Alumni in focus

Alumni from the University of South Australia are achieving great success in a range of areas and it is rewarding to hear their stories. Share some of these experiences through their profiles below or tell us if you have a success story that you would like to share.

2018 - 2019

UniSA Clinical & Health Sciences

• Associate Professor Paul Anderson, Head of Musculoskeletal Biology Research Laboratory
• Guor Michar, Pharmacist, Friendlies Pharmacy and Co-Founder, Athiolget Women’s & Children’s Health Association
• Dr Michelle Perugini, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Life Whisperer and Co-Founder of Presagen
• Dr Hayley Schultz, PhD Candidate, UniSA and CBNS
• Dr Ivana Stankov, Senior Research Scientist, Urban Health Collaborative, Drexel University (USA)

UniSA Allied Health & Human Performance

• Suzanne Caragianis, Managing Director, SA Hand Therapy and Certified Hand Therapist, Full Member AHTA
• Dr James Charles, Associate Professor of Indigenous Teaching & Learning, Deakin University
• Lyndon Huf, Chief Executive & Founder, Prohab
• Dalene Wray, Managing Director at OBE Organic Australia
• Tessa Henwood-Mitchell, International Director TIA

Dr Leo Yeung has followed his heart, chased his family’s dreams and cleverly cross-stitched his fashion, business and property industry experience to carve out a niche property company Maisson Commercial Property and fashion brand Cashmere Song all over the world.

Dr Yeung started his career in the fashion industry in the late 1980s, working in far flung cities across Asia, North America and Europe. In 1989 he settled in Hong Kong as Design Manager for Esprit Asia.

“As a student in Hong Kong in the early 80s there were few opportunities for students to get a university degree, but higher education had long been a dream for me” says Dr Yeung.

When Esprit Asia publicly-listed in 1991, Leo found an opportunity to further his education. He quit and enrolled in a Master’s degree at Hong Kong Polytechnic University to explore the research topic ‘Push and pull factor in China Economic’ after Deng Xiao Ping’s South China tour.

His interest in furthering his education didn’t end however, he says, “I saw an interview with a PhD candidate who had just graduated at the age of 80 – he regretted not finishing his PhD 20 or 30 years before so he had more time to contribute to society. His interview drove me to undertake my PhD at UniSA in International Business.”

In the mid-90s, while studying, Dr Yeung was then invited to start up the Australian brand Jeanswest in China. He served as Director and General Manager for Jeanswest China from 1994, guiding the development of 1000 stores before the company publicly listed in 1996.

In the new millennium a serendipitous opportunity arose, leading to a career shift from fashion to commercial property.

“A renowned real estate company had invited our fashion brand to open a flagship store in one of their new shopping malls. I found the mall location good but the wrong trade mix,” Dr Yeung says.

“I suggested brands for the real estate company and the shopping mall opened successfully. Then the CEO of the real estate company asked me to join them as the China Commercial Property Retail Head.”

After a number of years leading teams in commercial property for different companies Dr Yeung started his own company – Maisson Commercial Property – an asset management company for commercial property development.

Dr Yeung says that different businesses have their challenges. He sees fashion and design as a merging of art and science.

“Property on the other hand is a complicated business,” he says. “Once we design and build a shopping mall there are thousands of workers in the mall at different periods of time." Regulations on construction, fire safety, legal… Each day presents a new challenge – which I enjoy.

“Currently I am working on a theme park project based on designs that were originally made by a famous Chinese Kung Fu internet game, which I hope will help more kids feel happy in the environment.”

In his spare time he is also supporting his wife’s dream to lead her own high end fashion design business – Cashmere Song - which he co-manages.

Dr Yeung’s wife Song Hong had harboured a dream to run her own fashion label since graduating from the Inner Mongolia Design School in 1992. When she decided it was time to pursue her dream she enlisted her husband’s support.

“We travelled to her home town to talk with the shepherds in the grasslands of Mongolia,” he says. “The local people like a drink and they are hospitable and willing to share their experiences."

“We started to talk with people about their changes in living and the culture due to development in Mongolia. They enjoyed their life in grasslands where they have their own culture, generation to generation. City development has changed their living and their culture as well.

“One night, I walked with my wife under the moon, the grassland was so silent, and we came up with an idea to develop a fashion brand by using the cashmere that the shepherds crafted.

“I put the Cashmere and her surname Song together as her namesake. We knew the brand should have Mongolian culture, using local materials but with international designs. And that’s how the brand Cashmere Song started.”

Originally the couple planned to open a small shop but this plan quickly changed from retail to wholesale to further sales that in turn help many in the Mongolian shepherd business. It now sells through showrooms in China, Hong Kong, New York and London.

When asked if he has plans to extend sales in Australia he says, “It is a great idea to have a wholesale showroom in Australia due to the different season in the southern hemisphere.”

“The brand has limitations to sell cashmere in winter – but our buyers expect summer lines, so together we have developed new technologies by mixing silk and cashmere for Spring/Summer, and mixing cashmere with leather or fake fur for Fall/Winter.”

With the high quality of the Inner Mongolia cashmere and Song Hong’s design skills, the brand has won multiple awards and is now featured in more than 500 shops in Hong Kong, the United Kingdom, the United States & China.

Dr Yeung’s business and family interests bring him great joy, which he hopes to share with others.

“Happiness is all we need, I hope my skills through our endeavours brings more happiness to the people who enjoy them,” he says.

To learn more about Dr Yeung’s businesses, visit Maisson (Hong Kong) Commercial Property and Cashmere Song.

Communications graduate Ayesha Aggarwal’s creativity is instinctual. She moves easily from one creative outlet to another. At the Wakefield Press she works as a marketing guru, creating interest for the latest manuscripts to hit the shelves. In her spare time she crafts unique, handmade one-of-a-kind ceramics.

“I started work at the Wakefield Press the very same day I went to my first pottery class, so there’s a nice symmetry to my two careers,” she says.

“I love that I still get to do creative work in my day job but it uses a completely different part of my brain – having that balance is really fulfilling.”

Toward the end of her studies at UniSA, Ayesha yearned for a creative outlet. Years were spent experimenting with different techniques.

“I’ve always dreamt of a creative career,” she says. “Before I found ceramics I couldn’t fathom how I could realistically make a living making art.”

“I dabbled in many creative hobbies. I made fabric totes for a while, tried my hand at crochet, made lampshades from slides, embroidered pop culture references that I framed … but nothing really stuck until I finished my first year working with clay”.

As a child, Ayesha had always been fascinated by the potters in India. After a year of weekly night classes, that she admits were frustrating at times, she tried her hand at making a vase.

Born in India into a family of women she calls extremely creative, Ayesha was immersed in a life of the handmade, botanicals and artistic expression that continue to influence her work today.

“I grew up listening to conversations about colour, pattern and design. I like to think that I bring all of these conversations into the studio with me,” she says.

“I see my mum’s love of gardening expressed in my obsession with plants, the patterns and colours of Indian textiles in my bold, graphic designs.”

“The second I’d made my first botanical vase I decided to make a commitment to clay,” she says.

A combination of wheel throwing and hand-building techniques are used in the studio, but Ayesha works freehand on the final form.

“A pattern forms in my head as I go along so I simply let my hands decide where to apply the colour,” she says.

“I strive to make work that is unique to me; that no one else is making. I don’t really prescribe to what is trendy, I try to make work that speaks to me and hope that others will feel the same way about it.

“My inspiration comes from the unique shapes and colours of leaves. I’m particularly drawn to Australian native flora with their almost alien like shapes and vibrant colour and to tropical plants, which always transport me to my childhood in India. They translate to pattern so easily in my head.”“I began to feel the excitement of having created something that I really liked. For the first time I felt like I had a product that people might willingly pay me for – and that was pretty exciting.”

Ayesha has also recently turned her craft to handmade ceramic jewellery, experimenting with thinly rolled and hand cut shapes that bring aspects of her wheel thrown work into the design. She intends to keep working and experimenting with clay for as long as it brings her joy.

“Ceramics is still really my side hustle, but it’s what I spend the majority of my days thinking about and doing,” she says.

“I’ve often been told that I should outsource my designs for production and get someone else to do the making so that I can focus on the profits, but that defeats the purpose for me.

“I started making pots because I wanted to make things with my own hands and I think that’s what makes each creation all the more special.”

“As a child I was taught that a handmade gift was of more value than a store bought one. Handmade to me is a sign of care and affection. It feels increasingly important in our throwaway economies.

“I know the curves of each and every pot I make, the marks from where I accidentally nicked them with my fingernails, the slip of my hand where the paint went on a bit too thick. Each pot is a little piece of myself, a labour of love. That’s the intimate magic of the handmade.”

To learn more about Ayesha’s work visit www.ayeshaaggarwal.com. Her work can also be purchased in Adelaide at Urban Cow Studio, The Jam Factory and Art Images Gallery, and in Queensland at Brown’s General Store and the store at the Queensland Art Gallery & Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA).

Dementia does not discriminate – it currently affects more than 400,000 people in Australia of all different backgrounds and ages, and has a huge impact on the physical, mental and emotional health of not only the patient but also on their carers and loved ones.

According to Dementia Australia, it is estimated that nearly one million Australians will live with dementia by the year 2050, and with the country’s ageing population and no known cure, social worker Marie Alford is working to inspire the next generation of leaders in dementia and aged care.

“My grandmother, who was my last living family member, lived with dementia. There was never a formal diagnosis, but I watched her transition from independent to fiercely independent as a way to protect herself from what she knew was coming,” says Marie.

“If you had told me I would end up working in dementia and aged care, I wouldn’t have thought it possible – but I discovered that I could use all my skills in counselling, mediation, advocacy and research to create a better quality of life for people living with dementia and their carers.

Marie was the General Manager of Alzheimer’s Australia South Australia (AASA) for 10 years before moving to Sydney in 2013 to work for HammondCare in the Dementia Centre alongside Associate Professor Colm Cunningham, an inspirational leader in the industry.

“I had watched the work of the Dementia Centre from afar and visited HammondCare facilities to learn more about their simple model of domestic, homelike cottages for aged care and wanted to be part of this journey and the challenge to make dementia a national health priority.

The Dementia Centre is an international program with offices across Australia and the UK, and Marie’s current role as Head of Implementation supports the strategic stakeholder and political engagement with the organisation’s funders, partners and collaborators.

“I have the best job in the world – I get to work with fantastic teams who translate learning from our clients into new opportunities for funding, research and policy. Every day is different, and I love meeting with people living with dementia and hearing their stories that inform our work and practice.

“It’s the little things that make the biggest difference, and I get so much joy from the people I meet. To hear and see the outcomes they achieve is amazing, to know the work we do really makes a difference.

“Meeting people diagnosed in their 30s, 40s and 50s really challenged me and my skills, but it also taught me so much. People living with dementia are not defined by their disease, and living well with dementia – which was unheard of even 15 years ago – has grown so much as a movement.”

From 2009 to 2013, Marie was the Director of the South Australian and Northern Territory Dementia Training Study Centre, which works to influence undergraduate and postgraduate curriculum to ensure there was a focus on dementia and aged care and provide increased training and knowledge transition to students.

“This was an exciting role for me and we had a lot of great partners including UniSA to achieve our goals. We rolled out training in SA to medical and nursing students which provided foundational learning about dementia; some of this training is still in place today.”

While Marie believes there has been real progress in terms of education, training, support and improvement for the lives of people living with dementia, she says it is vital we continue to push for more change, from spreading awareness to building the next generation of leaders in aged care.

“Australia is lucky to have a government who supports funding for dementia; we lead the way in innovative programs and research, such as Dementia Support Australia which offers a world first national behaviour support program.

“We tend to only hear about the bad stories of care, but there is so much good happening and we should hear those stories too. Together we are all accountable for being part of that change.

“We need younger people coming into the field – I see myself as a supporter to their career pathways. Social work is a foundation upon which you can go in any direction, so young graduates need to consider roles that aren’t as traditional as well as the ones core to our discipline.

“Aged care and dementia is an industry that will only continue to grow, but more than that it is an area in which you can use all of your skills to build and develop change and make a real difference.”

Maintaining adequate levels of vitamin D and calcium could make all the difference in improving bone health and preventing and treating bone diseases, rare bone disorders and even breast cancer.

Associate Professor Paul Anderson is currently working on a diverse range of projects at the University of South Australia to study the impact of calcium and vitamin D levels and supplements on the health outcomes of various conditions.

Two of these conditions, osteoporosis and osteoarthritis, are on the rise in Australia's ageing society, and according to Osteoporosis Australia, 66% of Australians over the age of fifty have either one of these diseases or poor bone health.

Osteoporosis and osteoarthritis can lead to bone fractures, a loss of mobility and independence, and an increase of mortality, and Assoc Prof Anderson says the key to prevention is nutrition and exercise, stressing the importance of calcium and vitamin D.

Osteoporosis is more often associated with women, as menopause causes the loss of estrogen which then accelerates bone loss, so his current clinical trial focuses on the various levels of calcium among post-menopausal women.

"This is an important study because while there are current recommendations as to how much calcium a woman should have, this is broadly based only on women who are lean," he says.

"The current data regarding bone health and obesity is very conflicting, so women who are clinically obese do not know how much calcium they should be taking to prevent bone loss and there is uncertainty in the medical community as to what to recommend overall.

"This study is really about seeing if post-menopausal women who are clinically obese respond differently compared to lean post-menopausal women when given calcium of equal doses."

The other key component to a healthy skeleton alongside calcium is vitamin D, and Assoc Prof Anderson aims to further understand the cellular and molecular mechanisms by which vitamin D can directly and indirectly improve bone health.

"We see a lot in commercials about how vitamin D strengthens your bones, but the actual science behind it is a bit imprecise."

Working with orthopedic surgeons at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, Assoc Prof Anderson studies patient biopsies to understand the connection between vitamin D deficiency and poor bone health.

"These are osteoporotic patients who require surgery with an implant to mend a bone fracture.

"Often in the elderly, there is poor quality of healing after surgery, which is largely due to the poor quality of bone that is there to begin with – it doesn't respond well to surgery.

"We analyze the samples and take this information back to the surgeons, who have begun to recognize that part of their bone healing therapy should involve ensuring patients have adequate levels of vitamin D."

Poor bone health does not just affect the elderly though, and Assoc Prof Anderson and his team are also working with a rare musculoskeletal condition that affects children called X-Linked Hypophosphatemia (XLH).

A rare disorder that affects around one in 20,000 people, XLH is usually genetic but can in some cases appear in children with no family history.

"The mutation itself arises in a particular bone cell called the osteocyte, and causes an altered production of a particular hormone that triggers phosphate to be excreted from the body at high rates.

"Phosphate is vital for healthy bones, and without it a child's bones can become literally rubbery, and symptoms include bone and tooth weakness and pain, bow legs and even bow arms in severe cases.

"Treatments for this disorder are very poor at the moment; one of the negative effects of XLH is an excessive catabolism (breaking down) of vitamin D, so we are working on developing a drug that blocks this catabolism, which could heal the bone."

Assoc Prof Anderson's work surrounding vitamin D is not solely focused on bone health as he has also turned his attention to the strong link between vitamin D deficiency and breast cancer.

Working in collaboration with the University of Adelaide and McGill University in Canada, he is working with the same idea of preventing the catabolism of vitamin D as a means of cancer prevention.

"The kidney is normally considered the major organ for producing vitamin D, but we have identified that a variety of cells also produce it for their own purposes, including mammary cells in the breast.

"This production of vitamin D appears to improve cell differentiation, which is positive in terms of being anti-cancer, but if mammary cells cannot synthesize their own vitamin D, then there is a higher risk of breast cancer and metastasis to the lung.

"If the cells lose this ability to produce the vitamin, they can become more cancerous, so blocking the catabolism of vitamin D might become an effective therapy for cancer prevention and treatment."

Assoc Prof Anderson hopes to continue this research in regard to colon cancer in the future.

Encouraging the public to take a walk on the wild side is just your typical day in the office for Christie Anthoney. Allowing the Scottish Sceptic Society to let audience members walk across hot coals at the Edinburgh Science Festival is not the only time that Christie has played with fire in a global career in the arts and festivals sector spanning two decades. She also supported famed French fire alchemists Cie Carabosse to bring their first fire installation to Australia at WOMADelaide over a decade ago.

The initiative shown by Christie in convincing the owner of the Famous Spiegeltent to bring the 1920s European ‘tent of mirrors’ to Adelaide in 2000 and land it in Rundle Park, is now the stuff of legend. Ultimately this bold act gave birth to The Garden of Unearthly Delights, a vibrant hub of performance venues, stalls, bars, sideshows and carnival rides, which regularly attracts around 800,000 people through its gates during Adelaide’s Fringe Festival, a time locals affectionately call ‘Mad March’. Christie counts this as one of her proudest professional achievements.

This risky business paid dividends, with Christie appointed Director of the Adelaide Fringe from 2004-2010. Her leadership drove growth in hub venues, developed an international marketplace –the Honeypot program, and launched the now famous artists’ bar, The Fringe Club.

In her current role as Chief Executive Officer, Festivals Adelaide, Christie continues to turn up the heat, helping create the conditions for unique and thrilling work to be presented to audiences.

“The arts are a very satisfying sector to work in. Festivals even more so. The beauty of the festival sector is that it’s such a great blend, all art forms, all demographics, commercial work, subsidised work, unusual, formal, even proper work,” says Christie.

“They have such intensity. Everyone pulls together to work on delivering the very best festival they can, and then it’s over. You can’t go back and change anything. I love that.”

Now at the helm of Festivals Adelaide, an alliance of 11 South Australian arts and cultural festivals that generate over $260 million of economic activity for the state annually, Christie provides leadership in a sector that has been growing at a rate of 10% per annum for the last ten years, and supports 850 jobs (full-time equivalent). Festivals Adelaide also manages a vast volunteer network – a ‘cultural army’ of 1,500 people, with the aim of enhancing the festival experience and enriching the lives of its volunteers - many of whom are recent retirees.

“Adelaide is one great global marketplace for entertainment, ideas and talent. The shareholders vote with their wallets, and success goes on tour around the world. You can really make a large splash in Adelaide and have a huge amount of international success.

“Adelaide is already the second largest festival city in the world and certainly the largest in Australia. South Australia currently sells 50.3% of the nation’s ticket sales for festivals. There is no sign of this changing in future years. That means by 2050 we will have tripled the size of the sector.”

At this rate, Christie believes that within thirty years, Adelaide will be the leading festival city in the world, and will be known for its openness to experimentation and innovation.

“South Australian’s are already extremely hungry for new ideas as evidenced by their extraordinary attendance of festival shows – particularly new work that has never been seen before. Knowing the power of festivals to mobilise, to connect, and encourage experimentation, Festivals Adelaide seeks to foster these conditions so that Adelaide can become the most joined up creative community, and the best place to trial new ideas. We believe the ways in which people behave differently during festivals is transferrable to other sectors and will positively influence the brand and business of the State.”

An experienced arts leader, she credits the Graduate Diploma in Management (Arts) with providing the foundation for her career.

“This degree was fundamental and really is the only course in South Australia that is dealing with management and the arts. Everyone I knew in the industry had it, and I had to have it. The fabulous networks that I made, not to mention accounting and business skills, have been hugely helpful.”

The importance of flexibility, risk-taking, and seeing things from other perspectives were all key lessons Christie took from her studies, but she confesses that not everything can be taught.

“Some of it is X factor – that delicate balancing act of intuiting when to hold on to opportunities, and when to let them go. Being comfortable with the unknown and understanding the consequence of timing and decisions is highly desirable. People who show calm confidence in working under pressure will thrive in the festival sector.

“This is a transient world. There is plenty of work and it’s growing – but it’s global. The investment in travel is necessary and can ultimately lead to being in one place and having a successful leadership role, but most people start out piecing together work on a contractual basis.

“The arts and cultural sector is hugely rewarding, but very demanding and often volatile. Because careers in the arts rely on short-term contracts you must have a confidence and optimism about the future and your skills. Displaying initiative and working with the group to see the big picture, while not missing the detail is important, as is working across multiple tasks.”

Christie has set for herself a goal of achieving 99% arts engagement and participation from South Australians, an ambitious, but not impossible target, given the growth performance of the sector and the receptiveness of the population. Reaching this target could have benefits beyond measure, Christie shares.

“That moment when your intellect brushes up against that of a stranger’s, as you have an ‘aha’ moment or share something in an audience together. These things are important, they make us feel human, and wanting to feel human is indeed a growing trend.”

Christie Anthoney is on the Advisory Board for MOD @ UniSA – Australia's leading future-focused museum, provoking new ideas at the intersection of science, art and innovation.

Adelaide was designated as a UNESCO City of Music in December 2015. The title is awarded to cities that have demonstrated excellence in music heritage, music-making, education, community involvement, regular high profile, and international music events. Only 31 cities worldwide have attained this status.

Standing centre stage is UniSA Alumna Lisa Bishop, industry mover, shaker and music-maker. From a start singing in bands at age 20, she now supports and amplifies the state’s vibrant music community in her capacity as General Manager of Music SA, a not-for-profit organisation.

“Our goal is to develop, support and promote original contemporary South Australian musicians, build their audiences and champion the industry. It’s demanding, but very gratifying, and I enjoy the team work involved in delivering festivals and events,” she says.

With extensive experience in the music sector and 20 years serving on the boards of arts organisations, including the Adelaide Fringe Festival, the Media Resource Centre and Vitalstatistix, it might surprise some that a leadership role in the creative industries wasn’t Lisa’s first career choice.

“With my Graduate Diploma in Arts Management from UniSA I transitioned to the non-profit sector, where I could make the most of my business skills and do something that is creative.

“Walking away from a decent salary to work in the arts just as I was starting a family was a huge risk though. The risk paid off because I find it so rewarding, plus I have an incredibly supportive husband. When I ended up as General Manager at Music SA I figured all my experience had come together in the perfect role.”

Umbrella: Winter City Sounds is just one of the exciting initiatives Lisa has launched during her tenure at Music SA. Designed to bring commercial outcomes to venues and more work for local musicians during a typically quiet time of the year, the highly successful 2017 event saw 300 live music events across 100 venues and other unusual locations.

“I’m pretty proud of the team behind Umbrella: Winter City Sounds. It’s been fun to create a festival from scratch and build its brand. Umbrella is a two week live music festival and a showcase of predominantly local musicians that transforms the greater Adelaide area into a winter wonderland of music and discovery.

With 1200 South Australians identifying their main profession as a musician (part-time or hobby musicians counting for thousands more), and around 6300 people employed in the music industry, it’s a thriving, competitive sector. Lisa encourages emerging musicians to adopt a business mindset in order to stand out from the crowd.

“Most musicians are self-managed, particularly when they are starting out. So they need to be business savvy until their songwriting and stage performance is good enough to be surrounded by a team of people who ‘run the business side’ for the artist,” she says.

