Royal Society of NSW News & Events

Most face-to-face events and all online events conducted by the Royal Society of New South Wales are recorded and made available for subsequent viewing on our YouTube channel: youtube.com/royalsocnsw. The past five weeks have been very active for the Society's Program Committee, with five events posted to YouTube. The 30th October 2023 featured a j...

In November 2023, the Society was delighted to learn that the distinguished artist and Society Fellow, Ben Quilty FRSN FAHA, had been inducted as an Honorary Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. Ben Quilty, who lives and works in Gundungurra Country, south of Sydney, is widely known for his thick, gestural oil paintings. As...

The Society was delighted to learn that Society Fellow, Professor Catherine Coleborne FRSN FASSA FAHA, Professor of History and Director, Research Ethics and Integrity at the University of Newcastle, had been inducted as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities during November 2023. Professor Coleborne has received international recogni...

The Royal Society of New South Wales has long recognised distinguished achievements in various fields of knowledge through its Awards. Some are amongst the oldest in Australia while others are more recent. In this year, 2023, the Society has broadened and streamlined its Awards portfolio to recognise recent and evolving fields and disciplines, and ...

Recently the Society learned of an Honorary Doctorate being awarded to our Vice-President, Emeritus Professor Peter Shergold AC FRSN, by Western Sydney University at its recent October 2023 graduations. The RSNSW Council was also delighted to belatedly learn of the same honour, an Honorary Doctor of Letters, being awarded to another of our Fellows ...

Paul Jeans FRSN was farewelled in style by town and gown at the “Celebration and Thank You to Our Chancellor” dinner in the Great Hall of the University of Newcastle on 24 November. Serving as Chancellor for the past ten years, Paul will be retiring from his role at the end of 2023. The speakers paying tribute to Paul were as one in saying what a p...

The Royal Society of NSW was delighted to learn that two of its Fellows were named as recipients of the 2023 NSW Premier's Prizes for Science and Engineering, announced at a ceremony held at Government House, Sydney on the evening of Wednesday, 15 November. Emeritus Professor Trevor McDougall AC FRS FRSN FAA of UNSW Sydney was named the 2023 NSW Sc...

The Society was delighted to learn that Society Fellow, Professor Muireann Irish FRSN FASSA, an ARC Future Fellow and Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience one the School of Psychology and the Brain and Mind Centre of the University of Sydney, has been inducted as a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia in November 2023. The Academy c...

The Council of the Society was delighted to learn that Fellow and former Society President, Emeritus Professor Brynn Hibbert AM FRSN of the School of Chemistry at UNSW Sydney has been awarded the 2023 Royal Australian Chemical Institute Leighton Memorial Medal, which recognises eminent services to chemistry in Australia. Brynn is a retired ana...

Society Fellow and Vice-President,  Professor Peter Shergold AC FRSN FASSA, has been awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters by Western Sydney University (WSU). Professor Shergold, who is the Emeritus Chancellor of WSU, was recognised for his outstanding contributions to Australian public life and education during a recent WSU graduation...

The Council of the Society was delighted to learn that Fellow, Professor Sami Kara FRSN, of the UNSW School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, was recently elected as a Fellow of the German National Academy of Science and Engineering (ACATECH) for his lifelong contributions to sustainable manufacturing—with reference to the fields of ener...

At a ceremony at Buckingham Palace on 12 October 2023, His Majesty King Charles III presented the 2022 and 2023 Queen Elizabeth Prizes for Engineering. These prizes, inaugurated in 2011, recognise engineers responsible for groundbreaking innovations that have been of global benefit to humanity. The 2023 QE Prize for Engineering was awarded to an Au...

At a presentation dinner held on the evening of 16 October 2023 at Parliament House Canberra, Distinguished Fellow, Scientia Professor Michelle Simmons AO FRS DistFRSN FAA FTSE FAAAS of UNSW Sydney was announced as the winner of the 2023 Prime Minister’s Prize for Science. This award recognises the work of Professor Simmons in creating the new fiel...

The Society was delighted to learn that Society Fellow, Professor Rebecca Ivers FRSN FAHMS, Scientia Professor of Public Health and Head of the School of Population Health at UNSW Sydney, was inducted as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences (AAHMS) on 12 October 2023. The AAHMS citation reads as follows: Professor Rebec...

The Royal Society of New South Wales was delighted to learn of the awarding of the Mitchell Prize by the International Society for Bayesian Analysis to one of its Fellows, Distinguished Professor Noel Cressie FRSN FAA, from the University of Wollongong (UoW). The prize, awarded in August 2023 at the Joint Statistical Meetings in Toronto, Canad...

The Society was delighted to learn that Distinguished Fellow, Professor Brian Schmidt AC FRS DistFRSN FAA FTSE, Vice-Chancellor of the Australian National University was inducted as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE) on 11 October 2023. The ATSE citation reads as follows: Vice Chancellor Professor Br...

Most face-to-face events and all online events conducted by the Royal Society of New South Wales are recorded and made available for subsequent viewing on our YouTube channel: youtube.com/royalsocnsw. On the evening of Wednesday, 4 October 2023, an audience of approximately fifty people at the State Gallery of NSW enjoyed a highly topical and thoug...

Scientia Professor Michelle Simmons AO FRS DistFRSN FAA FTSE of UNSW Sydney, a pioneer in atomic electronics and a global leader in quantum computing, has been named the ABC’s Boyer Lecturer for 2023. This year’s series of four Boyer Lectures is titled ‘The Atomic Revolution’ and will cover manufacturing at the atomic scale, why Australia is perfec...

Through its then President, the Royal Society of New South Wales signed the Uluru Statement of the Heart declaration in January 2018. The Society’s Statement of Support, which has been on our website since 2018, included the following paragraph: Our mandate, as the Royal Society of New South Wales, Australia's oldest peak scholarly body, is th...

The Royal Society of NSW warmly welcomes 32 new members to the Society's ranks, effective from 6 September 2023. FellowsProfessor Alaina AmmitProfessor Vicki BitsikaAssociate Professor Amy CainProfessor Ben ColagiuriProfessor Andrew CondonEmeritus Professor Rosalind CroucherProfessor Catherine GreenhillProfessor Steven LangfordAdjunct Professor Kim...