook Medal
| Year | Recipient |
| 1947 | The Rt. Hon. J.C. Smuts |
| 1948 | B.A. Houssay |
| 1950 | Sir Neil H. Fairley |
| 1951 | Sir Norman McAlister Gregg |
| 1952 | W.L. Waterhouse |
| 1953 | Sir David Rivett |
| 1954 | Sir Frank M. Burnet |
| 1955 | A.P. Elkin |
| 1956 | Sir Ian Clunies Ross |
| 1959 | Albert Schweitzer |
| 1961 | Sir John Eccles |
| 1964 | M.R. Lemberg |
| 1965 | John Gunther |
| 1966 | Sir William Hudson |
| 1969 | Lord Casey of Berwick |
| 1974 | Sir Marcus L. Oliphant |
| 1975 | A. Walsh |
| 1977 | I.A. Watson |
| 1978 | Sir Lawrence J. Wackett |
| 1979 | Robert J. Walsh |
| 1984 | Ronald Lawrie Huckstep |
| 1985 | Donald Metcalf |
| 1987 | Phillip Garth Law |
| 1991 | Graeme Milbourne Clark |
| 1994 | Sir Gustav Nossal |
| 2013 | Brien Holden |
| 2014 | Martin Green |
| 2016 | David Cooper |
| 2017 | Gordon Parker |
| 2018 | Elizabeth Elliott |
| 2019 | Matthew England |
| 2020 | Richard Bryant |
A brief citation and photograph for each recipient is available here.