Lisa revels in sharing her wisdom with aspiring musicians and arts managers looking to march to the beat of their own drum.

Here are her three key tips for people starting out in the music industry:

1. Set Yourself Up As A Business
Work out what legal structure best fits you (as a solo musician or band) and then use it to operate your business and receive tax breaks. Register an ABN (Australian Business Number) and open a bank account (not your personal one) and use it to be smart about cash flow and careful about spending. Sign a “band agreement” based on your selected business set-up. You can find one in the Australian Music Industry Network (AMIN) Legal Pack – use it to clarify issues and disputes that are commonly experienced by bands.

2. Understand Where Your Money Is Coming From
Get a handle on what your top revenue streams are – touring, publishing, merchandising etc. Make sure you are distributing your music online and on all the right platforms – iTunes, Apple Music, Spotify, Pandora, Amazon, and that your music is visible on apps like Shazam (artist distribution service companies like CDBaby, Ditto, Noisehive, distrokid, Tunecore can do this for you for a fee).

However don’t rely solely on online followers – playing live helps to build your fan base, to test your original compositions in a live setting, and get genuine instantaneous feedback on your music. Eighty percent of gigs are held in pubs and clubs and Adelaide has some great live music venues that provide a career pathway from smaller crowds to larger rooms like the Grace Emily, the Hotel Metro, The Jade, Jive, the Wheatsheaf and The Gov. Hopefully this leads to supporting touring acts in bigger venues and then ultimately playing music festivals. I recommend that anyone in Adelaide in late July attends the Scouted showcase – you will get to see 15 of the best unsigned bands in Adelaide right now across five venues in the West End.

3. Network and Collaborate
Like any industry, the music industry is about who you know, not just what you know. Get engaged with your local music organisations, attend workshops and industry functions, and subscribe to their socials. Seek advice from older successful musicians and collaborate with other artists and producers to develop your song writing and stagecraft skills.

To find more about the Umbrella: Winter City Sounds festival, visit umbrellaadelaide.com.au.

Associate Professor Svetlana Bogomolova is an expert shopper. But not just any shopper, as a consumer and social marketing researcher, she knows her way around complex marketing theories and practice, not to mention a bustling supermarket aisle.

Her studies have included extensive research into food choices and shopping habits, including the intricacies of the supermarket landscape and what shoppers are naturally attracted to – and why certain foods are stocked in particular places.

“A typical supermarket stocks over 30,000 items and yet a typical household buys just 300 or so unique products per year. That is, they walk past roughly 29,700 products on shelves without putting any of these in their baskets,” writes Associate Professor Svetlana Bogomolova in The Conversation.

That’s assuming those shoppers actually walk past the shelves in the first place! Despite a quarter of shoppers claiming to traverse every aisle on a shopping trip, less than 2% of shoppers actually do.

“Shoppers are naturally attracted to empty spaces. They prefer a wide pathway around a store or mall that allows them to see into the distance and avoid getting too close to other shoppers. Thus, the most common route around a store is the perimeter of the store, known as the “racetrack”.

“From that main route shoppers can see down each aisle and duck in and out to get the items they need. Naturally, the shelves at the ends of aisles, known as “endcaps” or “gondola ends”, are the most valuable, simply because more people go past products placed here. So these products get seen (and bought) by more people than products hidden away in the aisles.”

Since graduating from Lomonosov Moscow State University, Svetlana arrived at the University of South Australia in 2003 to study a Master by Research in Marketing, later followed by a PhD in Marketing.

Now as a fully fledge member of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science at UniSA, she has nearly two decades of research experience and an extensive repertoire of collaborative cross-disciplinary projects with health researchers where she uses her expertise in consumer behaviour and shopping to promote healthy behaviours.

She also balances her main role as Associate Professor at UniSA with serving as an independent non-executive Director on The Barossa Co-op Board – the largest regional retailer and employer in her local Barossa community.

She has been widely published, and attracted competitive industry research funding from health-promoting organisations such as SA Health, Council of Ambulance Authorities, National Pharmacies, and Active Ageing. She was also an ARC Discovery Early Career Research Award Fellow (DECRA).

Since contributing to studies on healthfulness of food choices in supermarkets, increasing physical activity in rural and ageing populations, and raising quality of health services, Svetlana and her Senior Marketing Scientist colleague Amy Wilson, are now turning their attention to health and wellbeing education space where marketing can be used as a force for good.

It is not uncommon to hear marketers accused of being ‘evil’. Marketing is often blamed for overindulgence in unhealthy food, and the overconsumption of new gadgets and games that make us lazy and isolate us from the rest of the world. But, is there another side to marketing?

Svetlana and Amy argue that marketing skills are essential for informing the community about products and services that improve health and wellbeing, enhancing the delivery of those services to benefit individuals and society.

“Many of today’s health practitioners are also involved in the running their own businesses. Think, physiotherapy, podiatry, psychological counselling,” says Associate Professor Svetlana Bogomolova.

“Many wonderful doctors find themselves challenged by the need to attract their own patients and keep them loyal. Hardly any medical school teaches these skills.

“On the other hand, there are a great number of business (or even marketing) graduates, who at some point in their career would find themselves working for a non-for-profit, charity, Government or private organisation, that aims to provide the community with product, services and ideas that promote health and wellbeing.

Realising this unmet need from both sides – for health professionals to get some essential marketing skills, and for business professionals to better understand the health context, Svetlana and Amy have developed a cross-disciplinary course – Marketing for Health and Wellbeing at UniSA. In 2017 the course has been awarded the Best Teaching Team Award reflecting how much students enjoyed the course and the skills it provided.

“As the teaching team are both active social marketing researchers, the new discoveries and insights from the many research projects are also incorporated into the course.”

“Examples include the use of ‘nudging’ strategies to influence dietary choices, how patterns of engagement in physical activity can inform physical activity promotion, helping local producers get better market access, designing a TV campaign for methamphetamine use prevention, encouraging healthy menus for kids in pubs and clubs and much more.”

The course also has a very practical focus, bringing to students a diverse range of industry experts, who share their experiences. These include practitioners from the Red Cross Blood Service, Obesity Prevention and Lifestyle (OPAL, SA Health), Southern Cross Care, Surf Life Saving SA, Jurlique and Janesce skincare lines, Grains and Legumes Nutrition Council, The Barossa Co-op, Sanitarium Health and Wellbeing, Mater Health Services, The Physio Clinic, to just name a few.

For more information visit: https://unisabusinessschool.edu.au/marketing/marketing-for-health-and-wellbeing/

The South Australian tourism industry is thriving and passionate South Aussie, Andrew Bullock, has spent a good part of this century immersed in the business climbing the ranks at 1834 Hotels - 1834 Hospitality, formerly known as Country Club Hotels & Resorts.

This experience, and knack for knowing what makes our state great, has also made him the perfect fit for his newest role, the Chair of the South Australian Tourism Commission (SATC) Board.

Before Andrew was heading the SATC Board,he began his career at Country Club Hotels & Resorts in 2002 while still studying at UniSA.

Throughout the two decades he has been a part of the company, he has been instrumental in the growth and expansion of the company across Australia and responsible for generation of annual sales in excess of $100 million.

The 1834 Hotels network is a “holistic management service” that offers a range of accommodation –including the Mayfair Hotel, The Meridien, the Barossa Weintal Hotel and even more cafes, restaurants and bars, golf courses, function and wedding venues – dotted both regionally and in capital cities throughout the country.

After initially starting out in sales, Andrew was eventually promoted to the Group General Manager, with this role encompassing all operational aspects of the group of hotels and resorts. But then in 2008, at 29-years-old, he became the Chief Executive Officer after founder Ian Conolly, both a mentor and a friend, passed away.

Andrew still cites Ian, the banker turned manager, as “the most inspiring person he ever met” having had a significant impact his professional career and still holds his advice and guidance close to his heart.

“He taught me that you don’t have to be a dictator in business to get positive outcomes, you need to be firm however positive outcomes are always possible with a positive outlook,” he says.

As CEO, Andrew led the company through a number of developments and its increasingly diverse portfolio. When he started, the chain managed a network of four hotels – this number has now grown to 23. And now with almost 1000 staff employed under the 1834 banner, it makes them one of the largest regional tourism employers in South Australia.

Andrew didn’t always imagine himself playing such a pivotal role in the tourism sector though. It was only after becoming involved in the industry that he realised he had a passion and inherent knack for it.

In his two decades with the company, Andrew says the best part of his job has been the opportunity to work with the wide range of people he’s been in contact with and he’s particularly proud of watching the 1834 group develop and grow.

“I spent some time in sales initially before becoming involved at a more senior management level,” he says. “I became very enthusiastic about tourism and hospitality in South Australia for a number of reasons. As well as the terrific growth we have seen in recent years, one of the most exciting prospects is the capacity we have for further growth.”

“I often find myself thinking back on theory that I learned at uni and now use in day-to-day work. I believe having that background from UniSA has allowed me to progress much quicker in my career and development.”

On top of his work managing the operations and finances, and devising key business strategies for revenue growth at 1834 Hotels, last month Andrew was officially named as the Chair of South Australian Tourism Commission (SATC) Board.

Here he will use his extensive experience and knowledge of the sector to fulfil the SATC’s mission to make South Australia a destination of choice for international and domestic visitors.

“Tourism is one of the most exciting industries to be a part of. For me one of the great advantages is the economic benefits it provides local economies by being a reliable and sought-after exporter of goods,” he says.

The visitor economy created by tourism is important because much of the economic benefit it brings to the state flows to regional communities and also has a positive impact on other industries such as agriculture, wine, retail, education, real estate and transport.

Looking forward, Andrew believes that nationally we are at the cusp of further strong growth in the international markets.

“China is in incredible growth, now our challenge as a country is to ensure we continue to get our market share internationally and grow that market share,” he says.

“In South Australia the story is similar – we have seen terrific growth – now our challenge is to grow that further and see a greater market share of visitation to Australia visiting South Australia.

“As a potential net exporter the benefit and opportunity for the state is significant and in particular with the regional dispersal that tourism provides, we can see economic growth in regional South Australia from tourism activation.

“Tourism can also become the jobs of the future in areas that otherwise have limited opportunity.”

He’s right – who doesn’t want to go on a holiday?

As a seasoned tourism professional Andrew also knows a thing or two about hidden gems around the state too. He recommends the Riesling Trail next time you are looking to experience the best South Australia has to offer.

“There are so many wonderful spots in South Australia it would be hard to pick just one! I do have a soft spot for the Clare Valley – I think the opportunity to ride a bike along the Riesling Trail and pop into a few wineries on the way is such a terrific experience.”

The eyes might be the window to the soul, but our hands are the vital tools that allow our minds to act upon the world – to prosper, shape our environment, and in many parts of the world, survive.

Suzanne Caragianis became fascinated with hands in her first anatomy classes at the University of South Australia while studying a Bachelor of Applied Science (Occupational Therapy). Her interest grew and hands became the focus of her over 33-year career, not only trailblazing hand therapy in South Australia, but also making a difference in places around the world needing it most.

“Hands are so complex and intricate, and so important in peoples everyday function and self-expression,” she says.

“They are the tools with which we take care of ourselves, express ourselves, show joy and love. They enable us to create, build, design and communicate. It’s not until someone has an injury or loses function that they realise the significance of their hands.

“If they are damaged it can affect our survival in certain parts of the world. Our communication, our ability to earn a living and care for ourselves and others.”

After graduation, Suzanne followed her interest in hand therapy to the USA to work with Dr Harold Kleinert, one of the fathers of hand surgery.

He had a tremendous impact on her and it was here she also developed a strong desire to support the education of future therapists – especially fellow UniSA Alumni – influencing her own teaching and mentoring style over the past 25 years.

“My mentor Dr Kleinert told me, ‘we have a responsibility to teach all that we know; choose students who you think can be better than you and enable them to be better than you in one way or another’,” she says.

On returning to Australia from the US, Suzanne worked to establish a practice that mirrored Dr Kleinert’s values. Starting with a hand and occupational therapy consulting service in 1991, Suzanne’s business evolved into the SA Hand Therapy practice.

SA Hand Therapy now has five practices around the state and a number of dedicated hand and upper limb therapists, including their resident therapy dog Cooper, specialising in accident, injury, arthritis, nerve & congenital conditions.

“I wanted to establish a hand therapy centre of excellence in Australia that offered best practice, teaching and mentoring to students as well as doing collaborative research,” she says.

“Now we have five sites, a team of amazing talented therapists and two business partners, Michael Janetzki and Jordan Lefmann.”

Suzanne also teaches professional groups and GP’s about complex hand trauma and injuries, diagnosis and treatment. This passion for educating others in hand therapy – particularly in high risk areas – has also led to deep ties with the Indian and Bhutanese therapeutic communities.

“My medical missionary work in Bhutan began 10 years ago after several years of teaching in India with my dear friend and colleague Dr Raja Sabapathy, who was at the time the President of the Indian Hand Surgery Society,” she says.

“I visited Bhutan and discovered high rates of hand and upper limb injuries and burns from subsistence farming and cooking over an open fire. There was also a high incidence of congenital deformities and children’s injuries.

“At the time there were only four orthopaedic surgeons in Bhutan, no plastic surgeons or any hand surgery unless it was basic salvage procedures or amputation of a limb or finger.

“There were also no Occupational Therapists and the physiotherapy clinic at the main hospital in the capital, Thimphu, had no hand therapy or splinting service or training.”

After her first therapy training trip, Suzanne realised the country needed a formal hand therapy clinic to improve recovery for the injured. She set about establishing Helping Hands in Bhutan to facilitate training for medical professionals and therapists.

She also began fundraising to set up the clinic with the right mix of surgical equipment and trainers.

“Part of the program consisted of a continuing education course to teach doctors, surgeons, and therapists about hand and upper limb anatomy and basic hand rehabilitation in Bhutan,” she says.

“In order to get the Royal Government of Bhutan to sponsor and recognise the program, I developed a specialist course and a way of examining attendees so they would champion participants.

Another enjoyable part of the project has been involving other medical experts in her work, she says, “My friend Dr Philip Griffin – an Adelaide Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeon – offered to work with me on the trips to teach basic hand surgery skills so we could role model a collaborative team of surgeon’s and therapist’s.

“University of South Australia Dean of Research (Health Sciences), Professor Susan Hillier, even assisted in running one of the courses. It’s still talked about many years later!

“Several years ago Dr Griffin and I also approached Interplast Australia and New Zealand to get involved and extend the program. They accepted and have extended the plastic and reconstructive and hand surgery work, sending teams of surgeons, anaesthetists, nurses and hand therapists twice a year."

Suzanne and her project partners have now raised more than $200,000 for the initiative and have established two hand therapy centres in Bhutan.

Through this work a number of Bhutanese surgeons and doctors have also been sponsored to broaden their medical knowledge base and attend international conferences.

“I continue to sponsor training in Bhutan and support our hand therapy clinics there. Overall my goal for this work is to develop a sustainable hand program in Bhutan where we enable the Bhutanese medical work force to treat and rehabilitate people who have sustained trauma or have been born with a disability,” she says.

“My next goal is to sponsor the training of an Occupational Therapist at UniSA to help establish OT services in Bhutan.”

When Josh Carmichael returned to his hometown of Adelaide in May of 2016, joining the South Australian Government in the midst of SA’s so-called ‘energy crisis’ after seven years at automotive manufacturing company DENSO, he could not have imagined what the next two years would entail.

As the Director of the Low Carbon Economy Unit, Josh put his business acumen to good use and led his team through the development and success of some of the state’s most extraordinary renewable energy projects – including delivering the World's Largest Lithium-ion Battery (100 MW Battery) – all while welcoming the newest member to his young family.

After making such a substantial contribution toward South Australia’s electricity sector being cleaner, more reliable and more affordable, he upended again to the Netherlands and joined Transdev, a leading mobility specialist and public transport operator, as a Low Emission Technology expert.

Josh takes us on a deep dive into his fascinating career, expertise in renewables, his time at the South Australian Government, and what he really thinks about Elon Musk’s tweeting habit.

Would you be able to tell us a little bit about what you are currently doing at Transdev (Connexxion) as a Low Emission Technology Expert?
Transdev operates everything from ferries to light rail train, trams and buses and autonomous shuttles as either the Global Transdev brand (as in Australia) or as a local brand like Connexxion in The Netherlands.

My role is to advise the organisation on how to best roll out buses, batteries, chargers and infrastructure for the expected boom in electric and fuel cell buses by 2025 – 2030 in The Netherlands, from a commercial, technical, chemical, procurement and operational point of view.

What motivated you to pursue this career path in renewable energy, how did your time at UniSA help shape it?

I’ve always been very interested in sustainability, but more from a business impact point of view - product development, strategy, supply chain and power balance perspective – than the environmental perspective. I would never have guessed while at UniSA in the early 2000s I would end up where I am now.

I chose good mentors who supported and encouraged me to say yes to every opportunity during my time at UniSA. My journey started when I said yes to a random opportunity to go on exchange. UniSA had just signed a new contract with The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) in Hong Kong to do exchanges, and they found it hard to get people to go to China over Europe and USA in 2003, so they offered $5000 in grants to go and promoted it via the professors. I spoke to a couple mentors and they encouraged me to apply.

I was successful and met plenty of enthusiastic American and European students in Hong Kong – particularly the Dutch – which made me want to live and work in The Netherlands. So I moved after my studies, did my Masters and graduated in 2008.

I managed to use my Japanese language skills to get a job with DENSO in the middle of the global financial crisis, in a role that was meant to be industrial products but turned into innovation and business development across Telecom, Health, Security and Energy industries for over eight years.

I then said yes to a chance to relocate back home to SA with the government – while having no previous ambition to work in the public sector – in a role that I could never have imagined would be so good for me in terms of development, experience, knowledge and network. First in Hydrogen, then the big battery, virtual power plants and 20 other projects through the Renewable Technology Fund worth one billion dollars in private investments into SA as Director of the Low Carbon Economy Unit.

It was my pleasure to be a manager of such a capable team, in the thick of action with Cabinet support and fully decision making freedom with support of executives across government and my second-in-command, Richard Day.

Most recently I took a job with a public transport operator – never thought that would happen either – in the largest (again!) electric bus depot and fleet in Europe.

Speaking of your time with the South Australian Government, the state has a very complex energy market and power needs and you were involved in leading the massive 100MW Battery Project, could you describe your role and experience working on this significant development with a company like Tesla?

Pffft. Where to begin?!

There is no other company like Tesla. I’ve worked for a large international organisation before at DENSO (120,000 employees, $60B revenue), but Tesla was a whole different ball game. Everything is huge, quick and via the twitter account – which was very different way of working, especially for a Government agency and Premier’s office used to having their way.

The sheer scale, size, timing and complexity of this project was unprecedented. The 100MW battery was 5 - 20 fold larger than anything comparable on the market at the time. It was pushing the boundaries of engineering possibilities. Furthermore, it wasn’t a simple local project – it attracted close to 90 competitive global bids from all corners of the world. The process to decide the right partner was already the first challenge.

Every stage of the process was unique. We had to fit procurement, negotiations and installation in a nine month window. The installation phase alone – including the registration, licensing and connection procedures in the energy market – can take three months each from three different parties outside of the government’s control. So in total it would have taken 9 to 18 months with existing known technology. We only had three months for that; with a technology, rule book and protocol that largely didn’t exist.

But, we were able to make a success of this phase in the three months because everyone came to the table with a solution – not problem – mentality. We were also able to have frank discussions about what was wanted, what was needed, and able to be implemented in the energy grid at such a scale and speed.

My team in government did an enormous amount of work upfront working with key stakeholders to ask them about implementing a product that had not been tested at such size before – irrespective of who would win the project. That helped at the backend of the project when we went to implement the winning solution with Neoen and Tesla.

That’s an intense three months – and this was all happening under intense media scrutiny, wasn’t it?

The international media were using (sometimes inaccurate) local sources to report on the state of the project – since we were going to get it for free if it took more than 100 days – which added a lot of pressure.

That was alongside the speedy production and delivery of the balance of plant equipment (inverters, transformers, cabling, concrete etc.) and battery packs which were being delivered to site at breakneck speed via planes – just as they hit the end of production line – while building the site from scratch in a safe manner with no serious accidents on site in Jamestown.

If that wasn’t enough, we also had to plan two parties with global attendance and attention [including an appearance from Elon Musk, industry bigwigs, government officials and guests from all over Australia], without interfering with the site’s progress, onsite testing requirements, and performance of the products with no spare days in the schedule.

I’m guessing Elon Musk’s now infamous penchant for tweeting sensitive information didn’t help?

It’s well documented that Elon tweeted during the process that he could do it in less than 100 days, and then dared by fellow billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes, said he would do it for free if he couldn’t. This created a problem and more complexity within the project.

The problem was some saw it as the unfair reason he won the contract (which it wasn’t), while others wanted to see us unfairly take him up on the offer. But we knew that would set the battery and renewable industry back years and give the Federal Liberal Party and coal lobbyists the ammunition to wipe our batteries and renewables by 5-10 years. South Australia needs all the energy storage it can get, so it made no sense to destroy the first major project to achieve that and jeopardise future investment into to the state afterwards.

To this day I think it’s still the only occasion in which a tweet has been successfully used in a commercial contract to hold a party liable for the content of the tweet – that’s pretty cool. In the end we didn’t need to activate it and South Australia benefited significantly from the 100MW Battery being delivered on time. Subsequent deals also brought other battery manufacturers into the state, with other projects like Sunjeev Gupta in Whyalla and more renewable projects; creating a new industry, jobs and hope. That’s even cooler.

That must have been so much pressure on you both personally and professionally?

Make no mistake, I had enormous support from internal colleagues, especially my partners Peter Hawkes and Chris Gosling, an executive team across government led by Sam Crafter, Premier and Ministers offices, and was externally supported by technical, commercial and legal consultants in a tightknit project team of about 20 people. Tesla and Neoen both also allocated significant resources to the project, which enabled quick responses from key stake holders to clear blockages in the road.

But yeah – I didn’t sleep much for 9 months. My real superstar on the project was my partner Martine. She also gave birth to our son James in the peak of the project in September 2017. All while working and helping me through all the tough challengers on the project as my unofficial advisor, supporter, motivator and positive thinker; especially when the going was really tough!

What do you love most about your field?

When I was studying at UniSA sustainability was a hobby for environmentalist. It wasn’t until I did my MBA in Holland that my professor said, “the key to getting sustainability mainstream is to make it a business decision; not an environmental one.” Get the CFO excited. The CEO will like an idea that he can write about in the annual report, but it’s the CFO that holds the pen on investment. You need to get the CFO excited.

I’m proud that from a hobby in 2003 to mainstream business decision-making, renewables are now maturing and seen as the future. SA is leading the world on so many areas – which I hopefully played a role in accelerating during 2016 – 2018. It wasn’t the plan, but it’s been a great journey.

Renewables are here to stay, and SA is a great place to be for that.

You’ve had extensive experience in the Netherlands as well, are there things their energy industry do that Australia doesn’t? Is there anything we can learn, and vice versa?

The world is on a path to transition to a more sustainable carbon constrained world. Australia is leading from the energy transition, but lacking in transport and building industry. Europe is leading from a transport perspective, but in a more orderly fashion.

We can certainly learn from each other. Australia can learn how to get bipartisan policy support and more orderly transitions – as well as how to transition the transport sector quickly while supporting the grid. On the other hands Europe can learn from Australia’s mistakes and the solutions that they are now deploying to fix those issues which are globally significant and show leadership at a faster pace – which Europe could use a bit more of – especially in the energy sector.

What do you love most about living and working in The Netherlands? Do you miss anything in particular from Adelaide?

I love Europe because everything is so close, and every place has its own rich history over thousands of years that still exists in small ways through their culture, food, and language. I love being a two-hour flight from my favourite cities in Italy and Spain for long weekends, summer breaks, or winter ski seasons.

I love The Netherlands because it’s so active on the bike – either to work, with the kids, for shopping or sport on the weekends. Also the work-life balance discussion is more mature. I currently have a daddy day once-a-week with my one-year-old son, James, and three-year-old daughter, Siena.

I miss my family and friends from Adelaide a lot, but am more fortunate than other expats because my partner is Dutch with an Australian history – so we both have friends and family in each other’s country.

I do really miss the weather, beaches and wineries. I’m a Henley boy (go Sharks!) through and through, which my partner also loves, so both miss hanging out at the Square with the kids and my parents for a coffee during the day, or a balmy summer night on the terrace with a beer with mates. I do miss my old colleagues at SA Government and exciting projects – but I don’t miss the politics and scrutiny.

Professor Albert Chan spends his days immersed in the Hong Kong buildings and real estate industry as one of the most respected figureheads in the area at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. 

He has studied the intricacies and needs of the industry for over three decades as a Chartered Construction Manager, Engineer, Project Manager, and Surveyor by profession. He then embarked on a PhD at the University of South Australia in the early nineties.

Professor Chan is recognised for his thoughtful, ‘outside of the box’ approach to creating solutions for the issues that affect Asia’s building and construction industry.

His career journey from studying a PhD in project management at University of South Australia has steered a course away from project managing large scale building works to research and teaching academia that has benefited thousands.

“As a high school leaver, I was fascinated by the many construction works being executed at that time in Hong Kong. I chose construction as my future career and aspired to become an engineer to project manage a complex development from inception to completion,” says Professor Chan.

“I have to admit, I never thought I would end up down the pathway my career has taken. I just kept pushing my own limit and always walk one step further and I have found that the outcome is often rewarding.

“As a Head of Department, I need to set a vision for the Department and I need to provide good leadership to motivate all colleagues and students to strive for excellence. I am mindful to provide a friendly and conducive environment to enable my colleagues and students to develop their full potential.

“I am a strong believer of leading by examples, therefore work closely with my colleagues as a team and share the gain and the pain with them.

“In addition to my administrative duties as Head of the Department of Building and Real Estate, I also engage actively in research.”

One area of research that has been particularly important to Professor Chan is the wellbeing of the many individuals who carry out the hard-work that the building industry depends upon.

“Construction workers have to work outdoors for long hours under hot and humid weather conditions, which may affect their health,” he says.

“In Hong Kong, their work requires them to do a lot of physically demanding tasks to make a living in a climate that can be especially challenging, so about 10 years ago I asked what we could assist and improve to make their work conditions better.”

Professor Chan and his research team devised a uniform to alleviate heat-stress and reduce associated health hazards. It was also important that the clothing be designed ergonomically to ensure it fits all situations.

“The fabrics we selected comprise specially engineered polyester fibres to provide superior breathability. The trousers were made from the proprietary material ‘Dry-inside’, which incorporates new moisture management technology developed by our research team.

The uniform was adopted as an industry standard in 2017. And as of September that year, more than 116,000 polo shirts and more than 36,000 trousers have been ordered by contracting companies throughout Asia. Importantly yielding a 20 per cent cost reduction and enhanced functionality.

As a result the health hazard of heat stress of some of the most under pressure workers in Hong Kong is much relieved thanks to the research and development of the uniforms from Professor Chan and his team.

“It was a great feeling of accomplishment to see these uniforms make such a practical and protective contribution to the overall wellbeing of construction workers in Hong Kong and beyond,” he says.

The research garnered Professor Chan the Construction Industry Council 2015 Innovation Award, the UK’s Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB) Innovation Achiever’s Award, and Grand Prize and Gold Medal at the 44th International Exhibition of Inventions of Geneva, under the patronage of the Swiss Federal Government, the State, the City of Geneva and of the World.

He was also recently honoured as a high-achieving UniSA Alumni when he joined a number of other high-achieving Australia China Alumni at the 2018 Association Awards as a finalist for the Award for Research and Science.

Professor Chan also fondly remembers his time at UniSA, where he also lectured in the field of building and planning and further developed his academic skills.

“I was grateful to have received great supervision and care from Professor Tricia Vilkinas, Founding Professor for the School of Business, from whom I learnt not only the professional knowledge in my area of interest, but also other soft skills such as management, perseverance, lateral and critical thinking,” he says.

These lessons remain with Professor Chan as he leads his own Department now at Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Under Professor Chan’s management, the Department has made significant contributions to the university’s Civil and Structural Engineering, and the Architecture and Built Environment disciplines, which were recently ranked among the top 20 QS Subject Ranking 2019 in the World.

Professor Chan sees this role as a crucial step in nurturing the next generation of much-needed infrastructure experts and innovators, and delights in being able to play a part in changing the once bleak landscape.

“There is a huge and continuous demand in the construction and real estate industry and because of severe scarcity of land supply, we need to construct taller and faster buildings. We need more young talents to join and work in this vibrant, challenging, and rewarding industry.”

We all get older. It’s a natural part of life. Yet, particularly in Western cultures, ageism is clearly evident. Popular culture is focused on youth; through the concept of beauty, the power of physical ability and strength, and the perception of usefulness in the workplace.

But when society discriminates against older adults in this way, aren’t we also discriminating against our future selves?

UniSA alumna Felicity Chapman is a clinical social worker, sessional lecturer and educator who works closely with advanced seniors in Australia, and knows the importance of valuing the old as much as the young.

“Many older adults confess to me that they feel over looked or treated like a child. And some have even said to me that they feel ‘thrown-away’,” says Felicity.

“They can fall into a social trap of being one of many older people, not as an individual anymore, especially if they are in care or have a lot of health problems.

“We need to be savvy about how easily ageism can affect our attitudes so that we can protect ourselves against it. And we need to realize how easy it is for older adults themselves to feel invisible and unworthy.

“I want older adults to feel like they’ve got a voice, that they matter as an individual and are valued members of our community.”

Felicity recently launched her new book, ‘Counselling and Psychotherapy with Older People in Care: A Support Guide,’ on World Social Work Day, which concentrates on tackling ageism and advocates for a new model of psychological care that places a premium on relevancy and dignity. The book is written in a warm conversational style and has stories woven throughout based on her experience in this area.

“There are three things happening in our world at the moment. We’ve got a high incidence of depression and general distress amongst older adults - especially in care facility settings. We’ve got an ageing population and people are living longer. And on-top of all that, we’ve got a shortage of practitioners specializing in psychotherapeutic work with an advanced senior population. It’s a perfect storm!

“It’s a matter of great urgency that these issues be addressed, not only for today’s advanced senior group – but also for our future selves.”

People currently aged eighty years and over are often not familiar with psychotherapy, nor seek it, however psychological distress for this group can be high. Men over eighty five in Australia have the highest rate of suicide, and a report by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare in 2013 revealed that more than half of facility residents in the study had depressive symptoms.

“Depression is not a normal part of the ageing experience. Older adults deserve quality of life – right to the end – in all aspects of their wellbeing, which includes the psychological.

“What can compound the problem of depression even more is internalized ageism, which negatively affects how older adults perceive themselves. Internalized ageism can have people feeling like a burden which actually increases their risk of suicide.”

Felicity suggests a unique model of psychological engagement which she believes makes psychotherapy more accessible to an advanced senior group and offers the best chance of success in improving their emotional and psychological health.

“It’s called the ‘Flexicare Model.’ It combines evidence based interventions adapted for an older adult clientele and offers an alternative view. It challenges a number of elements common in traditional geropsychology like a focus on pathology, set processes and strong assumptions about the helper-as-expert. The centre piece of the model relates to the concept of ‘pre-therapy, therapy’.

“Most of the older adults I speak to in their eighties and nineties have no idea what counselling is. When I mention the word ‘counselling’ they often look at me like a budgie has done its business on my head! And the current group of advanced seniors often pride themselves as being resilient, and don’t want to see themselves as having problems.

“‘Pre-therapy, therapy’ is a way of using life story techniques common in Reminisce Therapy and Narrative Therapy to develop trust and motivation for the psychotherapeutic process. It looks like an informal chat but, really, it’s as therapeutic as any more formal intervention is.

“By intervening like this, I also give them an experience of therapy that creates permission for them to talk about themselves and doesn’t focus on the practitioner being the helper.

“It changes the dynamic so they feel as though they are helping me by sharing their story, which automatically promotes dignity and has them defining their situation in a way which is empowering.

“It also connects them to strengths or things about themselves that their change and loss might have overshadowed.

“Once I have earned their interest and trust, they can see the relevance of what I am doing and that it’s not ‘whacky.’

“The model is all about creating comfort and dignity which, ultimately, leads to engagement and healing. We need to be ‘senior friendly’ in how we package psychotherapy: it needs to be relevant and respectful and not a ‘one size fits all’ approach.”

Felicity has found that creating open conversations with older adults about their life story helps to segue into more formal therapy where she continues to help them re-establish their unique identity, which can often be ‘buried’ underneath definitions of deficit and decline and be linked to feelings of failure.

“They can still feel taller and feel relief even though they are also experiencing loss. It’s about providing a bridge between their past achievements with how they see themselves now.

“I find a dignity based approach, exploring what their values are and how they can see themselves, can sit outside of all of their physical changes and help to find something they can feel proud of.

“My book aims to motivate and encourage practitioners, and arm them with practical skills. The reviews on Amazon so far are very positive. My book is particularly relevant for psychologists, clinical social workers and nurses who want to be ‘aged care ready’.”

While many aspects of Felicity’s book relate to a global audience, she suspects that the anti-ageist element is more relevant for practitioners in Western countries as opposed to Eastern cultures where ageism appears less apparent.

“Eastern cultures tend to elevate their elderly in a way that they are seen as having more wisdom which is really lovely to see. The older they get, the more value or status they tend to have. They are less cut off from society and there is often a strong role that they play in the family irrespective of declining health. What can compound depression in people is when they feel like they have no purpose – that they have no role in society. It all relates to value.”

“We need to value the old as much as we do the young so that older adults feel important and feel empowered to age with dignity no matter what situations they are faced with.”

Dr James Charles could not have imagined how far he would eventually come after he decided to continue his education at the age of 27-years-old, and was immediately deemed illiterate, dropping out of high school a decade and a half earlier.

It has been a long and winding road for Dr Charles, now one of Australia’s foremost academic authorities on Aboriginal foot health, but he was supported along the way by the love of his family, and several UniSA Scholarships – including the Irene and David Davy Scholarship – providing vital financial support and confidence he was on the right path.

“High school didn’t work out for me and I dropped out to work with my uncle as a plumber when at 13 I was told I would have to repeat the year,” James says.

“Then in my mid-twenties, with two young children, I found myself starting to think beyond myself and feeling concerned about how I was going to help my children with their school work.

It was important for James to break the cycle of poor levels of education in his family, and to show his children that it would be possible to get a decent education and graduate from high school. He signed up for a TAFE course that would allow him to earn his Year 11 and 12 grades.

“When I applied for the course, the TAFE educator said ‘James, congratulations, you can join our course – you are illiterate’. I can see the lighter side of this welcome now, but it was confronting to hear this as a man in his mid-twenties.”

A proud Kaurna man, born and raised in Adelaide’s northern suburbs, it was also important for James to find a way to give back to his community. This goal eventually led him to enrol in the Bachelor of Podiatry at UniSA with a focus on Aboriginal Health.

“I was a mature age student amongst mostly 19 and 20-year-olds, but I found an amazing mentor in Associate Professor Sara Jones who gave me on-going support and help. She also provided podiatry services to the Aboriginal community, which really resonated with me.”

“I worked hard and proudly graduated with a Bachelor of Podiatry, and continued into my Masters at UniSA.”

Dr Charles is just one of many students that were crucially helped along the way to graduation through UniSA’s scholarship program.

The University is proud of its legacy and commitment to equity as the university in South Australia with the highest rate of students from a disadvantaged background, successfully completing their degrees.

In fact, nearly 30 per cent of commencing students to UniSA come from an economically disadvantaged background. The University also receives more applications from students who qualified for the equity category than any other, so support from UniSA scholarship donors is more paramount than ever.

Now with the benefit of hindsight, James is also a passionate advocate for supporting university students with scholarships when they are struggling to make ends meet and complete their studies, as he was fortunate enough to receive several scholarships, including the Irene and David Davy Scholarship.

As a father of five while completing his own studies, James is well aware of the additional stress that juggling multiple responsibilities can place on students.

“Without this financial support I know for a fact that I wouldn’t have been able to continue to study full-time, and I may not be where I am today without it.”

James says that knowing that these generous people, basically strangers, believed in him and wanted him to succeed was an additional motivation, “I am still in touch with the family who supported me and they have been following my success – I hope with pride knowing just how much their support made my career possible.”

Without the generosity of people like Irene and David Davy, the potential of countless individuals – like Dr James Charles – would not have been realised. When they succeed, we all succeed.

He is an inspiration for Aboriginal people, not only for his personal example of achievement, but also in the fantastic work he is doing to research and teach in his field. In 2008, he was the inaugural Chair of the Indigenous Allied Health Network and in 2017 he was named national NAIDOC Scholar of the Year.

Now an Associate Professor Indigenous Teaching and Education, and Coordinator Master of Public Health in the Institute of Koorie Education and the School of Medicine at Deakin University, James was also honoured this year for his outstanding achievements at the UniSA Alumni Awards.

“Sadly, Aboriginal people – especially those in rural and remote communities – are at higher risk of foot health problems than the general population.

“As part of my podiatry work, I was visiting clinics and community centres for Aboriginal people around Australia and I kept seeing the same types of problems. Through my research, and then my PhD, I found that Aboriginal people have high rates of equinus – reduced movement at the ankle – that can contribute to serious issues and lead to ulceration and amputation, especially as people get older and heavier.

“There were some academics who didn’t believe my suspicions that there is a genetic element which contributes to this problem – I was told poor foot health was ‘just a result of smoking and diabetes’.

“I am really glad I trusted my instincts and continued to focus on my work. Ultimately by trusting myself and staying dedicated to my education, I have been able to help so many people improve their health and wellbeing.

“Now I am also working as an academic supporting Aboriginal students studying health degrees. I see first-hand the wide barriers that students face and I know how challenging juggling study with work, family and life.”

To find out more about the Scholarship Fund, and how you can donate visit: the Giving website.

As the weather in Adelaide heats up and the city braces for the most jammed-packed festival month of the year, you may notice the sweet, sunny colour palette of artist Dave Court’s art start popping up around town.

A great honour for any Adelaide creative, the 27-year-old University of South Australia Visual Arts graduate won the coveted 2020 Adelaide Fringe Poster Design Competition in celebration of the Festival’s 60th anniversary, which will run next year from 14 February to 15 March.

Dave – who is now more comfortable referring to himself as an ‘artist’ – is adept at a multitude of forms of art including painting, designing, illustrating, photography, but it was his diamond design, ingeniously created using aerosol spray paint, which will act as a sparkling emblem for the diamond anniversary of the Adelaide Fringe.

“I’ve entered the Fringe poster competition several times before, but this time I kept it super simple, clean and design-y, and also with zero digital design elements, which I think is a good signifier of my integration of art and design processes,” Dave says.

“It’s just a huge privilege and honour to be chosen. I think it will sink in properly when the artwork starts showing up on trams and bus stops, I’m really excited to work with the fringe team to deliver some cool stuff over the festival season.”

Describing his work as “varied, collaborative, accessible, experimental and technical” it’s clear Dave’s talents aren’t limited to just one thing, having tried his hand at everything from large-scale mural paintings, clothing labels and retail stores, creative director of Yewth Magazine, and venue design and the creation of immersive installations for SALA Festival and the Spin Off, Field Good, Laneway music festivals.

“I like bringing a multitude of influences to my work, and pushing myself to try and make things in different modes or media, which also keeps me from getting bored doing one thing all the time,” he says.

“I see working to create things that are a part of a larger event or venue as a way to get art in front of an audience that might not ordinarily engage with it – it’s something that isn’t in a gallery or specifically a ‘public art’ work – which I think there should be more of.

“It creates a more enjoyable and unique experience for attendees of a space and gives them something that they will remember.”

Dave says this desire for creativity in as many mediums as possible, was nurtured during his time at UniSA where he was afforded a lot of space and time try different media and ideas.

“The teachers I had at the time, especially Christian Lock and Dr Paul Hoban, really pushed experimentation as a driving force of making things,” he says.

“I was able to use all the workshop facilities to try a range of different things which all feed into each other, glass making, ceramics, sculpture, textiles, printmaking, and photography.”

As a result, Dave has well and truly making a name for himself in the Adelaide arts and cultural scene, even joining the board of Renew Adelaide last year.

When asked about his involvement in Adelaide’s burgeoning industry, and developing platforms for new talent, he says it’s the people that matter.

“I think all of those kind of involvements are what it’s all about, being a part of a community and making things with my friends, and meeting people who have become my friends through making things with them,” he says.

“I like watching people be good at what they do, and doing what they love, whether that’s in music, art, fashion or whatever.”

“Being involved with all these different areas myself has informed my practice, whether it’s involving more photography in my artwork, learning how to document my work well or being approached to make music videos and artwork for musicians.

“I just recently sent copies of Yewth Mag to an artist in Kenya that I met painting murals here in Adelaide because he’s looking at starting his own art magazine there, which is sick, and I wouldn’t be able to do that unless I had this specific combination of background experience.”

A recent highlight for Dave has included his recent ‘City of Music’ large-scale mural project on the West facing wall of 128 Hindley Street, carried out in partnership with Music SA through the City of Adelaide, Music Development Office and UNESCO.

The stunning work of art involved painting the largest wall in the city with an abstracted story of Adelaide’s musical history, celebrating Adelaide as a designated UNESCO City of Music.

The project which spanned more than six months, including planning and preparation, was accompanied by a documentary – made by friend and frequent collaborator Lewis Brideson – that followed Dave as he interviewed iconic SA musicians and industry heavyweights to research for the mural.

He isn’t about to sit back and admire his work just yet, though, with many projects already in the pipeline to keep an eye out for, including involvement in the SALA festival, a new indoor mural at the National Motor Museum, an installation collaboration with Arlon Hall at the City Library, and a painting at Northern Sounds System.

Dave does periodically come across his work unassumingly, though.

“Sometimes I’ll go to someone’s house and they have a painting of mine up, or I’ll see someone wearing a t-shirt that I made years ago that I had almost forgotten about, but it’s been a constant part of that person’s life on a daily basis, which is a great privilege and kind of intimate in a weird way,” he says.

“…And painting a big wall is kind of like that on a huge scale. There are how many hundreds of people that look at that painting every day on their commute, or out of their office window, which I hope brings some sort of joy or colour to their day.”

At the forefront of UniSA’s cancer research movement are our researchers dedicated to tackling one of our society’s most challenging and pervasive diseases – cancer – creating a groundswell of expertise unsurpassed in the State.

For Dr Aidan Cousins, talent and hard work were rewarded last year as he was the recipient of UniSA’s prestigious Norton Jackson Material Science and Engineering Medal for the translation of world-leading cancer research into industry.

This encouragement has led to him spearhead the development of a tool to help cancer doctors pinpoint the accuracy of surgery to remove cancers that have spread into other areas of the body, leading the project alongside Professor Benjamin Thierry from UniSA’s Future Industries Institute.

This revolutionary new device called the Ferronova Probe will solve a clinical problem in the successful treatment of cancers using magnetic tracers.

“Current procedures to find cancers that have spread through the lymphatic system into lymph nodes include injecting radioactive tracers into the tumour area that can be used to find the migration paths of cancer cells,” says Dr Aidan Cousins.

“There are problems with this approach due to the limitations of current technologies and the complexity of how lymph nodes are used by different cancers to spread.

“Through our research at UniSA, we developed a revolutionary new clinical tool that will improve the accuracy of surgery for the removal of metastatic solid cancers.”

For example, some cancers, like in the oesophagus or oral cavity, may not spread very far from the tumour, and can be lost amongst the background ‘noise’ of radioactivity in the injection site.

“Our magnetic tracers allow surgeons to locate where cancers have spread within millimetre accuracy, both improving the result of surgery and reducing the need for further operations.

“The magnetic tracers we use are also cheaper and have longer shelf-life than radioactive ones. This means that more smaller and regional hospitals could use the technology to save patients travelling to larger cities for treatment.”

This device will begin clinical trials for head and neck cancers in late 2018. It holds the potential to transform clinical procedure by creating a much more targeted approach to tracking cancer spread.

Abok Dau and Guor Michar‘s tale of survival and triumph is remarkable.

After surviving a childhood disrupted by war in Sudan, Guor’s conscription as a child soldier, and 17 years in refugee camps, the couple have resettled in Geraldton, Western Australia, crafted successful careers in pharmacy and business administration, and started a young family.

Now the couple are also working tirelessly to save lives in poverty stricken regions of South Sudan through their Athiolget Women’s & Children’s Health Association, providing lifesaving medicines to the most vulnerable in the country.

When Abok and Guor were children in Sudan, the mounting political tension in the country eventually consumed the remote southern region where the pair spent their childhoods.

The decades-long war that led to the separation of the Republic of South Sudan from North Sudan has cost millions of lives and left millions more living in poverty, without access to adequate medical care, food, and countless other vital services.

From a young age, Abok’s and Guor’s experiences instilled in each a sense of the fragility of life.

“My early childhood in South Sudan was traumatic due to the war and also the numerous deaths of my playmates at a very young age,” Guor says.

“I was consumed with fear of death as I saw many families, including my own, losing many of their little angels to malaria, typhoid, dysentery and diarrhoea.

“Wailing and mourning would overcome the village and I felt a chapter was closing on our community as every other child born was expected to live for only a month.

“Babies would be kept behind closed doors to protect them from ‘evil spirits’ outside the family hut - a family hut that was surrounded by little unmarked dirt graves that looked like anthills. The fear of stepping on those little graves stoked fear of death even closer.”

As the war intensified around them, famine and poverty became a daily reality for most and disease and malnourishment took many lives. In the South, where the war was most intense, the rebels decided to recruit young boys.

When Guor was just nine he was conscripted and marched for three months to an Ethiopian refugee camp where the rebels trained the young soldiers.

“The reserve camps in Ethiopia were also refugee camps where military activities such as further training, military planning and firing squads were highly practiced,” he says.

“We were over 50,000 boys from different parts of Sudan. Every year, the boys between the ages of 14 and 18-years-old would be armed and sent to the frontlines to fight.”

While Guor and Abok did not meet in Ethiopia their stories traverse the same landscape.

Abok and her family also made the long journey to Ethiopia where they hoped to reunite with her father who had been wounded in the Pochalla war. But when the Ethiopian government was overthrown Guor, Abok and her family were forced to flee back to Sudan. Once again they faced many months of trekking across war-torn countryside.

“We re-entered Sudan in May 1991 and were faced with starvation and constant aggression. We were forced to walk hundreds of kilometres from Pochalla in Sudan to Kenya and arrived in 1992 to seek refuge in Kakuma Refugee Camp,” says Guor.

“We had to walk back into Sudan where the war was very intense. Many people died on this journey, drowning in the rivers or re-joining the fighting,” says Abok.

Guor and Abok were forced to spend the rest of their childhood, another 11 years and 13 years respectively, living in the camps, surviving on low-nutrition supplies of maize, beans, and what vegetation the women and girls could find in the nearby bush.

Many children in the region quickly became malnourished or suffered abnormal growth and anaemia. Guor became very anaemic but was one of the lucky ones to receive a blood transfusion in 1996.

School was a saving grace of the refugee camp. In South Sudan where Guor and Abok were born there were no schools in an area home to more than 120,000 people. So when the opportunity arose for the couple to get their schooling in Kenya they took it very seriously.

Guor worked hard on his studies and was sponsored by the UNHCR to settle in Australia in 2003.

Abok’s experience was similar.

“When I got an opportunity to go to school in Kenya like Guor, and many other children, I took it seriously. I was even lucky enough to be listed among those who were taken to Canada by World University Service of Canada (WUSC),” she says. “But because I was waiting to come to Australia with my family, they couldn’t let me be part of those who were accepted.”

We arrived in Perth, Australia in 2005 where I studied English and Human Resources and continued to work as an interpreter with the On-call and WA Translating and Interpreting Services.”

Once Guor and Abok were settled in Australia they were both eager to further their studies.

Abok transferred her studies to UniSA when the opportunity arose to complete a Business degree with a major in Human Resource Management. She is now working as a Finance Assistant while raising three children and administrating the family’s charitable work with the Athiolget Women’s & Children’s Health Association.

“Graduating from UniSA with a Bachelor of Business was a proud moment for me because raising young children while studying is one of the tough jobs,” says Abok.

“I was glad when I received my results that I would be graduating – I could not believe it because my daughter was only one-month-old when I sat for the final exam.”

Guor’s awareness of the many deaths he witnessed from untreated curable diseases drove him to pursue a career as a Pharmacist.

In 2005 he enrolled in UniSA’s pharmacy program where he was Golden Key International Honour Society and the founder and the president of the Sudanese Tertiary Students Association that brings Sudanese students from all South Australian universities and TAFE together.

Guor has now been serving his local community as a pharmacist for 10 years.

After their studies the couple was compelled to established the Athiolget Women’s and Children’s Association – a charitable organisation that provides essential medicines to the countless innocents affected by the war in South Sudan where medical care is difficult if not impossible to find for many curable diseases.

In January 2012, Abok and Guor were involved in supplying of lifesaving drugs to people in South Sudan, mainly antimalarial, antibiotics, antiepileptics, pain relief, worm treatment, and schistosomiasis.

“The impact this meagre supply had on the local community was considerable as lives were saved and changed for the better. As a result, Athiolget Women’s and Children’s Health Association was born to carry on this generous work to all those in the area” says Guor.

“During the war between North and South Sudan, I believe a big percentage of the 1.9 million people who perished between 1983 and 2005 was due to diseases like malaria, dysentery, diarrhoea, typhoid, STDs, bilharzia and kala-azar or visceral leishmaniasis – many easily curable diseases.”

“From my family, more people died from diseases, especially women and children, than being caught in the conflict. This belief has been my driving force to fight a disease war over a political or economic war that is still being fought today in both countries of Sudan and South Sudan.”

Abok first travelled to South Sudan to establish a clinic in Akot, a remote village in Ruweng State in 2015. The community came together to build a hut for the clinic, which since 2016 has treated 60 people per day for tropical disease treatments.

Abok and Guor also fundraise through the Association to fund medicines and clinic costs.

Thanks to the support of their local community, the organisation is now working to establish a modern clinic in the area that will be able to store medicines and continue to run health services for the area.

“I am very proud of my wife who has worked so hard to make sure the Association keeps its objective of providing lifesaving medicines to women and children,” says Guor.

The couple have now made a home in Geraldton, Western Australia and are proud parents of their three children Michar, Akur and Ayen.

The children are heavily involved in the Athiolget Women’s and Children’s Health Association fundraising and community, and will carry on this vital work for generations to come.

For more information or to make a donation visit: Athiolget Women’s and Children’s Health Association.

From her humble beginnings, Nahtanha Davey has ascended through the South Australian business industry to become the leader of SACARE, providing vital housing and care services for those affected by disability.

Her tenacity and ambition led her to the 5-star MBA program at the University of South Australia, and when she graduated in 2010 it set her on a rewarding path leading ethically-based companies with strong ties to our community’s most vulnerable.

Mum to “two beautiful young girls and an amazing husband”, Nahtanha was previously the CEO at Brain Injury SA where she led successful improvements and enhanced frontline service delivery for people living with acquired brain injury.

And with SACARE’s promise that every person should have access to the very best services and accommodation, enabling them to live enriched, fulfilled and independent lives – it’s easy to see where Nahtanha’s values lie.

She joined SACARE at a very exciting period in 2018, just in time to oversee the opening of The Gums, SACARE’s newest $14m property for people needing high-quality health care, injury recovery and transitional services.

“It really is a privilege to be working with such an incredible team, supporting South Australians living with disability at SACARE,” says Nahtanha.

“I see myself as a values-based leader, passionate to continue to build onto and grow my expertise at the leadership level to support community-based organisations to thrive.

“I enjoy the community business sector, our broader not-for-profit sector, and I enjoy supporting worthy government initiatives at the local level to build strong foundations, manage change through good governance, stakeholder engagement and align to best practice.”

At SACARE, Nahtanha is responsible for making major corporate decisions, managing the overall operations and resources, while being the public face for the organisation.

There are times when her role can be quite hands-on and times when she spends her day dealing with the higher-level company strategy.

“Seeing members of our community be rewarded for the efforts of our strategic initiatives is what keeps me going,” she says.

“Knowing that we make a difference and provide hope to the lives of people who have endured some of the most harrowing experiences.

“I get to work with beautiful people daily, people who are adapting to a new lifestyle because of their traumatic experience and acquired disability. We get to help them achieve much more and enable them to thrive in their environment, it’s very rewarding.

“I am passionate about being accountable and driving governance and quality to achieve outstanding results. I enjoy redeveloping governance systems and turning around organisations. I enjoy working in very complex environments, particularly politically.”

Her commitment to change, travel and experience has successfully contributed to her executive career. It took a lot of drive and passion to show courage and resilience as a young woman in a leadership role, which she secured after completing her 5-star UniSA MBA.

“One of my most memorable experiences during my time at UniSA was the International Business in China Intensive School opportunity which saw us travel to Shanghai and Beijing, extending on experiences and learning the value of building strong relationships.”

She believes this experience enabled her to strengthen her learning and capacity in this space which has led to many successful negotiations throughout her career as a result of these learnings. Her advice to graduates?

“Step outside your boundaries, don’t just sit still. Take off and learn what other parts of the world are achieving, find yourself a great coach or mentor and please keep learning.”

University of South Australia Law and Journalism graduate, Melissa Davies, has been honoured with the Lawyers Weekly Women in Law In-House Lawyer of the Year in 2018 – placing her amongst the country’s top legal professionals.

2018 Women in Law Awards recognises some of the best and brightest in the profession across 20 categories for which lawyers and firms can nominate.

In-house lawyers, like Melissa, are at the forefront of a company’s day-to-day operations, influencing both legal and business decisions. This award recognises outstanding performance by a female lawyer working in-house including both corporate and public-sector lawyers.

The 27-year-old works as Legal Counsel for Lucas Total Contract Solutions, a privately owned civil construction and mining company founded over forty years ago with projects in multiple locations throughout Australia.

The company has a core commitment to support South Australia, its home state, and has been a key participant in some of the state’s landmark civil construction projects.

“Being an in-house lawyer at a civil construction and mining company means my day looks different every single time. Some days involve reviewing contracts, drafting joint venture agreements, negotiation of terms and conditions, resolution of disputes and preparation of board reports; yet other days I need to don my steel cap boots, throw on my high vis and walk around on site,” she says.

It’s quite a turn of events given Melissa wasn’t interested in studying law. It was only after enrolling in her Journalism degree and sitting in on a law lecture to learn about the significance of student association rules that she became hooked.

“I never thought I’d study law at university because I felt I was very different to the stereotypical law student.”

Having no links to the legal industry during her studies proved to be a challenge, which Melissa grabbed with both hands. She dedicated time to researching firms that specialised in the area of law that captivated her interest and contacted a few of the partners offering to undertake work experience for free.

One of the partners offered her the work experience opportunity which she says secured her a clerkship with MinterEllison and later lead to full time employment. Melissa stayed with MinterEllison for a couple of years before accepting the in-house role at Lucas Total Contract Solutions.

This spirit to overcome challenges has put Melissa in good stead. She was “thrown into the deep end” 12 months ago when her legal manager resigned, but after an extremely busy year Melissa is still the sole lawyer for the civil construction and mining company.

Throughout that period, she reviewed more than 200 contracts, increased monetary thresholds for purchase orders, created a joint-venture with an Indigenous corporation, settled four major disputes before reaching litigation, implemented new processes business-wide, and created subcontract templates.

So, it’s easy to see how she stood out among the nine nominees.

Melissa is most proud of this professional achievement and wants other graduates to achieve the same success. Her advice – work hard.

“The first two years at uni is hard, don’t quit during this time. The first couple of years after graduating is hard, with long hours and being in an environment where you’ll know the least and feel disposable, again, don’t quit!”

“I promise it gets better. From my experience, after two years of full time work is when the magic happens.

“Seek out mentors and network with people of all different ages. I am lucky to have had some great mentors along my journey. I still catch up with two of them monthly for an early breakfast before work.

“It is incredibly rewarding to seek objective advice and support from people who have walked in your shoes before. It’s never too early to look for a mentor. Join a mentoring program or ask someone for their time. You won’t regret it.”

With an adventurous and fearless spirit – and little need for rest – Emilio De Stefano has surmounted considerable challenges to become one of South Australia’s youngest business leaders in the engineering and defence industry.

His passion for inspiring people to overcome their fears and take risks has led him to invest his time working to inspire students to pursue careers in STEM. He explains why it is important to focus on younger generations and the exciting opportunities they will have following a STEM career in SA in the coming years.

Shortly after graduating from UniSA, armed with his double degree in Engineering and Management, Emilio secured a dream job at BAE Systems Australia as a Hardware Engineer. BAE Systems, as the country’s largest defence contractor, allowed Emilio to work on state-of-the-art electronic warfare systems: including radar-warning receivers and directed infrared counter measures to protect aircraft operated by the Australian Defence Force (ADF).

Emilio was quickly promoted within BAE Systems to become one of the youngest Technical Authorities in the company. Proving himself to be a capable technical talent with tenacity and leadership potential, Emilio won the Defence Teaming Centre (DTC) Young Achiever Award in 2010.

The following year he won the BAE Systems Australia Early Career Engineer of the Year Award, substantiating his place as an essential part of the team.

This led him to join the South Australian Defence Industry Leadership Program (SADILP).

“The leadership program allowed me to grow my network and work out who I was as a person. It was here I made a connection that led me to take on a new role as General Manager of Smart Fabrication, where I led a team of 60 employees, and learnt how to run a multi-million dollar business.

“People would say I was crazy for even thinking of leaving BAE. I loved my job there but this opportunity was something I knew I’d regret if I didn’t take it. It was the right decision and it really set my career up for the future in a big way and gave me the confidence I needed to go on and start my own business.

“I guess I’m a big believer in taking calculated risks and continuously pushing yourself outside your comfort zone. If it doesn’t work out, then so be it, as long as you’ve learned from it. At least you’ll never regret not having given it a go.”

It was here he started doing more public speaking and was asked on a tour to promote STEM careers in schools around Australia.

“I started getting asked regularly to speak about my career in schools and universities to provide students with some insight into the types of things that are possible with engineering and STEM-based skills,” he says.

“When you’re young and someone suggests you go into engineering you think about maths and other subjects that might seem too hard or unexciting, and that can put you off. It’s a real problem – right now STEM enrolments in Australian schools are at a 20-year low.

“But when I go in to talk to students about my career I show them photos of the fighter jets I was working on, and the Lear Jets that would become my office during the flight trials we undertook to test the technology we had developed. They get to see where your skills can lead you.

“I see their eyes light up because students get really excited about that kind of stuff.”

To grow his network and stay at the forefront of the engineering industry, Emilio has engaged heavily with The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) since his second year of university.

Having practised in roles as senior as Chair of The IET nationally, through the professional institution that has over 167,000 members worldwide, he has had the opportunity to travel and meet STEM professionals around Australia and the world who share his passion for promoting STEM-based careers.

“In South Australia we will see a sizeable opportunity in the coming years in the defence industry. The biggest problem is that we have a huge challenge ahead to give students the skills they need to enter the industry,” he says.

“If we are serious about succeeding with these large-scale technology and defence projects in South Australia – and keeping them here – we really need to find ways to get STEM enrolments back on track and develop the pipeline of talent that will be needed.

“I think a way to do this is to integrate the arts and humanities into STEM curriculums (creating what is known as STEAM) – this will not only help to attract a wider and more diverse group of students into STEM curriculums but also foster the soft skills that are so crucial to our personal, project and organisational success.

“It’ll also get them out of the classroom to work in teams and solve real problems through what is known as Project Based Learning.

“This kind of approach gives students the opportunity to experience how these STEM skills are used outside the classroom; to see where their maths skills will actually end up being used.”

Since 2015, Emilio has been running his own management consultancy and advisory firm, De Stefano & Co, which sees him and his team spending the majority of their efforts supporting organisations operating in the engineering, manufacturing and technology sectors.

As an accomplished Keynote Speaker, he speaks to audiences nationally on topics including navigating change and disruption, and is also the Co-Founder of Adelaide Gardening Group, a provider of turn-key garden and grounds maintenance solutions to the government, commercial and strata management sectors.

Emilio owes his success – and ever-busy schedule – to his entrepreneurial spirit, diligence, and courage to take calculated risks in his professional career.

“I truly believe that we often regret the decisions we never made, more than the regretful decisions we did,” he says.

“I try to follow the things I really enjoy and I am opportunistic in that I will always have a good look into opportunities that come up. If you don’t give it a go – you won’t know what does and doesn’t work.

“The way I see it – you can always go back to the job or industry you were in before, and you might just learn something valuable along the way.”

Yvonne’s East’s artwork has been displayed all over the country. You may have spotted her stunning local murals for the Adelaide Aquatic Centre, Adelaide Festival Centre, and in Victor Harbor, or her works in the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, the Frankston Arts Centre in Melbourne, and more regionally in the South Coast Regional Arts Centre, Goolwa and the Murray Bridge Regional Gallery.

This year, though, you can visit Yvonne’s vibrant portrait of Green’s Senator and first Muslim woman elected to any Parliament in Australia, Dr Mehreen Faruqi and her gorgeous pup, Cosmo, at the S.H. Ervin Gallery in Sydney until 28 July 2019 with her artwork being selected as part of the prestigious Archibald Salon des Refusés exhibition.

Yvonne has come a long way from working in her studio, an abandoned nightclub in Victor Harbor, when the Alexandrina Council Arts Officer, Leah Grace, heard about an artist working away in there and came for a studio visit, leading to her first solo show.

Yvonne's primary focus for her art is on painting and drawing. But she has a particular talent for capturing the essence and interior world of an individual through their portrait.

Yvonne has always been innately fascinated with the human form and a person’s identity. Drawing on conscious and subconscious social structures and norms that influence how we perceive, carry and present ourselves in the world to construct her art.

“I have always been interested in the human form, perhaps this comes from early years spent as a dancer and learning through direct observation, noticing the nuances in people’s movement and a fascination with the forms, shapes and surface of the human face and figure,” she says.

“The great thing about portraiture is engaging with another person, it is a process of collaboration. I don’t go into a sitting with a definite pre-existing idea, what happens is that we sit and talk, I listen to what the sitter is passionate about, the way that they see the world, a particular way they may hold their head or physical gestures they make while they are speaking or thinking.

“While I can’t sit directly in their shoes, it is a process of empathy, and I’m always humbled by my subject’s generosity and what they are willing to share with me. In this sense it is an organic and reiterative process of discussion and ideas between two people.

“I’m fascinated by how people present themselves in relation to their professional role and social influence. There is a great history of portraiture to draw on and I love to play with how paintings can generate meaning.”

With her career going from strength to strength, Yvonne still regards her time at UniSA as pivotal in the development of her skills as an artist as she explains when developing creativity it is essential to question your motives, what you are passionate about, and the way you want to live your life.

“It sounds like a cliché but going to art school changed my life,” she says. “I had grown up in the country, I was married, and going to art school invited a whole new way of seeing the world and asking difficult questions about why things are the way that they are.

“It was a great lesson in critical thinking. I had some influential teachers that are brilliant artists (Annie Newmarch, Greg Donovan and Rob Gutteridge to name a few) who essentially ‘blew my mind’ and expanded my view of the world.”

Looking back at other pivotal moments in her career, one of the biggest highlights for Yvonne was winning the inaugural Country Arts SA Breaking Ground Award in 2011.

"It was a prize, that along with funds to support myself while I created a new body of work, also facilitated a solo exhibition in 2012 in the fantastic Artspace Gallery at the Adelaide Festival Centre,” she says.

“I got to create work that was challenging and combined traditional drawing and painting practice with a 24 metre digital projection installation. It then went on to tour to major South Australia regional galleries for two years.

“It marked an enormous development in my work and I’ll forever be grateful for the opportunity.

“I also remember being in awe the first time my work was selected for the Dobell Drawing Prize and hung in the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

“It was strange to see the work that I had developed in the privacy of my studio in regional South Australia, while my son was still very young, to then be shown in a major Australian Gallery that I had always loved and admired on previous visits.”

Another highlight Yvonne counts as an important step in her career was being commissioned to paint the Honourable Chief Justice Susan Kiefel AC. Which eventually became a finalist in the 2018 Archibald Prize, Australia’s most famous and beloved portrait prize.

“We had the sitting in her chambers in the High Court in Canberra,” she says. “It’s probably the most nervous I have been for a sitting, but the Chief Justice was wonderfully at ease and generous with her time.”

Of the honour of being hung in last year’s Archibald, she explains she felt incredibly lucky to be selected as it is a sought after art prize, and counts the visibility and exposure it offered to herself and subject, an important honour.

“I think last year nearly 1.7 million people visited the Archibald so I felt incredibly proud to have made visible a portrait of first female Chief Justice of Australia, painted by a female artist,” she says.

“The fact that a 5-year-old girl can visit a major institution, such as the Art Gallery of New South Wales and see a powerful and intelligent woman recognised in this way – it just wouldn’t have happened when I was younger. It’s great to have these roles models – a case of ‘if you can see it, you can be it’.” (Image: Yvonne in her studio by Yasmin Mund)

Almost as iconic as the pristine coastline and breathtaking wilderness teaming with everything from kangaroos to koalas eying you from the gum trees, seals and penguins parading the beach, the SeaLink ferry has been a Kangaroo Island mainstay for almost three decades thanks to CEO & Managing Director, and University of South Australia Alum, Jeff Ellison.

Jeff joined the SeaLink Travel Group in 1991 as a Chartered Accountant after an Arts (Accountancy) degree at UniSA antecedent the South Australia Institute of Technology, and time in private practice.

During his tenure he proved instrumental in the development of the SeaLink Travel Group from a ferry operator to one of Australia’s most successful and expansive tourism and transport businesses.

Under Jeff’s guidance, the SeaLink Travel Group’s increased its revenue from $12.8 million as a small, privately-owned South Australian business in 1997 to $204 million in 2017, even making it onto the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) as a multi-million dollar publically-listed company in 2013.

Today, during peak periods, SeaLink Kangaroo Island ferries make the 45-minute journey up to 12 times a day, carrying locals and tourists alike to the beautiful sanctuary lined with more than 500 kilometres of pearl white beaches and towering cliffs.

“My interest in tourism started at SeaLink when we found that it was a great way to increase the number of passengers on the ferry services and showcase a great part of Australia,” says Jeff. “Today on the Kangaroo Island ferry over 80% are now visitors to the island, including around 23% of which are international visitors.

“We had a strong belief that we had developed a sustainable business model of balancing transport (commuters, cars and freight) with the tourism industry.

“Following the success in the South Australian business, we expanded into New Zealand in 2000 purchasing a loss-making ferry business operating out of Auckland.

“We were able to refocus the business, introduce tourism experiences to the islands and built a strong profitable business. Since then we have expanded into Queensland, New South Wales, the Northern Territory, Western Australia and recently Tasmania with the same business model of transport and tourism.”

After all his success at the SeaLink Travel Group, with the acquisitions of multiple cruise lines and diversification into transport (with companies such as Transit Systems, the Adelaide Central Bus Station, and operation of the SkyLink Adelaide Airport Shuttle Service), Jeff still credits his time at UniSA as a significant stepping stone and valuable groundwork for his career.

“I have very fond memories of my time at UniSA and it’s great to be involved with such a strong growing leading University.

“I chose the UniSA degree as it was recommended by my employer and considered to be the most practical degree to have for the accounting industry. Not only did it give me a great base to build my career but it was a very enjoyable time of my life – with a great environment to work, study and network.”

Now with the SeaLink Travel Group firmly planted in the country’s tourism psyche, employing more than 1600 staff nationally – operating in every state except Victoria and Tasmania – and a fleet of 80 vessels and over 60 coaches, Jeff announced his retirement in August this year confident he will be leaving the company with a strong foundation.

“I firmly believe that now is the time to give a new generation of leaders the opportunity to build on the strong platform that now exists. The direction and strategy of the organisation is established as an integrated provider of transport and tourism experiences,” he says.

But retirement doesn’t mean exactly slowing completely down for Jeff. Still a voracious traveller, he is particularly looking forward to a holiday with the freedom to just enjoy the destination, and spending relaxing breaks at his new beach house.

But SeaLink will always hold an important place in Jeff’s heart, with the relationships he formed just as significant as the many business heights he reached at the company.

“There are many highlights from listing on the Australian Securities Exchange in 2013, building our very first vessel in 1998, buying the Captain Cook brand and operating on Sydney Harbour, but my greatest enjoyment comes from the people I work with and meet during my career.”

”Retirement from SeaLink for me will be a change in career, but I will still look forward to keeping in touch with my many friends at SeaLink.

“The SeaLink Board has also suggested they would like me to come back as a Director after a break. For me that would be a great way to stay connected.

“I am a great believer all businesses have a responsibility to the community in which they work. I have always been happy to provide support, particularly in the tourism industry, as a strong industry is good for the whole state.”

As someone who knows the spectacular oasis of Australia’s third largest island more intimately and distinctly than most, Jeff has a couple recommendations next time you are down Kangaroo Island way.

“Kangaroo Island is a zoo without fences, so number one must be the abundant wildlife of kangaroos, koalas, seals, echidnas.”

“Second are the amazing natural landscapes such as Admirals Arch, Remarkable Rocks, and the amazing coastal cliffs on the south of the island or the prestige sandy beaches on the north.

“Finally it is the small towns and the food and wineries, and many other tourist attractions you can find dotted around the island.”

With his many accolades and achievements – like becoming a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, a Life Membership to the Tourism & Transport Forum Australia, the 2013 South Australian Tourism Award for Outstanding Contribution by an Individual, and the 2014 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Listed Award – Jeff as proven himself as a canny businessman in expanding SeaLink and putting Kangaroo Island on the map.

For now though, Jeff will continue his role as CEO and Managing Director officially up to October 2019 when he can properly celebrate his contribution to South Australia’s thriving tourism industry –and he will finally have more time to relish trips to the beach cave at Stokes Bay on Kangaroo Island which he considers a “real gem”.

Forging a passion for design to a deep desire to tread lightly on the planet has led Dr Martin Freney to a new chapter in his life, as an agent of change for green living in Australia.

After a decade long industrial design career working on projects ranging from land mine clearing devices to new oven designs, Dr Freney returned to UniSA, this time as a lecturer having completed an industrial design degree at UniSA in 1993. It was here he started exploring his interest in sustainable design more deeply.

“Fundamentally, good design must address sustainability,” says Dr Freney, Lecturer in Industrial Design and Founder of Earthship Eco Homes.

“I advise my students to take sustainability seriously or they risk becoming a dinosaur. Sustainable design is becoming expected and we’re seeing more and more laws and industry standards that require it.”

But over the years a mounting cynicism about what he calls ‘green wash’ – the ever growing number of goods and services marketed as sustainable without substantial evidence - led him to undertake a PhD.

“Unfortunately I don’t think anything we build or manufacture these days is that sustainable, particularly housing,” Dr Freney said.

“There isn’t good and bad when it comes to our impact on the environment, there’s just bad and not-so-bad and we urgently need to find the very best not-so-bad options.”

Dr Freney’s research sought to quantify the most ecologically sustainable housing option available to home builders by investigating issues such as the thermal performance and embodied energy of various designs and construction materials. The top ‘not-so-bad’ option turned out to be the Earthship design.

Developed in the 1960s by Michael Reynolds, a controversial American architect who is also known as the Garbage Warrior, Earthships are an alternative housing solution that allows inhabitants to live comfortably off-grid. They have relatively modest requirements for batteries, solar panels and water tanks, because of the inherent energy and water efficiency embedded in the design.

Built largely from recycled materials including tyres, glass bottles, cans, and typically earth bermed; the buildings are designed to provide a steady indoor temperature, water filtration, waste reuse and safe sewage treatment. Earthships also have a central greenhouse, what Freney calls the ‘jewel in the crown’, with plants that support temperature control, grey water recycling and even food production.

In 2008 Dr Freney first visited the Greater World Community, an off-grid Earthship settlement cradled by the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in New Mexico, USA, where he was inspired by the buildings’ amazing thermal performance in the extreme high altitude desert environment.

On returning to Adelaide, Dr Freney began his PhD studies, evaluating the thermal performance and environmental life-cycle of the buildings in comparison to other techniques. To aid his research, Dr Freney also constructed his own Earthship to evaluate how the design could be adapted for Australian conditions.

“Any home can theoretically go off-grid – but the scale of the systems required would be impractical, expensive and not ecologically sustainable as most modern homes are not built to sustain comfortable indoor temperatures without considerable energy use,” he said.

“My data showed that the Earthships in the Greater World community maintain a remarkably stable indoor temperature throughout the year without reliance on heating and cooling equipment.

“Over the course of a week, the temperature inside stayed between 19 to 25 degrees in winter without heating and a steady 21-22 degrees in summer without cooling. Outside the temperatures were as low as minus 20 and as high as 33.

“My research showed that these buildings are potentially one of the best solutions for low density housing where people can live in comfort, with most of the mod-cons, but with dramatically reduced environmental impact.”

Dr Freney’s Earthship Ironbank (pictured below) has now been completed and is the first council approved Earthship in Australia. It offers B&B lodgings for visitors interested in the concept.

“My ultimate goal is to mainstream a lot of the Earthship ideas into Australian residential housing construction,” he said.

“There are a few others that have been built in Australia but they didn’t get council approval. I was tempted to go the renegade path but I really wanted to demonstrate what could be done through the right channels so people can be confident and enthusiastic about building their own.

“To my surprise the council approval process was pretty straight forward. I quickly found that I was being pessimistic about the whole thing and discovered that all you really need is the right team of professionals like any build – a good structural engineer, energy assessor, building certifiers, designers, who understands what you’re trying to achieve.”

There are hurdles and a lot of thinking outside the box required to build an Earthship in Australia, but Dr Freney is solving these issues through his own experiences. He is now helping others build their own Earthships through his business Earthship Eco Homes.

Dr Freney has also recently been awarded funding from Tyre Stewardship Australia to fund a PhD study to investigate the best use of tyres for building energy efficient homes. This project will deepen knowledge of how to improve sustainable housing design for the Australian climate and reduce waste.

Visit Earthship Ironbank for BNB and research information or Earthship Eco Homes for more information on Dr Freney’s consultancy.

Now leading one of Adelaide’s key metropolitan social service teams for Aboriginal Australian support services, Warren reflects on his working life starting at the young age of 14 as a Trolley Boy in the carparks of his local Target. This time was followed by a number of years moving from Perth to Melbourne and finally Adelaide in hospitality – flipping pancakes, working as a bus boy, and a two year apprenticeship in silver service.

Beneath all of this hard physical work however – a passion for social justice and a keen interest in ethics was brewing.

“I have always had a strong sense of doing what is right,” says Warren. So, when he moved to Adelaide in 1990 he decided to follow his interest and enrol in the Bachelor of Social Science (Community Service) with the UniSA antecedent, the South Australian Institute of Technology.

It was here that Warren says he began to learn Australia’s ‘true history’ and the unacceptable and harsh treatment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

“I chose electives and topics that allowed me to continue to learn about Aboriginal Australians, which eventually led me to do an eight week student placement with the Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement in my final year of study,” he says.

“This was another huge learning curve. It was around the time when the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and its recommendations were being implemented.

“At the conclusion of my placement, they offered me a three month contract. Before I knew it nine years had passed.”

Warren remembers his time at the Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement (ALRM) fondly as a place of learning and forming lasting friendships with people who work tirelessly to achieve real justice for Aboriginal people in South Australia.

While at ALRM, Warren worked on the reporting of how the recommendations from the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody were being implemented.

“I had the honour of working closely with Tauto Sansbury – and a number of Aboriginal Elders and community members – as the Secretariat to the South Australian Justice Advocacy Committee, of which he was Chair.

“The committee was tasked with monitoring the Government’s implementation of the 339 recommendations that came out of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.

"Part of my role was to support the Committee to meet its Terms of Reference which included community consultations to ensure Aboriginal communities were having a say about how the recommendations were being implemented.

“Despite a number of reports, sadly, it remains that Aboriginal people are still overrepresented at all levels of the criminal justice system and funding levels to Aboriginal legal services have not improved.”

When an opportunity arose at Adelaide City Council, Warren made the hard decision to move on from ALRM. He then spent nine years across a variety of roles including Reconciliation Officer, Manager of Grants and Sponsorships and Senior Policy Officer, before moving to the Aboriginal Family Support Services (AFSS) where he has since served as a Senior Manager of Regional Services and Metropolitan Services.

“In my current role I manage a number of teams including an Aboriginal Gambling Help Service, a Family Based Foster Care team, a Youth Homelessness Service, a Community Safety and Wellbeing team and a number of other areas including communications, child protection reform and cultural officers and the Berri and Murray Bridge offices as well,” he says.

“Some of the biggest challenges in this work is ensuring that we continue to reflect on the work that we do and make sure we are doing a good job.

“Unfortunately, the removal of Aboriginal children and young people from their families, communities and culture, remains as one of the most significant challenges for Aboriginal families and communities across Australia.

“At AFSS we work hard to ensure that child protection authorities engage with Aboriginal communities, and where possible, involve Aboriginal people in the decisions that affect their lives and the lives of their children.

“It is always a cause for celebration when our efforts result in Aboriginal families being able to keep their children and young people at home or, if the children have been removed, in being successful at helping families get their children back to family, community and culture.”

One of the projects that Warren is particularly excited about at the current time is the AFSS Child Protection Reform–Aboriginal Community Engagement Project.

“This is a new two year project we have achieved support for from the Sidney Myer Foundation,” he says.

“We strongly believe that all Aboriginal people have a right to be heard and to be involved in all decisions that affect their children and young people. This project will engage Aboriginal families and communities across the northern suburbs of Adelaide and Port Augusta about child protection.

“AFSS’s role will be to facilitate genuine, meaningful and honest engagement with local Aboriginal families and groups to create pathways of communication between Aboriginal groups and the Department for Child Protection.

“Our goal is to share information about the changes in the child protection system and to consult with Aboriginal parents, extended families and local communities – with the focus to improve outcomes for Aboriginal families and find ways to keep Aboriginal children within their family and communities.”

Deanne Hanchant-Nichols is determined to increase employment for Aboriginal people. Her driver for change is her intention to see real transformation and growth within Aboriginal communities, which is why she is developing such effective strategies that embrace culture and history.

Deanne was recently recognised for her outstanding work in the community and equal contribution to UniSA, receiving one of the Gladys Elphick Awards ̶ the Shirley Peisley− which is awarded to an Aboriginal woman leading positive change for Aboriginal people in the workplace.

“I’m not really big on awards, but I am really honoured to have won the Shirley Peisley Award, knowing what it stands for,” says Deanne.

“It’s really nice to be recognised for all of my work in the community, but I certainly didn’t expect to win it! I was sure another nominee had, so it was such a wonderful surprise.”

Deanne is a Tanganekald/Barkindji Aboriginal woman who has worked in various capacities over the years, primarily in education, but also as General Manager at the Old Adelaide Gaol − with many ghost stories to tell − and now enjoys the diversity of her role as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Employment and Development Consultant for UniSA, where she is integral in developing the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Employment Strategy.

UniSA is committed to increasing Aboriginal employment, by utilising talented staff such as Deanne, who are in touch with the complexities and needs of Aboriginal people.

“In my role, the reality is that there are significantly low numbers of Aboriginal people in employment, even within UniSA I am one of 1.3%.”

“I have a real challenge on my hands to reach the new national target of 3% as per Federal legislation, but I am on a mission to do so”.

Her current position incorporates cultural safety and awareness, strategies to increase employment, but also broadens to Aboriginal media and arts projects such as the Blue Wren video series, produced in conjunction with the University. As Consultant, she was also engaged in relation to the Acknowledgement of Country which will take pride and place inPridham Hall, anticipated to open early 2018.

“One of the concepts created to increase Aboriginal employment was an Aboriginal exemption, permitting applications for previously ‘internal only’ positions, encouraging access to a wider variety of jobs.

“Another being the ‘Mark your Identity’ campaign, increasing Aboriginal visibility on paper, assisting with targeting necessary initiatives and improving future programs and policies.

“However more work needs to be done to achieve success in employment application and interview processes. We want to implement a program which will allow the University to utilise the bank of people who have applied for different roles over the years, and create an annual day or series of ‘CV, interview and cover letter’ workshops, which will provide guidance on UniSA’s preferred application style.

“Whilst the Strategy has been successful thus far in creating significant change within UniSA, there is still room for improvement.”

Deanne has been working alongside Professor Peter Buckskin, Dean of Aboriginal Engagement and Strategic Projects on the proposed Yaitya Warpulai Tappa, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Employment Plan for 2017-2019.

While Deanne is modest about her professional achievements and would rather focus on the overall positive change she has helped create within UniSA, she has in fact brought about noticeable advances in relation to cultural education and awareness.

“Getting so many people through cultural safety training, I have seen attitudes shift, people are thinking before they say and do things.

“Seeing the university mature in that sense has been amazing. I feel really proud.

“When I came to the university, even Reconciliation Week was not recognised and we pulled together something for every single campus - it was amazing.”

Cultural awareness is a vital component of UniSA’s Reconciliation Action Plan, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Employment Strategy as abovementioned, and the overall ambition to be ‘university of choice’ for Aboriginal people.

Cultural safety training at UniSA is predominantly introduced via workshops that not only raise awareness, but begin the process of developing a working understanding of Aboriginal Australia. This enables participants to engage in genuine cross-cultural communication and to identify strategies for working together across cultures.

“I believe that as awareness and understanding of Aboriginal culture increases at UniSA, especially with regular cultural safety training in place, focus has been shifting to Aboriginal employment within the university.”

After recently attending a forum in Sydney for university employment officers Deanne feels both hopeful and hesitant about the proposed new target.

“Aboriginal people are 1.67% of the population in South Australia, so this target is challenging to say the least.

“With limited numbers to begin with, and academic education out of reach for many Aboriginal people when we are still struggling to get our young people through high school −in parity with non-Aboriginal Australians, we really need to have strong strategies in place to entice Aboriginal people to study, to then retain students and to make them feel supported throughout. This will create word of mouth that University is a feasible option, an enjoyable and worthwhile experience.”

UniSA and its antecedent institutions, have over four decades of increasing inclusion of Aboriginal students, by creating an environment where they can learn and grow, and one which respects and learns from Aboriginal wisdoms, highlighting their commitment to being the ‘university of choice’ for Aboriginal people.

UniSA is conscious of the factors, identified by Universities Australia, that contribute to Aboriginal students’ premature withdrawal, namely: financial pressures, insufficient academic support, as well as cultural or social alienation caused by the demands of study.

“This is important to UniSA that prides itself on overall Aboriginal engagement, which in turn benefits both Aboriginal people and their opportunities, their respective communities, as well as society in general, as we become more united Australia.

“As discussed in Dean Peter Buckskin’s article, this ripple effect of higher education within Aboriginal communities will in time impact health and general wellbeing, and ultimately increase mortality rates. This is a significant reach stemming from engagement with higher education – provided retention rates continue to improve” says Deanne.

“I’m optimistic about success in increasing Aboriginal employment and moving forward in general with Aboriginal engagement.”

Unlike Deanne’s experiences with ghosts at the Adelaide Gaol, Aboriginal visibility in employment is ever increasing, as is society’s understanding of the complexities of Aboriginal history and culture, thanks innovative thinkers such as Deanne.

*Throughout this article, the term “Aboriginal’ refers to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, collectively.

In May this year Kathryn Harby-Williams AM, South Australia’s most successful netball player, inaugural Thunderbirds and Australian captain, and netball hall of famer, embarked on her new role as Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Netball Players Association (ANPA).

As the first CEO of the ANPA, Kathryn believes in the power of pursuing your passions, working hard and a building a strong, supportive community within the netball world.

She has embodied this spirit with her significant service to netball as a player, national captain, coach, commentator, Netball Australia board member and player's advocate, for which she received a Member of the Order of Australia from the Queen earlier this year.

“It’s an honour to be recognised for doing something I love,” she says of the accolade.

Kathryn’s elite netball playing career as a fierce Goal Defence though, spanned 18 years. Including captaining the Adelaide Thunderbirds for seven years and leading them to two premierships, more than four years as Australian Captain, two Netball World Championship gold medals, two Commonwealth Games gold medals, being named Australian Netballer of the Year in 1995, and Australian International Player of the Year in 2001.

As a result she describes her eventual career in management as an evolution around her netball interests. But while Kathryn could not have envisaged the specific career outcomes she has achieved today, she attributes the journey to simply doing what she loves and being open to different opportunities.

“I have followed my passion, been open to learning and made the most of the opportunities available. I’ve enjoyed every role I’ve had, not one has felt like a chore,” she says.

“Pursue what you’re passionate about, rather than what is expected.”

Reflecting on her experiences at university, Kathryn acknowledges her time UniSA has informed the work she’s doing now and was grateful for her lecturers’ understanding of her demanding professional sports career.

“Some of the lecturers were really accommodating of me as an elite athlete, and I’m now working to give the athletes I represent the same opportunities during their study.”

Kathryn also credits the broad nature of her studies in giving an overview of all aspects of business in helping her career post playing professional netball.

“My current role entails an understanding of marketing, accounting and management which were the key elements of my degree.”

Kathryn later undertook her study at UniSA part-time while working as a Commercial Manager at the Adelaide Football Club and says her time at the club also guided her own management style.

“Bill Sanders, then CEO, created a culture of people willing to work hard but able to enjoy themselves, and this was very influential,” she says.

Following her playing career in Australia, Kathryn accepted a three-month contract playing in New Zealand. Only to leave eight years later.

Her time in New Zealand saw her working extensively in media as co-host on a popular weekly television show, ‘On Court’, a commentator at Sky Sport NZ, reporter at Sport 365 News NZ, and broadcaster Radio Sport NZ.

While she enjoyed her time in New Zealand, Kathryn wanted to raise her family in Australia and returned in 2013. Upon her return she joined the Board of Netball Australia as Director, which she held for four years, an achievement she is particularly proud of.

Presently, as the CEO of the Australian Netball Player’s Association, Kathryn ensures players continually have a voice that represents them.

Away from the court, she has always been a driving force in ensuring that Australia’s elite players received respect, fair treatment and conditions as the sport moved into an era of professionalism, so her current role was a natural transition.

Kathryn sees her priorities as CEO as supporting player’s wellbeing and education, with a particular eye on life after netball as she knows how difficult the transition can be.

“It’s important to have a seat at the table representing the playing group,” she says.

“When players move out of the sport it’s critical that we keep an eye on them and provide the structures necessary to look after them as well.

“I think it’s important to use your skills and background to help others.”

“I’m proud of having been able to make a difference as Director of Netball Australia and now, at ANPA, I’m able to help the sport move forward.”

As one of the few sports in Australia dominated by women, the ANPA work together with other members of the Australian Athletes’ Alliance, to set the best practice policies in place to support women in sport and hopes we can get to a point where equality doesn’t even have to be discussed anymore.

When asked to reflect on her time as a professional sportswoman, media commentator and leader in the field, she recalls a particularly priceless moment meeting Mohammad Ali while she was Australian Captain.

“I’ve met a lot of high profile athletes during my career, but he had ‘a glow’,” she recalls.

“I told my husband that I’d received a kiss from Mohammad Ali and I’d fallen in love with someone else!”

Kathryn does maintain though her proudest personal achievement is her family, and the three children she is raising with her husband, Cory.

She’s even taken up the role as Netball Director at her daughter’s school, passing on her love of the game to the next generation.

Nepal was probably not the most obvious destination when Becky-Jay Harrington graduated from UniSA, but after six years living and working on the “roof of the world”, the people and place have very much carved her a second home.

She could never have known it at the time, but it was accepting a position with the NT Treasury Department following her graduation from UniSA that set Becky-Jay on a path to the Himalayas.

While in Darwin, her interest in humanitarian work was initially piqued when she became involved in projects that supported Indigenous Australian communities.

“What really struck me was that growing up in Adelaide in the 80s and 90s, I never really had the opportunity to learn about Indigenous cultures and communities,” says Becky-Jay.

“The United National Human Development Index listed often lists Australia as one of the top three countries in terms of our quality of life. Aboriginal populations in Australia were ranked around 100th – a stark difference.

"This experience really showed me that not all things are equal and there is a lot more targeted support needed to help people reach their potential.”

Shortly after her posting ended in the NT, Becky-Jay moved to Victoria. She was working in the Department of Human Services’ State Emergency Management Centre after the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires swept through Victoria, devastating the countryside, destroying over 2000 properties and claiming 173 lives.

“This was really my entry into the disaster and emergency development sector, working on the bushfire planning and recovery and later working on the Royal Commission’s recommendations,” she says.

After two years in the service, and seeking to extend her knowledge of the growing disaster management sector, she successfully applied for an Australian Government aid volunteer role in Nepal.

“I spent a year supporting the Nepal Ministry of Home Affairs develop their National Emergency Operations Center,” she says.

“I also found that I had enough time to volunteer with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), which led to paid employment with the IFRC for three-and-a-half years working on community-based disaster risk management programs across Nepal.

“Nepal might be an economically poor country, but it’s a culturally and spiritually rich one – it is such an interesting place and over the last 10 years I have spent six living here.”

After proving her worth at the IFRC, Becky-Jay was transferred to Hanoi, Vietnam, as the Disaster Risk Reduction Programme Director for Vietnam for the Australian Red Cross. She was then posted to Fiji where she managed Recovery Operations for Tuvalu, Papua New Guinea, Kiribati and the Solomon Islands after Cyclone Pam tore through the region in 2015.

“This work can be extremely challenging, emotionally and physically, and it is important to look after yourself,” says Becky-Jay.

“You can’t take everything on because it can become overwhelming. If you’re trying to help an individual or a community and you take their grief and trauma on as your own then it is hard to keep working effectively for them.”

Studying yoga has given Becky-Jay the balance she says is required to cope with the intense stress and pressure of disaster and emergency work. When her contract in the Pacific region ended she returned to Nepal to continue her yoga training.

“Shortly after returning, the offer of a two-year contract with the British Red Cross, managing their largest international project – the Urban Resilience Programme, building disaster management skills with some of Nepal’s most disadvantaged communities - was too tempting an opportunity to pass up.

Becky-Jay led a team of 100 Red Cross workers and volunteers to deliver the program that is supporting vulnerable people - including older people, people living with disabilities, people who were homeless, and single-parent families – to develop resilience to the multiple natural and man-made threats they face.

“These communities tend to suffer more in the wake of a disaster as their needs are often overlooked. For example, many people who live in improvised dwellings along the riverbanks of Kathmandu are at risk each year from floods and the government doesn’t allocate resources to protect them or help them rebuild,” says Becky-Jay.

“As part of this programme we built up these groups by training 840 individual community champions so they could learn to mobilise their own networks and advocate to the local mayors for funding and resources for things like clean running water, riverbank reinforcement and support for rebuilding after a disaster.

“We also worked with seven municipality governments on how they can better engage with their communities and prepare for disasters, as well as training people from the vulnerable groups themselves in emergency preparedness skills like first-aid.”

When the contract ended Becky-Jay returned to further her yoga training and teaching in Nepal. She is also currently following her passion for providing a space for individuals of underrepresented genders working in the humanitarian and international development field to raise their voice with the Stories of Women in Aid blog that profiles the different experiences of underrepresented workers in the field, particularly cis women, trans-men and women, non-binary people and others.

She also continues to consult for local and international groups working in disaster management, including the Danish Red Cross.

“My business degree from UniSA has been very beneficial as it gave me the tools I need to manage and communicate with large and diverse teams, which has really been invaluable and a definite advantage in my field,” she says.

“A lot of graduates go into this work expecting a paid position immediately as they have a Masters in the field, and end up disappointed. In order to deepen my knowledge in the field I undertook a Masters in Community Development (Disaster Management), but I’ve found it is volunteering that has always been the best first step towards employment in the sector.

“We as humans so often disassociate ourselves from the experiences of others – the ‘it’s not happening here so it’s not our problem’ argument. Creating more empathy for people that we don’t know and being open to other people’s stories is really at the heart of humanitarian work – and about making better living situations for all of us.

“I can’t recommend this work enough. The opportunity to see life from another angle has been an incredible experience and privilege.”

For more information about the work of the Red Cross in Nepal click here and for more about Becky-Jay and her endeavours click here.

When Chad Hermsen applied for his first job at Woolworths (whilst still at school), he had no idea where it would take him. Nor perhaps, that he was already developing a love for the fast pace of the retail business environment. An early withdrawal from a marketing degree might seem like a false career start, but in reality it gave Chad the time to collect experiences and choose a path in which he would ultimately thrive. A path that would take him to his current role as Portfolio General Manager – Retail (Global Real Estate) for QIC.

“My career interests definitely started to develop at Woolworths, which prompted me to look for roles in sales,” says Chad.

Over the next seven years he built success in roles as a Business Development Manager (BDM) with Coca-Cola Amatil, Sales Executive at Austereo (Triple M), and BDM roles with Australian Central Credit Union and BankWest.

“In retrospect changing sectors was very important. I enjoyed learning the subtleties and differences between them. The challenge of discovering a new sector was as important to me as the results I could deliver.”

“I’ve been fortunate enough to work in many different fields from Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG), retail, media, banking and finance, and now retail property. I’ve always searched for new opportunities, and this is how I ended up in the shopping centre space.”

In 2007, with an idea and a one-way ticket to Dubai, Chad went hunting for an opportunity to develop his career even further. While this might seem incredibly risky, one of the most inspirational people in his life had given him some perspective. Chad’s Opa (Grandfather) lived in The Netherlands throughout the WWII Nazi occupation. Growing up listening to Opa’s stories of survival, moving to Australia with no English language and setting up a new life for his family, Chad began to understand the true meaning of resilience. And he has carried it throughout his career.

“Play the long game,” Chad advises, “keep working on a career path until you either find it doesn’t work, or another opportunity takes you in a different direction. It’s okay to change paths. If something fails, you can survive it. You realise it’s not quite as insurmountable as you first thought.”

Chad’s first offer in Dubai wasn’t the best fit so he approached a recruiter. “I asked them to find the most interesting role they could in sales and business development,” he says.

A great interview for a job that didn’t quite fit ended up being Chad’s lucky break when the employer created a new role for him. The role was Group Sales and Business Development Manager for Majid Al Futtaim (MAF) – Leisure & Entertainment. It was this career journey that highlighted the need for further study.

Chad explains, “When you’re moving between countries and sectors, having a qualification is important to support you as a candidate. And interestingly for expats, pay grades in the UAE depend on your education status.”

After graduating from UniSA in 2011, Chad moved to Melbourne. As Project Leasing Executive at Vicinity Centres, Chad was appointed to the two largest developments in the country at the time: the major $600M Chadstone development (2016), and the $1.2B Melbourne Emporium (2014). He then moved to Head of Leasing for the Pacific Group of Companies.

Here he managed leasing across the Group’s multiple retail and commercial assets, including the $400M Pacific Werribee development, and the recent Pacific Epping and Hoppers Crossing centres.

“In 2018, the Pacific Group of Companies sold a 50% share of their two key assets to QIC, along with management rights. As a part of the sale I accepted a new role to continue managing the Pacific Assets under QIC.

“It’s a fantastic role,” says Chad, “the best part of my job is seeing new retail concepts come to life. Retail is fast-paced. You have to anticipate what the next generation will need and want, while understanding your market and demographics. No day is boring!”

In this role Chad manages the overall leasing and strategy of a portfolio of shopping centre assets across the QIC group. He works with Leasing Executives from each centre to develop strategic relationships with key retail partners across the industry.

“Ultimately,” says Chad, “the team I lead focuses on new ways to improve the performance of the assets. We do this through new retail offers and optimum tenancy mix execution, to improve the traffic and sales performance throughout the centres.

“My MBA gave me so much in terms of business learning, new friendships and colleagues. These things matter when you are building a successful career,” says Chad.

“The world is changing rapidly and careers of today will be different tomorrow. Technology is evolving at a pace almost beyond imagination. Which makes it all the more important to choose qualifications that are versatile, portable and well-respected. The 5-star rated UniSA MBA, with its holistic approach to business and prominent position in the market, has offered all of that to me.”

Chad’s advice to students and recent graduates is straightforward.

“Sometimes it’s hard to see the next step in your career, but you need to grind it out. It can take years to see change. Experience is an advantage, remain consistent and continue to learn. Highs and lows are a part of it all, just stick to the process. And always be open and comfortable with change.”

Outside work, taking part in the UniSA Business Career Mentor Program for three years gave Chad great pride in seeing others succeed. He continues to guide aspiring business leaders informally.

“You need variety in life to provide perspective. Whether it’s your own family or connecting with your community. It helps you listen to and understand others. Another great skill I learnt from my Opa.

“I’m fortunate to have a wonderful family,” says Chad. “My wife and I are the proud parents of three amazing girls. They are who we live for and in guiding them we need to listen, understand, assess and change priorities, sometimes at lightspeed! Handy skills in any situation.”

When physiotherapist Lyndon Huf’s mother experienced a fall that resulted in ongoing discomfort and issues with her shoulder, an innovative new physiotherapy and professional sport concept was born.

Using his extensive experience in the physiotherapy and sport science spaces, Lyndon formed Prohab, combining a smart sensor that works in real-time with an app (compatible with your smartphones and tablets) that measures the amount of force the individual can produce. Making rehabilitation from injury or surgery safer, faster and more effective.

“While on holiday mum fell badly and tore a rotator cuff tendon in her shoulder,” says Lyndon. “My parents live in another state and the physiotherapy exercises she was provided were making things worse.”

“As a physiotherapist myself, mum asked me if I could help her out. I thought she was doing too much exercise but there was no easy way to measure this with existing resistance bands, so I created a prototype to measure the effectiveness of each exercise and make better decisions about her exercise dose.

“That’s how we came up with the Prohab concept, where people can use the device to measure exercise doses and confirm the best exercise regime tailored precisely to an individual.”

Now as the founder and CEO of Prohab, Lyndon’s days are focused on communication management and business strategy starting from 5am while he’s still fresh. Every day is varied across research and development (R&D), product development, user testing or flying interstate to demonstrate to AFL clubs.

After stints at the Wakefield Sports Medicine Clinic and Australian Institute of Sport as a Physiotherapist and Sports Scientist, in 2008 Lyndon made the move to the United Kingdom to take up the position of Lead Physiotherapist at the English Institute of Sport.

There he led a high-performance team to service Olympic athletes based upon data to deliver evidence-based medicine for the 2012 London Olympic Games, using innovative approaches to challenge existing methods with the latest technology creating a winning edge.

This experience was also pivotal in the development of Prohab and commercialising the concept which helps more people around the world achieve world-class healthcare, as the system has capabilities to support elite athletes to get an easy and clear picture of their performance and any weaknesses they need to focus on.

“My training at UniSA allowed me to spring board to work at the highest levels in the health sector including the Australian Institute of Sport and the English Institute of Sport,” says Lyndon.

“During this time, we used data capture and all sorts of innovations to solve problems for sport. I was drawn to the idea of leading my own team one day to solve problems for patients and athletes. I carried this thought with me throughout my journey and I was able to action this later in my career.

“I returned to Australia with a commercial mind-set which has led me into a new area of the health industry. Using this thinking I continue to learn from my peers, particularly through the Future Industries Accelerator.

It was with the help of the South Australian Government and the UniSA’s Future Industries Accelerator that Prohab really started to get off its feet and further refine the business.

“My relationship with UniSA has continued through engaging Professor Emily Hilder and the Future Industries Accelerator (FIA) to provide the research and development (R&D) capabilities that internally Prohab could not achieve itself.”

“They provided a low-risk process where we could partner with domain scientists to solve the challenges of developing our custom sensors. It has been a brilliant experience to partner with them.”

“The UniSA FIA relationship has been a brilliant experience for Prohab and we highlight that industry needs to be aware of the benefits to their business. I encourage industry to engage with them.”

Ultimately, Lyndon hopes Prohab will become a commonly used system to help more people meet their rehabilitation or training needs.

“It has taken two years to go from idea to commercial product and this experience trumps any work I have done in the highest levels of sport – it has been such an incredible learning experience,” he says.

“This is just the first steps in that direction. We plan to continue our partnership with UniSA to solve our ongoing R&D challenges. It has been a fantastic experience and I’m very grateful and proud of UniSA.

“I’d also like to help others thinking about a similar pathway and how I may be able to help them. I’m keen to ‘pass it forward’ for any researchers or industry who would like to hear more about and learn from our journey.”

Lyndon invites anyone interested in the project to reach out via www.prohab.ai.

Ken Ip has many talents. He’s an accomplished musician – playing guitar, bass drums, and even beatboxing a little – a skilled Muay Thai boxer, a Wing Chun expert and instructor, a published author and columnist. But this wunderkind’s marketing career is what has truly defied the odds.

With three degrees under his belt, all before the age of 30, including the University of South Australia’s 5-star MBA, Ken has ascended the Hong Kong business ranks at a remarkable pace.

The self-described storyteller became the Group Head of Marketing at the B.S.C. Group Limited, the construction and interior fittings supplier and lifestyle brand, in February of this year after holding high-powered positions in other design and architecture-focused firms as a young 30 something.

When asked about this meteoric rise, Ken remains humble and attributes it to luck, but it’s clear he has a shrewd business mind and knack for the marketing industry, knowing when to strike.

“I’m not advocating that someone goes around blindly taking on risky endeavours. But there is the common saying that goes: fortune often favours the brave. It has kind of been my mantra all these years.

“It is the knowledge of calculated risk that is essential to move up in the corporate ladder.

“Challenges and pressure come as you climb the corporate ladder. It’s just part of life. To me, when the tough gets going, I just go get tough.

“A lot of it would have to do with luck as well I would say,” he adds.

This tenacity and ambition was clear from a young age when Ken experience some less than favourable treatment throughout his time travelling the globe as a school-aged child.

“As an Asian kid growing up overseas I got picked on quite often. So my parents decided I should learn something as self-defence,” he says.

“Even still to this day, I would go play Muay Thai on a weekly basis, and often spar with pro and amateur fighters. I believe all these have keep me grounded and taught me to be respectful, to myself and others.”

Ken quickly found his niche in the understanding of human behaviour and social dynamics, and though he initially studied psychology, this foundation was instrumental in his development as a marketing and business doyen.

“I always felt I had a knack of reading and empathising with people, and hoped I could save the world,” he says.

“But as I got older, I realised that you needed to attain a certain kind of power and influence in order to start making a difference. Hence, I ventured into the world of business, marketing and communications.”

The B.S.C. Group’s goal is to ‘enrich human spaces’ and as a result has been instrumental in the construction in some of Hong Kong’s most impressive commercial, hospitality and residential properties, including the Landmark Mall, The Murray, The Rosewood Hotel Hong Kong, The Ritz-Carlton in Hong Kong and The Four Seasons in Macau, Shanghai and Hong Kong.

They have also recently moved into the styling space with the distinctive concept lifestyle store, COLOURLIVING, in the heart of Hong Kong spread across three levels and 2,000-square-metres “to bring you the latest handpicked collectible or must-have treasure, transforming spaces into distinctive homes”.

As part of Ken’s role as the Group Head of Marketing, he oversees the advertising, brand building, and creative strategy of these different departments which also encompass the RocaConcepts and B&B Italia furniture brands as well.

“I often tell people that I do two things, and two things only. I’m a storyteller. I tell stories, to connect brands with audience, and audience with brands,” he says.

“I sometimes think of it as being a celebrity agent. I help ensure my ‘clients’ are seen or being exposed in the right place, at the right time. Getting auditions for leading roles and opportunities to shine at the Oscars... so to speak.”

When thinking back to his time studying the MBA with UniSA and he recalls very fond memories and how the experience played a big part in shaping how he now interacts and comprehends the world.

“The MBA at UniSA was probably the best thing that happened to me,” he says.

“It made me into the person I am today. Surprisingly, it taught me more street smart in the business world than one would expect. It also helped me figure out what I want to do in my career, and for the rest of my life.

“I still to this day really value and appreciate the experience, support and friendships.”

Ken’s professional life and teachings in an industry that has shown him how to be more open-minded, less critical and more appreciative, recently culminated when he was lucky enough to be an honourable guest at the Digital Marketing Leaders Summit in Hong Kong.

“I recently had the chance to share the stage with my former boss at a Digital Marketing Summit,” he says.

“He was someone I really looked up to and learnt a lot from, and we are now peers within the industry.”

In such a short space of time, Ken Ip has truly come a long way, with not only his eye for design, but knack for marketing and the Hong Kong business industry.

According to the Global Water Partnership, Zambia has faced a number of challenges in regards to managing their water resources and this has resulted in inadequate supplies to meet the population’s needs and pollution risks.

This access to water is a basic human right which is often threatened when the resource is not properly managed. The issue, very pertinent in Alex L. Kabwe’s home country of Zambia, is why he has pursued a career in water management and the chance to make a real change.

Intent on pursuing this cause, Alex graduated from the University of South Australia this December with a Master of Environmental Science (Water Management) thanks to an Australian Award Scholarship.

Australia Awards Scholarships from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade provide opportunities for people from developing parts of the world to drive change and contribute to development in their own countries. Alex explains it was through opportunity he was able to study in Adelaide.

“The Australian Award Scholarship which enabled me to pursue Master of Environmental Science (Water Management) was timely, and it could not have come at a better time than this one, when the skills and knowledge in water management were urgently required in the Ministry of Agriculture in Zambia,” says Alex.

“The qualification from the University of South Australia was the reason for my promotion to the new position of Principal Irrigation Engineer in the Ministry of Agriculture, based at the national headquarters in Lusaka, the capital of Zambia.”

Despite being in the Sub-Saharan region of Africa – with a humid, subtropical climate – Zambia is described as a relatively arid landlocked country, and with the agricultural sector supporting livelihoods of 85% of the population, effectively regulating and conserving water resources is vital.

Access to safe and sustainable water, sanitation and hygiene reduces stunting, improves education quality and learning outcomes, and is essential for the community’s health and wellbeing.

With access to basic sanitation barely improving since 2000 (when it stood at 26%), and basic water coverage in Zambia in 2015 standing at just 61% (86% in urban areas and 44% in rural areas), time is critical in this developing area in the world.

Alex is passionate about providing safe sustainable water options to the Zambian population, especially considering the poorest and most vulnerable communities are usually the hardest hit.

A key way to combat this poor water resources management, and aid in the development of the country, is by investing in the agricultural sector. This is something Alex is particularly passionate about and has now dedicated his career to.

“Zambia’s rainfall pattern is from late November to late April. During the rainfall season, farmers cultivate crops that should be enough to sustain household food security and a surplus crop yield sold to supplement household income,” says Alex.

“But the potential to improve subsistence and rainfall dependency farming is significantly huge in Zambia as the country has productive soil for suitable for cropping and abundant sources of water –holding about 40% in the southern Africa sub-region.”

“The Government of Zambia is currently rolling out poverty reduction but sustainable projects through diversification programmes, and the Ministry of Agriculture is implementing programs through irrigation development.”

Alex is playing a key role in these irrigation schemes now being planned in Zambia and developed in the Southern Province, Central Province, and in the Copperbelt of the country.

Agriculture Minister Given Lubinda, is further stressing the importance of this step as farming is one of the main sectors that has contributed to the country’s development, commenting, “farmers need to be empowered to work efficiently with them and boost agriculture exports”.

With his new role as Principal Irrigation Engineer in Hydraulic Structures at the Ministry of Agriculture’s Technical Services Branch – and fresh out of his UniSA degree with all the skills and understanding this provides – Alex is incredibly positive about Zambia and his own future.

“With this knowledge and qualifications I have acquired, the sky is no longer the limit.”

Shaila Koshy’s love of information – the dissemination, analysis and presentation of the knowledge – has always been vital to her career path as a reporter. With almost three decades as a human rights investigative journalist under her belt, this love has served her well, tirelessly raising awareness on various human rights matters over the years, including the rights of indigenous people, migrants, women and children.

Shaila started at The Star, Malaysia’s premier tabloid-format newspaper and largest English masthead in the country, in 1989 three years after graduating from one of UniSA’s precursor institutions, South Australian Institute of Technology (SAIT).

At SAIT Shaila worked towards a Bachelor Degree in Applied Science in Property Resource Management in the Playford Building on North Terrace and Frome Road at the City West Campus that currently houses UniSA’s Health Science students. When asked how her degree led to her current career as a journalist, Shaila insists that it was actually the other way around.

With her parents contributing to her Australian education out of their hard-earned savings, Shaila compromised after her father expressed concerns about the working hours and tough conditions for reporters – in particular female reporters.

“I wanted to study journalism in 1983 but my father said no because he didn't think the work hours were suitable for a girl. His brother was a journalist and we hardly saw him,” she says.

“I knew of good journalists who didn't attend journalism school, and hoped I could do the same.

“So I went through the SATAC Guide and felt that the process of examining a property or researching a property development project before coming up with a report for the client sounded the same as working on a news story or feature.

“Both fields involved getting information, analysing it and presenting it. The only difference was the subject matter.”

This fighting spirit and urge to rise above such stereotypes carried her through her degree – and eventual career – explaining that she loved her three years at SAIT as she has put into practice most of what she learned in Adelaide.

“The Constitutional and Land Law subjects introduced me to Aboriginal land rights. It got me thinking about our own indigenous people and how government policy for their development often didn't take their culture into consideration,” she says.

“I remember several of my fellow students did not appreciate the Property Resource Analysis course but it helped me devise and analyse surveys of the newspaper's readers on several issues.”

When she returned home to Malaysia, the country was in a recession. So she took a job teaching English and then worked as a valuer for one year before she became a journalist for a national newspaper, thinking about ending up as a business reporter.

But soon Shaila found her niche and her passion took over during the 29 years at The Star as she focussed largely on human rights; legal aspect of issues, law-making, the criminal justice system in the civil and Syariah (Sharia) courts and the judiciary.

Throughout her time there, Shaila showed a talent for navigating the murky waters of Malaysian politics and was led by her strong moral compass.

“When I first started, I was told that several members of government didn't like to read about ‘human rights’, that they didn't apply to us because they were a western concept,” she says.

“So I would write about 'fundamental liberties' and 'constitutional guarantees' instead because very few Special Branch personnel checking the news reports would know what those words meant.

“It's just a question of justice. There are many marginalised groups who don't even know they have rights.”

It hasn’t always been smooth sailing though she explains.

“I understand the need for national security, but I do not appreciate the need for secrecy in government when there is no need for it. That was always fair game for me and I managed to get away with disclosing such ‘secrets’.”

“Only once was I interrogated by the police under the Official Secrets Act. They were more interested in getting the person who gave me the report than in the newspaper publishing the information.

“I refused and they went away.”

Her tireless work was rewarded in 2013 when the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) named her recipient of the Suhakam Human Rights Award 2013 in recognition of her reports on issues, including the Suhakam National Inquiry into the Land Rights of Indigenous People, detention of children, prisoner’s rights and the people’s rights on judicial review.

“It was an honour, but I am embarrassed by such things, so I told them that as far as I was concerned I was only writing about human rights violations and how the government and society need to address them,” she says.

“The ones who should be getting such awards were the human rights activists themselves. The chairman and his fellow commissioners laughed.”

Looking back on her career, Shaila cites many highlights including covering a Brisbane criminal trial involving the chief minister of a Malaysian state in the late 1990s and watching the famous Geoffrey Robertson QC in action, but is currently embarking on a freelance journalism career.

This is not an excuse to rest on her laurels though.

“The old Opposition is now the new government in power. It's time to watch them and be a thorn in their side,” she says.

“Maybe I'll register a business and call it ‘Like a Dog with a Bone’.”

In the few years since graduating, Royce Kurmelovs has added titles to his resume that include journalist, author and media advisor to Nick Xenophon. With the release of his latest book Rogue Nation exploring the return of Pauline Hanson and populism in Australia, Kurmelovs is also starting to be recognised as a keen social commentator.

While it has been a difficult route at times, on meeting Kurmelovs you can understand why he has been so successful. Ask him and he claims his success is one part audaciousness and two parts arrogance, however it is clear a sharp mind and passion for his craft are the unmistakeable catalysts.

“Someone on Twitter described journalism as ‘running over a series of burning bridges’ – you end up here but you’re never quite sure how you did it,” Royce jokes while lamenting the difficulties posed by being thrown into the world of freelance journalism straight out of university. You can sense a war within as he tries to define the joys and struggle of working in an industry disrupted by technology.

“I graduated into a flat job market,” he said. “The year before me there was one cadetship at the ABC that a friend of mine got, but there were something like 1000 applicants.” But then he adds, “I’m paid to hang out with people, learn stuff and then write about it. It doesn’t always pay very well but it is the best job in the world.” It is clear that he has found his calling.

Straight out of school Kurmelovs managed to get his foot in the door selling features to The Guardian, followed quickly by Al Jazeera and the BBC. He has since gone on to write for organisations as diverse as VICE, Adelaide Review and CNN.

A lucky break in the form of a KYD Copyright mentorship program with Gideon Haigh opened another door.

“This work with Gideon was integral because from that I produced a 14,000 word story about what would happen when the car industry closes.”

Titled Petrol, Sweat and Whiskey: What Killing the Car Industry Means for Adelaide’s Working Class North explored the closure of Holden’s manufacturing plants.

Shortly after writing the piece Kurmelovs attended the Salisbury Writers Festival where he attracted the attention of Sophie Hamley, non-fiction publisher at Hachette Australia Books.

“I didn’t want to go in and pitch but how often are you in a room with someone from the book industry? So if what I had written on the car industry might be turned into a book and she handed me her card which was really surprising. Then I had to go write the thing!”

The Death of Holden: The end of an Australian dream explores the end of car manufacturing in Australia.

“While it was centred on Holden it was really about deindustrialisation and what happens when you shut down this huge industrial process across two states, what happens to the workers and the people who depend on it. It’s brutal to be honest.”

A month after the book was published, Nick Xenophon helped launch it and offered Kurmelovs a job as a media advisor.

“Working for Nick was an education. It taught me what the other side of politics looks like, how it works and how everyone in politics is flawed but are really just trying to do their best.”

Within five months Kurmelovs was commissioned again by Hatchett Australia, this time to explore the return of Pauline Hanson and populism. He decided to gamble on himself once again.

Rogue Nation was released in November 2017. While the book places Pauline Hanson and One Nation at its centre, Kurmelovs explores a larger narrative about the events in Australian politics that set up her return to power.

“Pauline Hanson hasn’t changed. She’s exactly who she was in 1996 but the environment around her has changed.

“She’s back in parliament sure, but what does that mean? If you take the camera back a bit, zoom out and look at what’s happening across Australia, across parliament, you see a situation where minor parties and independents in every state and federal parliament hold power.

“You start to explore populism – what it means because basically all these independents are populists.

“It’s also tying in with what is going on in the world. There is a big divide between the ‘haves’ and the ‘haves nots’, which is growing. Everyone focuses on Trump as if he were the only possible outcome from a global populist revolt. But Trump is just the American version.

“Of course it’s also happening in Australia. We tend to think that somehow we’re immune to what’s happening in the rest of the world. We’re not."

On what inspired his passion for writing, Kurmelovs cites the sudden death of a family friend when he was 18 and the time he spent in America on a scholarship to work at Lonely Planet and the San Francisco Bay Guardian.

“A friend of mine summed it up perfectly. Americans have this amazing ability to package their story into a narrative. That’s their culture. You’ll talk with a construction worker and he’ll tell you these stories like he’s a poet.

“It’s not the same here. It’s the ‘my home is my castle’ thing – we stay home and we’re suspicious of outsiders. So part of my project in journalism is trying to coax out those Australian stories, the way they tell them in America. To structure Australian lives into a narrative so they can see that they belong to something bigger.

“The people I write about are always surprised to see their lives laid bare in a story because Australians tend to be unaware of the narrative going on around them and their part in it and how it makes them respond and react to things. Often they’re really surprised, sometimes they’re defensive.

“My next big project is another book, this one will be on Perth after the mining boom. I’ve already got a couple of ideas for two more after that.”

Visit Royce Kurmelov’s profile on Hachette Australia.

When Australia hit a recession shortly after Malcolm Lai graduated as an Architect in Perth, Western Australia, he decided to try his luck in Hong Kong. Now, almost 30 years later, he hasn’t looked back.

“At the time I anticipated that Asia would have great opportunities for my career development,” says Malcolm.

Mr Lai’s predictions proved correct and shortly after moving to Hong Kong he found work as an Architect. However, after a number of years at various firms in Hong Kong and Singapore, including Sherman Kung Architects, ONG&ONG and Leigh & Orange Architects, he found his enthusiasm waning.

“Whilst at Leigh & Orange I was the Project Architect for the School Improvement Programme for the Hong Kong government – a mass roll out of improvements and expansion works for a series of schools in Hong Kong,” he says.

“It was depressing work at some schools, given the size of the school grounds. One school had to chop down the only tree on the school courtyard to make way for an extension of a block of multi-storey classrooms.”

It was at this time that Malcolm chanced on an advertisement calling for a Project Manager with an architectural background for American International Group (AIG) Global Real Estate. They were planning a major refurbishment of their historic building on the famous Bund waterfront area in Shanghai. This was the building in which AIG was born back in 1919.

He jumped at the opportunity to extend his career in this new direction. Four interviews later Mr Lai won the job and was immediately posted to Shanghai in 1997.

“For six months I was stationed in Shanghai to oversee the refurbishment of AIG’s original, heritage listed, 90,000 square foot office building,” he says.

“There were some cash flow problems with the main contractor and AIG was intending to terminate the contract and re-tender, which would have meant substantial impact on time and cost. I managed to persuade the management team to stick with the main contractor and reorganised the payment schedule which relieved the contractor’s cash flow to enable the project to be completed on time.”

It was this hands-on approach that allowed the 17 Bund refurbishment to be finished on time. The experience also led Malcolm to a reinvigorated passion for the industry.

“At the peak of my time at AIG, I managed a team of 16 project managers at AIG Global Real Estate, overseeing the company’s assets and third party fund investments in Asia Pacific,” he says.

This work included 107 projects with a contract value of around USD$7billion and over 29 million square feet of built area during my 14 years working at AIG.

“During this time, I also chose to go back to University to undertake a Masters in Project Management,” he says.

“I chose UniSA as it had a comprehensive programme relevant to the real estate development industry that is highly competitive and was ideal for my career development.”

During his time at AIG, Mr Lai also developed a deep interest in green and sustainable building practices. He often speaks at conferences on the topic and many of the projects he has led have achieved gold sustainability ratings, including the AIG Tower in Hong Kong, the Sail@Marina Boulevard in Singapore, and the 5.7 million square foot Seoul IFC mixed-use development.

Planning for sustainable practices has also offered opportunities to ensure projects have been finished to the highest standard, even when issues arise or costs first appear exorbitant.

“For example, for the Nagasaki office project I managed to value engineer the project from the tender to the award of the contractor, saving AIG USD$2.98million and reducing the construction period to 11 months for a five storey 220,000 square foot construction,” he says.

“This was mainly achieved by replacing the all steel structure design to a composite concrete/steel structure design which was just as strong but cost less.”

Another challenging build was the Royce Residence – a luxury 512,000 square foot residential development in Thailand.

“Our site was around the corner from the ex-Prime Minister’s house, which was blocked and barricaded due to the political unrest at the time,” he says.

“We managed to complete the development on schedule and to budget in 2012, despite the riots and severe flooding that affected Bangkok during the construction by augmenting labour and resources to catch back the schedule.”

Mr Lai stayed with AIG until 2010 when Invesco Real Estate absorbed his business unit after the Global Financial Crisis affected AIG’s Asia investments.

“I stayed with Invesco until 2013 when I heard my old boss was putting the AIG band back together at Baring Private Equity Asia – and I’ve never looked back,” he says.

Baring recently closed a USD$1billion real estate opportunistic fund covering investments in the Asia Pacific region.

“I like to keep things low key until they are fully completed, but I can share that the company has some exciting projects coming up – including a cutting edge 36 storey office tower that has just broken ground in Manila, and a very cool high-end luxury residential project in Tokyo that will commence in mid-2019,” he says.

As for his own personal interests in his work, they come full circle to his time earlier in his career working with the school developments in Hong Kong.

“There is still much income and wealth disparity in the Asia Pacific region where our portfolio serves,” he says.

Through a corporate giving structure Mr Lai and his team focus on helping low socio-economic communities and NGOs – such as schools, orphanages and women shelters – to try to make some difference through charitable duties in the countries where the company holds investments.

“Each year we have an annual offsite day where we all dedicate a full day of charity work including repair and maintenance, painting, general construction works and also support through staff donations to the respective charities,” he says. “Sometimes we also get to help with practical things like preparing and distributing lunch to school children.”

“It is an important aspect of our work as we need to stay humble and well-grounded and give back to the communities that we have derived so much from in our industry.”

When he first developed the property inspection app Happy Inspector, entrepreneur Jindou Lee was not thinking of international success or relocation to the US – he just wanted to solve a problem in his everyday life.

As an investor, landlord and tenant in the Adelaide property market, he discovered a widespread issue with how properties were managed and inspected.

Realising that property management companies relied on an out-of-date, paper-based inspection and documentation process, Jindou searched for mobile platforms that could address the issue, but found none that offered a sufficient solution.

“I experienced first hand how the industry wasn’t using technology to solve some very basic problems, like documenting the condition of properties over time. All I wanted to do was solve my own challenges as an investor; that was the genesis of Happy Inspector,” says Jindou Lee.

In 2011, Jindou and his friend Andrew Mackenzie-Ross, a software developer, co-founded HappyCo in a tiny office in Adelaide’s Morphett Street, where they built the first version of Happy Inspector. The mobile inspection app, which provides users with a visual, digital record of properties including photographs, comments and inspection results, gained hundreds of clients in its first year.

“We never really started off wanting to run a tech company, so we’ve been very lucky along the way to be able to grow as much as we have. The early years of the company were full of massive successes and spectacular failures, but along the way we’ve been fortunate enough to convince some of the largest real estate brands in the world to trust our software to solve their challenges,” he says.

Within a year of launching HappyCo, Jindou and Andrew moved the business overseas to the tech capital of the world, Silicon Valley, to set up an office and participate in the 500 Startups incubation program through which they gained investors and fundraising.

Over the past five years, HappyCo has expanded its platform to offer clients a multitude of products alongside Happy Inspector, including Happy Manage, Happy Insights and Happy API, but one of Jindou’s proudest accomplishments is the Adelaide-based office they set up in 2014.

“Keeping a team in Adelaide is very important to me. Adelaide has a lot of very smart and promising people – our universities are some of the best in the world. However, there is a lack of great, dynamic and iconic South Australian companies for students to join after they graduate,” he says.

“People are forced to move interstate or overseas to find exciting opportunities and be challenged in their professional life. HappyCo are on a mission to change that. We want to provide a great workplace for people who are looking for a challenge and want to be part of a global company with lofty ambitions.

“In the long run, this will help improve the South Australian economy and create a stream of talented individuals who might go on to one day start their own companies and employ the next crop of local talent.”

While the technology industry has grown tremendously on a global scale, Jindou believes the tech scene in Adelaide is growing at a much slower rate than other major Australian cities. He is passionate about making HappyCo part of the solution to inspire creativity and further ignite opportunities for growth.

“There should be more success stories coming out of Adelaide. We need to focus on solving problems and adding value to the world – people can contribute and make a difference by working for a small company or starting their own companies. I hope we can all leave the world a better place than when we arrived,” he says.

“We are really starting to hit our stride in the business, so the future looks very exciting for HappyCo.

"The people aspect at the company really drives me to become better at my job; we have amazing people that go above and beyond what’s required in their work.

“My favourite achievement by far is seeing members of our team grow in their careers and become amazing professionals and we want to continue to find talented, passionate and hungry people that can help make our vision of ‘creating great places to live’ a reality.&rdquo

Poh Kait Lee’s career has taken him to great heights, with high-profile positions at Canon, Malaysia Airlines and Air Canada, after a fated night with former classmates over Bah Kut Teh (slow-cooked pork in herby soup) changed the course of his career forever.

PK (as he is known affectionately) explains that two years after he completed his tertiary education he bumped into old friends in his hometown of Klang in Malaysia, famous for its seafood and traditional delicacies, at a restaurant.

“That brief encounter with my ex-classmate was a game-changing moment for me because all of us decided to enrol into this MBA program. It wasn’t an easy decision though as the odds were up against me.”

“Firstly, I needed to fund the course on my own and at the time we were welcoming the newest addition to our family. Also, my job back then at Canon was very demanding with new roles and responsibility added onto my plate almost every month.

“However, after I had the opportunity to better understand the program, which was designed to suit executives like me, I was convinced.

"Most importantly though, I have a very understanding spouse that encourages me all the time. Hooi Leng Ng is not only my trusted wife, but a best friend, an advisor, and a great mother to our three children, so I soon learned how to cope with work and study-life stress and how to balance family life at the same time.”

Rapidly, he began climbing the corporate ladder at camera and electronic manufacturer, Canon, where he established himself as a valuable asset to the company with the knowledge and experience he had gained at UniSA.

A call from a head-hunter then pulled him out of the comfort zone that he had established in his 16-year tenure at Canon and into the aviation industry. Equipped with his experiential learning from UniSA, PK entered the aviation industry and lead Malaysia Airlines through one of its most difficult periods.

“I had a very promising future and career in Canon. Being a highly reputable company, Canon was a very profitable electronic giant and rewarded their employees well. But when I was told Malaysia Airlines were looking for leaders to turn the company around, to me it was a calling to serve the nation.

“In 2005, Malaysia Airlines was at the verge of bankruptcy and needed a transformational leader to drive structural changes in the airline. With my operations expertise, armed with an Australian education, I was extremely confident in adding value to this national icon of Malaysia.

“I’m a person who likes challenges and is inspired by self-actualisation, and I saw this as a great opportunity to test and to prove myself by accepting this risky decision to join Malaysia Airlines.”

After PK took the risk, he quickly made his way up the ranks becoming the Area Manager for Hong Kong, Macau and Shenzhen, displaying a natural talent for market analysis, revenue and management development and strategic partnership engagement.

Just three years later, he was promoted to Regional Senior Vice President (North Asia and North America) where he was responsible for overseeing operations across seven offices and dynamically led a team in achieving new heights.

PK was then appointed the Regional Senior Vice President (Australia, New Zealand and Southwest Pacific) position in 2013 overseeing one of the largest region and crucial markets for the company.

“Starting my aviation career with Malaysia Airlines without any airline experience was both challenging and crazy. But again, my education on Strategic Project Management at UniSA was put in effective use. At the same time though, I needed to unlearn all my technical skills and relearn another new set of airline skills.

“After turning around the North Asia and North America region in six months, I was posted to Sydney to lead the Oceania region. Australian flights were under attack from AirAsia X flying into Australia.

“Malaysia Airlines in Australia was on the right path until two major incidences put our focus on supporting the victims and their families as our top priority.”

In 2014 tragedy struck when two Malaysia Airline planes, MH17 and MH370, were involved in disastrous plane crashes.

PK played a key role in guiding the company through this period of turmoil and rebuilding confidence in the brand and Malaysia Airline’s perception.

“During the MH370 and MH17 incidents, I provided the much-needed leadership in crisis during the most difficult times for Malaysia Airlines,” he says.

“I also acted as the airline’s Emergency Operation Centre’s Chairman when the MH370 search was headquartered in Perth, working very closely with Embassies and Commissions, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Australian Federal Police and local governments in designing very delicate family reception plans in Perth.

“It was also imperative to provide local emotional support not just to the families, but also to employees tasked with family assistance roles.”

As a result of PK’s strong leadership and tenacity, he was promoted to Regional Head of Sales for Oceania and Southeast Asia, spearheading its needed corporate restructuring and leading all commercial activities in these markets.

These days, he heads Air Canada as Director of Asia and Pacific, where he hopes to contribute to the long-term profitability of the company, making Air Canada and Canada the preferred carrier and destination for both work and leisure.

After so many high pressure roles with a range of great expectations on his shoulders, how does PK relax and recharge?

“I enjoy listening to my favourite music when I’m resting or travelling. An ability to maintain a positive mind when faced with challenges keeps me moving forward. You need to surround yourself with like-minded friends,” he says.

“I also love driving long distances while enjoying the beautiful sceneries along the journey. Such a holiday is a good opportunity for me to engage with my family and at the same time enjoy the drive!”

PK also acknowledges that having a strong family base and support is key in his many successes.

“I travel extensively but I try to maintain a happy family. I have Hooi Leng to thank for her sacrifices and support allowing me to have my undivided commitment on my career. We communicate and consults each other all the time to set expectation and fulfilling them.

“I will be lying if I told you I have a work and family balance. In my role I’m always away from home, but when we are together we create and add value to our relationship.”

“When asked for his best advice for recent graduates and those hoping to reach similar career heights in business, PK explained that remaining open-minded and teachable are key.

“Be humble and learn from others, even from your junior colleagues. Asking questions is the quickest way to learn, but it has to be done with courtesy, especially if someone is older. Work as a team. You are as good as what the team can deliver.

“AQ (adaptability quotient) will ensure you consistently deliver and perform. Be sensitive to cultural and language differences. Expose yourselves to diversity; try understanding the rationale behind certain practices or beliefs.

“Identify your purpose in life. Once you anchor that it will be your main source of sustainable leadership energy. Frankly, without this leadership energy I would have given up long ago.”

Frontline Operations Supervisor Haydn McComas has led an adventurous life in law enforcement, from the Australian Army to the new national Australian Border Force and has always strived to expand his learning and embrace new opportunities throughout his career. Now the part-time lecturer and passionate volunteer firefighter plans to continue his education by pursuing a PhD at UniSA.

Shortly after joining the Army in 1985, Haydn was appointed to the Military Police where he quickly discovered a passion for policing and law enforcement, a career path he never envisioned before entering the Army. At the age of 23, Haydn left the military and joined the South Australia Police (SAPOL) and spent 14 years working in rural policing, traffic policing, general patrols and, eventually, in the field of intelligence analysis.

“One of the wonderful aspects of policing was the unpredictable nature of the work and the need to be able to not only manage a crisis or emergency but also bring some kind of order to complex and difficult situations,” says Haydn.

“I was also deeply touched by the humanity and tragedy of life that unfolds around us daily. In amongst such difficult circumstances I often observed ordinary people rise up to do incredible things.”

In 2002 Haydn saw an opportunity to join what was then the Australian Customs Service as a Manager in the Intelligence Branch. He moved into Learning and Development in 2006 to run recruit training for Customs, which introduced an entirely new career direction in adult learning. Haydn contributed to the design and delivery of leadership learning experiences for frontline supervisory leaders, and between 2010 and 2013 spent almost a year on and off living and working in Papua New Guinea designing and delivering recruit training courses.

“After almost 12 years in learning and development I felt it was time to return to operations and a position became available within the newly established Australian Border Force. It’s a complex and dynamic workplace; my role involves managing several different teams responsible for managing sea cargo, ship and other vessel movements into and out of South Australian based international ports.”

Haydn’s extensive tertiary education began as a Police First Class Constable within SAPOL, when his Senior Sergeant asked him whether he had completed any of the formal studies required for a promotion to the position of Senior Constable.

“I told him I hadn’t, to which he gruffly said, ‘if you don’t have a ticket you can’t get on the bus – and it’d be a damn pity if that bus just happened to come along.’ So, I studied an Advanced Diploma in Justice Admin at TAFE, which led me to a Bachelor of Social Science at UniSA.”

After completing his Bachelor degree and moving on to work in Customs, Haydn undertook further tertiary studies through a Graduate Certificate in Legal and Justice Studies at QUT, a Graduate Certificate in Public Sector Management at Macquarie University and a Graduate Diploma of Education at UniSA in 2014.

“I realized that throughout my academic journey, rather than work following learning, it was a case of learning following work. Law enforcement put me into new and interesting roles and each time I committed myself to diving in and undertaking study to do the best work I could. Each piece of learning has literally built upon the last.”

After finishing his Graduate Diploma and earning an impressive GPA, Haydn was encouraged by his UniSA lecturers to consider a Master of Education. His thesis explored learning for ethical leadership in a law enforcement environment, and this research journey took him to the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis and to Thailand and Singapore where he delivered learning experiences for the United Nations International Police Organisation (INTERPOL).

Alongside his professional career, Haydn is passionate about volunteering and was a volunteer leader with the Scouts for almost 20 years. Allowing younger volunteers to take his place within Scouts, he then moved to the SA Country Fire Service (CFS) where he has volunteered for past 6 years.

“Volunteering has been a constant thread throughout my life. As a young person, Scouting challenged me, allowed me to see what I could be and provided me with outstanding role models for what has become an adventurous life. As a volunteer leader I had the chance to positively influence other young people in the same way.

“As a Senior Firefighter with the CFS I have been privileged to serve as a crew leader in some quite challenging incidents. The greatest gift of volunteering with the CFS has been to serve alongside some truly authentic people whose sole motivation is to protect and serve their communities.

“I strongly encourage anyone, young people in particular, to consider volunteering. Organisations like the Scouts and the CFS offer experiences, learning pathways and formal qualifications that can help build careers.”

Haydn was recently appointed as an Adjunct Lecturer in education at UniSA, where he hopes to help shape and deliver expanded professional development experiences for adult learners. He also looks forward to conducting more consultancy work in the future, where he can deliver engaging and transformational learning experiences around ethical leadership for frontline leaders.

“I have also just been accepted into a PhD at UniSA; my project aims to further understand organisational culture and leadership learning pathways, and how these impact interpretations of what it means to be ethical amongst frontline leaders across the military and law enforcement regulatory spectrum.

“It’s important to always keep learning because the environment is constantly evolving. If you keep your professional development fresh, you keep your career fresh, and in doing so you continually pave the way to new opportunities for yourself.

“Embrace new and challenging experiences, even if they seem scary at first. I never thought I’d have what it takes to complete a Master of Education, but thanks to the commitment of my supervisors and my own perseverance, I got there—and now I can see my research making a real difference globally.”

A strong believer that ‘every little bit counts’ when tackling climate change and environmental issues, Master of Environmental Management and Sustainability graduate and Australian Awards scholarship recipient, Aishath (Aisha) Niyaz is on a mission to save the Maldives by raising awareness of environmental sustainability and inspiring other youth to find their voice.

Now working as a Sustainable Development Consultant for some of the most important humanitarian and developmental efforts in the area – including UNICEF, UNDP and Maldivian Red Crescent – Aisha says her time at UniSA further enhanced her knowledge and skills and boosted her confidence in advocating for sustainable development.

It was an opportunity that nurtured and bolstered her passion for sustainable development – a seed that had been planted from a young age growing up in the Maldives.

Environmentally conscious as a child, Aisha vividly remembers bringing her school bag home filled with food wrappers in an attempt to stop her friends from littering. However, it took joining a team of scientists from Australia and New Zealand conducting a study on the vulnerability of the Maldives to climate change to truly comprehend the scope of the issue.

“It was an invaluable experience which opened my eyes and helped me understand the fragile ecosystem of my home,” says Aisha.

This role as a Surveyor Trainee at the Environment Research Centre under the Ministry of Environment of Maldives, further ignited her passion for protecting the Earth.

“As an island nation of roughly 1,200 tiny coralline islands spread across the ocean, we are extremely dependent on imports for our survival. Climate change is very real to us, and over the past 15 years I have personally witnessed its negative impact,” she says.

“From increasing erosion of the islands, growing frequency and intensity of storm surges, droughts and flash flooding, to the prevalence of dengue and increasing prices of basic commodities – climate change threatens our very survival as a nation.”

When she returned home to the Maldives after completing her undergraduate degree from the University of Queensland, Aisha received offers to work with environmental consultancy firms, where a major part of the work was conducting Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs).

Advocating for environmental conservation and minimum harm in development projects, Aisha worked to convince clients to alter original project ideas that had the potential to cause irreversible environmental damage.

“My colleagues started calling me an activist and basically told me my job was to follow what the client wanted, which made me feel as if I was facilitating environmental destruction. So in 2010, I stopped doing EIAs and since then have worked as a freelance consultant, providing consultancy to UN agencies, tourist resorts, community-based organisations and government projects.”

Presently, Aisha is wrapping-up a Consultancy with UNICEF, Maldives. The role has involved creating awareness for community-based waste management in nine islands of the Laamu Atoll as part of the Low Emission Climate Resilient Development (LECReD) program, funded by the Government of Denmark.

On top of her independent consultancies working for organisations like UNICEF and volunteering work, Aisha created her own sustainable development consultancy firm ‘aishaniyaz consulting’ in 2016 to formalise her consultancy services and broaden the scale of making a positive difference.

She is also currently working on the final stages of publishing a children’s book on environmental consciousness with the hope of instilling love for the nature so that more children will grow up to become environmental stewards.

At the end of July the Maldivian Red Crescent (MRC) requested her to be part of the Steering Committee to advise in the development process of MRC's new Strategic Plan and has been closely involved with the process.

On reflection of her career, and balancing so many roles and responsibilities, she says there have been many invaluable lessons in her journey so far.

“Integrity is very important to me and I refuse to compromise on ethics and values. It can be very challenging and overwhelming at times when politicians and powerful corporations around the world destroy the environment for short-term political and financial gains,” she says.

“What stops me falling into despair is my faith and belief that ‘every little bit counts’ – one individual can make a difference with small, simple actions. Not littering, carrying reusable shopping bags and refusing to accept single-use plastics such as bags, straws, coffee-cups and water bottles can make a significant difference.”

Aisha believes global campaigns and movements for beating plastic pollution and climate change play a major role in enhancing environmental consciousness, enabling behaviour change and inspiring sustainable lifestyles, but she also stresses the importance of recognising ‘greenwashing’ amongst both small and large corporations and entities.

“For those aspiring to make a positive difference for humanity and the world, my advice is to always remember that change starts from within and to celebrate small wins. Self-care is very important, as is finding a balance between volunteering, paid work and time for family and friends,” she says.

“I also deeply believe in the concept of Gandhi – ‘be the change you want to see in the world’. History proves that people power should not be underestimated in bringing about significant change.”

A passion for turning scientific ideas into beneficial businesses prompted Dr Michelle Perugini to take the leap from medical researcher to artificial intelligence (AI) entrepreneur, and her latest venture combines both fields to improve the success rates of couples undergoing IVF.

After finishing her Bachelor of Medical and Pharmaceutical Biotechnology with First Class Honours in cancer research at UniSA, Dr Perugini fell in love with scientific research. Upon completing her PhD in Medicine, she went on to work at SA Pathology and the Centre for Cancer Biology, focusing specifically on Acute Myeloid Leukaemia and other blood disorders.

During her eleven successful years working in health and medical research, Dr Perugini developed a passion for entrepreneurship and loved the idea of building a product that could link the gap between research and the commercial sector.

“My husband worked as a research scientist for the Department of Defence, developing AI technology, and we were both experiencing a desire to translate our understanding of our disciplines into something useful to the real world. So in 2008 we decided to start our first commercial venture together,” Dr Perugini says.

“There was a whole range of commercial problems we could apply AI technology to, so we founded ISD Analytics and built a globally scalable product that worked to predict human behaviour in a range of industries such as health, education, energy and other government policy areas.

“We sold the product all around the world, and really enjoyed the experience and value that came from creating something scalable that could make a difference.”

After selling ISD Analytics to Ernst & Young in 2015, Dr Perugini and her husband Dr Don Perugini developed their second start-up company, Presagen. Working this time to develop an advanced AI platform for 1) human behaviour automation that uses unique defence technology, psychology and behavioural science to automate complex human-centric tasks, and 2) image-based medical diagnostics that analyses historical medical images to create accurate diagnostic tools.

A self-taught AI technologist, Dr Perugini realised the potential of the technology in improving fertility rates while she was mentoring PhD candidate Jonathan Hall.

“Jonathan came up with the concept around applying AI and computer vision technology to better select healthy embryos for implantation in IVF, and given my scientific background in stem cells and genetics, I was absolutely taken with the idea.

“I had trouble conceiving both of my children – I was actually booked in for IVF for my first child when I managed to fall pregnant with the help of hormonal treatment, so I experienced some of the torment of wanting to have children but not being able to.”

At the start of 2017, Dr Perugini, her husband and Dr Jonathan Hall co-founded Life Whisperer, an image analysis tool built upon Presagen’s AI platform that identifies the morphological features of healthy embryos often invisible to the human eye.

According to IVF Australia, the success rate of fresh embryo transfers resulting in live births in 2015 ranged from 8.8% to 37% depending on a patient’s age. Dr Perugini says the predictive power of Life Whisperer can significantly increase the chances of a successful pregnancy and improve current low success rates.

“A clinician makes a decision on which embryo to transfer to a patient based on a manual visual assessment through a microscope. This is a difficult choice as there are not many visible defining features that highlight which embryo is the best option.

“With Life Whisperer, the clinician can simply drag and drop images of the patients’ embryos onto the web-based tool which will apply our algorithm to assess and rank each embryo on the likelihood of success. It’s great because it’s non-invasive and provides the clinician with additional information and assurance.”

In June 2017, Dr Perugini partnered with Monash IVF, one of Australia’s largest IVF service providers, to leverage thousands of stored embryo images to conduct a retrospective study. Life Whisperer demonstrated its AI outperformed embryologists in identifying the most viable embryos among the medical images of almost 600 patient cycles.

It also performed over 30% more accurately than an embryologist when identifying which embryos resulted in a successful pregnancy, and was able to correctly classify embryos 148 times where the human experts were incorrect. In turn, the AI was incorrect only 54 times where the embryologist was correct.

Life Whisperer’s early achievements and exciting potential was recognised in September 2017 when it was announced winner of the ‘Best Idea – One to Watch’ category in the 2017 Talent Unleased Awards, judged by tech and business moguls Sir Richard Branson and Steve Wozniak.

Dr Perugini’s vision and passion for Life Whisperer was also recognised by InDaily in June 2018 who announced her a winner in their inaugural 40 Under 40 list, celebrating the achievements of South Australia’s leading business leaders under the age of 40.

Dr Perugini believes Life Whisperer’s technology will be a game changer for the IVF industry. Her focus this year is on finalising clinical trials and getting the product to market, and she is excited to improve the IVF journey for couples not only by increasing success rates but also by lowering the financial and emotional burden of the treatment.

“I know so many people who have gone through multiple IVF cycles that have failed, and it’s extremely difficult. There is always the expectation of success, but then four years and many cycles down the track they come to the realisation that they may never be able to have children, and it has such a profound impact on them.

“It’s such a wonderful thing to know that our skill sets and this technology can improve fertility rates and do something so socially valuable.”

You have probably heard of Dove’s Self-Esteem campaign to change our perception of beauty. The campaign’s fame is largely thanks to the Dove Evolution video that features a model who is primped and polished with makeup, photographed and then altered in photoshop.

What you may not know is that the video was the brainchild of award-winning creative director and UniSA graduate Tim Piper. On release it immediately went viral and won Tim and his employer at the time two Cannes Lion Grand Prix awards, the gold standard for media advertising.

We caught up with Tim recently while he was in Adelaide taking a break from his busy life in New York where he co-runs creative agency and production company Piro.

“I started my career in Adelaide with a graphic design collective that was set up with some fellow graduates, then I heard the local advertising industry produced commercials in Adelaide and I was hooked,” said Tim.

“I ended up at a small firm directing a commercial for RAA without realising that I was the director” he laughs. “We didn’t have a huge budget so we invested in a cinematographer (to shoot on 35mm film) and I would scribble thumbnail boards for each of the scenes, then discuss with the cinematographer how to tell the story. I didn’t know at the time that I was essentially acting as the director.”

Tim quickly made a name for himself, winning local awards for TV categories. Soon he had a portfolio of work that allowed him to establish himself as associate creative director in Toronto, Canada.

It was there he won the two Grand Prix Lions for Dove Evolution amongst other awards for various clients.

“After this big win I realised how frustrating the industry could be. Despite this ad doing so well I didn’t get the next stage of the creative work for Dove’s campaign.

“They gave the next film job to a top European director and we had to scramble enough money to put together our next pitch, Dove Onslaught - which they ended up using instead of the expensive European production.”

But after his experience on the campaign, Tim had started to explore a business model that he sensed could turn the traditional advertising method on its head.

“The concept we’ve been working on at Piro is about creating marketing that is as engaging as the shows people watch or pay to see.

“In one case the entertainment industry has paid a license to show the marketing content. Meaning our client is getting paid for their marketing (and not the other way around). This is quite possible and should be a goal of marketers, but the infrastructure or business model is not apparent to brands right now.

“It’s a disruptive model. But it has to be, as I’ve learnt that in the advertising and media buying industry there is little to no incentive for creativity to thrive.

“If we can get brands to spend money intelligently within entertainment infrastructure, then we can do something really exciting. Certainly more effective than traditional, interruptive advertising and more typical branded entertainment efforts.”

Tim’s approach is embedded in discovering the specific cause or value that brands can align themselves to. Then the creative team works with the brand to come up with a concept that is very different to the strategically placed Coke can in your favourite television series.

“What’s needed is really an entirely new industry - because the entertainment business is so different from the marketing and advertising business. They don’t talk the same language. With Piro I bring marketing and advertising experience and my partner Daniel Rosenberg brings his 20 plus years of experience producing film and TV so we can tackle this divide.”

Shortly after teaming up, Piro attracted the attention of Chipotle - a major fast food chain in the US.

“We were really lucky that Chipotle wanted to work with us. They’re all about ethical farming, sustainability and getting people to realise that fast food can be kind to animals, people and the environment.

“They’ve had a hard time with some of the big industrial farming organisations in the US. So we sat down with Chipotle and came up with a four part Hulu series called Farmed and Dangerous.

“It was a satire on the industrial food lobbyists. Chipotle invested their marketing budget in a creative team with an Oscar nominated screenwriter to help us develop the script and some great actors. It ended up becoming one of the most successful shows on Hulu.”

The show was supported with branded and non-branded content including a Huffington Post portal that became that sites most successful social impact section.

Shortly after the series aired, a study funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation found the show to be the most persuasive piece of social awareness entertainment released in the last few years. It was the show most likely to cause viewers to change their habits – beating several acclaimed activist documentaries, such as ‘Food Inc’, ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ and other social cause blockbusters.

Most importantly, Tim and Daniel proved their model works. The numbers were assessed both in-house and by an independent party, showing a conservative 800% return on investment. It was an incredible result for a fresh, bold approach.

Now Tim and the Piro team are working to engage more brands in this new take on branded entertainment. One that is straight-forward about the brand as a culturally relevant part of society.

“When people think negatively about branded entertainment I ask them to picture this scenario. Imagine a sports goods company says to a studio that they will help make their film, but only if they have a leading major star scream his love for their product over and over and that the product should also be a character in the film.

“That’s the most absurd thing you’ve ever heard right? Well, then picture Cast Away with Tom Hanks and his relationship with a Volleyball brand - Wilson, his only friend on the island.

“People assume that this type of marketing is expensive but it’s really not when you compare it to traditional marketing expenditure.

“Brands don’t have to make a creative endeavour worse, they can enhance it. Find something important to align the brand with and let creative people come up with something new and magical that’s able to deliver brand awareness that’s on strategy.”

For more information about Tim’s work visit www.wearepiro.com.

In amongst the precious treasure trove of over 2 million objects – a myriad of furniture, fashion, textiles, photography, sculpture, painting, jewellery, glass, ceramics – spanning over of 5,000 years of human creativity, Sarah Quantrill is busily working away preparing for her next display as an Exhibitions Manager at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

She is tending to a glistening gold satin evening dress, with silver thread embroidery and couched gold metal thread lined with silk organza, from Christian Dior’s H-Line Autumn-Winter 1954 Haute Couture collection. As one of Christian Dior’s most controversial silhouettes, the press engaged in the debate whether H-Line should stand for ‘Heavenly’ or ‘Horrid’ when it was first released.

The dress will soon take its place among hundreds of other stunning Christian Dior dresses, celebrating the designer’s history and influence, which will line the 166 year-old arts and design museum, named after Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in the London borough of Kensington & Chelsea.

“My current project is the exhibition Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams which will open in the Sainsbury Gallery at the V&A on 2 February 2019 and is based on the exhibition Christian Dior: Courturier du Rêve that was held at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris last year," she says.

“I saw Christian Dior: Courturier du Rêve in Paris and loved the exhibition for the incredible content and the execution of the set works, and I am looking forward to being part of the team to deliver the exhibition at the V&A – and to be working with such exquisite dresses!”

As the largest fashion exhibition the V&A has staged since Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty in 2015, the exhibition spans from 1947 until the present day, and will include perfume, accessories, photographs, film, sketches and hundreds of dresses – including Princess Margaret’s 21st gown – which will be keeping Sarah on her toes as Exhibition Manager well into the new year.

“On any given exhibition you may be working with a variety of internal and external stakeholders such as artists, conservators, fine art transport agents, text editors, exhibition 3D and 2D designers, sound engineers, lighting designers, costume and object mounters and exhibition set work contractors.”

“It is always an exciting role and each day brings something new.”

Making art was Sarah's original passion, and an important beginning to her early career. After studying drawing and painting at the North Adelaide School of Art Art (now TAFE’s Adelaide College of the Arts), she took a year out to work in the Tate Britain bookshop in London and there discovered museums were the environment she most wanted to contribute to.

However Sarah credits her time at the University of South Australia, studying a Bachelor of Visual Arts and majoring in Art History & Theory in the following years, as a major influence on her eventual career in museums, boasting an eclectic professional life that has taken her all over the world to travel for work.

“The degree enabled me to consider what options my career path might take and the teaching staff at UniSA were inspirational and incredibly supportive of students. They encouraged both experimentation and scholarly research,” she says.

“One of the highlights of my study at UniSA was a textiles field trip to the Flinders Ranges organised by Emeritus Professor Kay Lawrence and led by Dr Ruth Hadlow. We spent several days exploring the landscape and its histories, and using natural materials to create sculptures, installations, and natural textile dyes.

“It was a brilliant experience.”

Following UniSA, Sarah completed a Masters of Curatorship at Melbourne University and was then lucky enough to obtain a role at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) as a documentation officer progressing to various Registrarial roles in acquisitions, loans, and exhibitions.

After stints at NGV and Tate, Sarah has now been at the Victoria and Albert Museum for almost five years in the Exhibitions Department as an Exhibition Manager.

“I love working at the V&A, it is a vibrant and dynamic museum and I work with a highly skilled, professional and enthused team. I hope to continue working on exciting museum projects and exhibitions that engage the public and encourage new and young audiences to the arts,” she says.

As an advocate for museum and gallery spaces as places of independent academic knowledge and research, new ideas, and as places to protect objects and material of social, cultural, historic and religious significance, Sarah is not resting on her laurels when it comes to the representation and intersectionality of such cultural institutions.

She is a strong proponent of museums being a space of architectural wonder, a place for being curious and a place to engage in learning for everyone. This includes the elevation of talented women and minority groups in the industry, worthy of top roles and responsibilities, gaining more recognition in such a creative and culturally important space. Sarah notes that South Australia is leading the way in some respects.

“One thing that I would love to witness within my working career is a marked increase in women holding more senior management and leadership roles across the arts sector, and the recent appointment of Rhana Devenport to the role of Director at Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA) brings with it hope that this shift may happen sooner rather than later.”

Despite Sarah’s career taking her from Adelaide to Melbourne and now to London, and being fortunate to travel for work visiting cities in Russia, Canada, America and Europe to oversee the installation of exhibitions and loans, she still undeniably has a soft spot for Adelaide.

“I think that the future looks bright for Adelaide, with the recent phenomenal success of increased visitor numbers at AGSA with Nick Mitzevich as Director, the much loved Adelaide Festival continuing to grow, and Adelaide Contemporary, in whatever form it manifests, has the potential to continue to transform the North Terrace precinct,” she says.

“It is exciting to keep an eye on what Adelaide is up to from afar, and if there was ever an opportunity to work on exhibitions within one of Adelaide's cultural institutions, coming home to my beloved festival city would be a career dream come true!”

When a close friend of Nadine Rachid’s started studying law, it piqued her interest. Her friend would discuss what she was learning and how her perspective on life, her ideas and train of thoughts were growing and changing. These conversations reignited Nadine’s life-long dream of fighting for the needs of the less fortunate and inspired her to enrol in a laws degree at the University of South Australia.

“I liked the idea of advocating for the good of others,” she says. “I wanted to make a difference.”

And make a difference she has. Six years on from graduation, Nadine has shaped an impressive CV of humanitarian work.
Her first role was as a Case Worker for INTERSOS, an Italian humanitarian aid organisation, to support people in high risk environments.

“I began working with INTERSOS in 2014 in Lebanon. For two years I worked in a variety of roles, dealing directly with refugees who had faced child protection and gender based violence issues,” she says.

As a case manager Nadine was responsible for identifying and assessing children and adults at risk of abuse and violence. She also worked closely with Syrian refugee women, helping many access employment training.

“At INTERSOS I would also work closely with individuals, deliver prevention awareness and emotional support groups,” she says.

The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) supports INTERSOS’ work in the region. While at INTERSOS’ head office, Nadine would also act as the Relief Focal Point for the Protection Officer.

Her work impressed the UNHCR Protection Team so when two protection posts arose she jumped at the opportunity and was shortlisted for both positions.

“I had applied for previous UN vacancies and I was familiar with how difficult the application process could be – a one hour exam and a panel interview. But I also knew what my strengths and weaknesses were in terms of answering their questions.

“I remember having ‘all nighters’ where I would study for the exams. I kept telling myself that this time I was going to really impress them and would give them no choice but to choose me.”

Three weeks after her interviews Nadine was offered one of the posts.

“To my luck I was offered the post that I wanted most, which involved child protection,” she says.

Her joy and relief in landing the job was further more emphasised after experiencing a devastating personal tragedy, a mere few months before, making the role that much more poignant.

“Earlier that year, I experienced a stillbirth and lost my baby at six months. This experience led me to think more seriously about a career in child protection – where I could protect children and make a positive difference in their lives.

“I wanted to turn my sour experience into a step for change. I believe in the law of attraction, and I know that the universe responded to this inner pain mixed with my passion to help others by giving me that job.”

Nadine excelled in the two years she spent in her role as Senior Protection Assistant (Child Protection Focal Point) for the UNHCR in Lebanon, with many successful achievements in the protection of basic human rights for young people.

Nadine also played a key role in implementing the Street and Working Children Program with Makhzoumi Foundation. The Street and Working Children Program is designed to get these kids into a safe, educational and fun environment. It also works to teach these children about self-protection.

As a result of these efforts, part of the Lebanon operation that was awarded the UNHCR Global Team Award for Achievements in Gender Equality and recognised as a Child Protection Expert by the UNHCR Head Office.

“This work strengthened my values and gave me more confidence to advocate for the issues I feel strongly about. – When you work with UNHCR, it owns a piece of your heart forever,” Nadine says.

“The UN recruitment system is lengthy and competitive. It can be a deterrent for applicants who have already applied and were not initially successful. I personally applied on multiple occasions and was not successful, but I kept trying and pushed myself to work harder each time for the opportunity.

“The advice I would give to someone interested in fostering or furthering a global career is to never give up.”

This tenacity and dedication has served Nadine well – particularly upon her return to Adelaide where she quickly snapped up a role as Electorate Assistant for the state’s Minister for Education.

“Working with the Honorable John Gardner MP in the Morialta Electorate Office has kept me on the track of fulfilling my life’s purpose as he makes enormous efforts to assist any enquiries or issues his constituents have,” she says.

“As my local MP, John Gardner quickly recognized my skill set and experience and offered me the opportunity to work at his electorate office.

“I am now helping fellow Australians who need assistance in my local community, using the skill sets I developed helping refugees.”

Walking onto the grounds of the historic Adelaide Oval ushered in by an avalanche of screaming fans – a record-breaking 53,034 to be exact – was a dream come true for education graduate and Adelaide Crows defender, Marijana Rajcic, during March’s AFLW premiership game against Carlton.

More so, playing a key role in winning that game, in front of the fifth-largest crowd at Adelaide Oval in AFL history including both the men and women’s league, surrounded by her beloved team mates was certainly a special moment.

More so, playing a key role in winning that game, in front of the fifth-largest crowd at Adelaide Oval in AFL history including both the men and women’s league, surrounded by her beloved team mates was certainly a special moment.

“Playing in front of 53,000 people was a dream come true. To be out there on Adelaide Oval with that support – I get goosebumps every time I think about it.”

“I have always dreamed of being a professional athlete.”

Achieving such a pinnacle in professional sport didn’t just happen overnight, however, with the 30-year-old experiencing a fruitful career as a soccer player spending six seasons with Adelaide United in the W-League and as captain in 2015.

Rajcic then made the switch to Aussie Rules to join the local SANFL Norwood team and becoming a premiership player in the inaugural SANFL Women’s season where she was scouted for the national league.

Rajcic then made the switch to Aussie Rules to join the local SANFL Norwood team and becoming a premiership player in the inaugural SANFL Women’s season where she was scouted for the national league.

“My love of sport started off when I was a 9-year-old playing club basketball, with the dream of being an Opal one day,” she explains. “Then when I made the switch to soccer that dream just changed to becoming a Matilda.”

“Being a professional athlete and playing at the highest level possible, competing against the best, has always been my goal.”

While Rajcic was always sports mad and dreamed of playing on Australia’s most sacred and celebrated fields, she didn’t have a clear idea of which direction to take, but knew her love of sport transcended a traditionally unsustainable professional athletic career.

Searching for a path, she harked back to about how much she looked up to – not only professional athletes – but her physical education teachers and the impact they had on her at school and how they fostered her own love of sport throughout her life.

“I thought about my PE teachers and how much fun they had daily playing and teaching sport,” she says. “I loved how UniSA offered primary and middle teaching.”

“If I can have any sort of impact on these kids for the better and give them the tools required to be successful, I will be happy.”

“The next generation are going to shape what this world becomes.”

So started Rajcic’s journey to becoming a Health and Physical Education teacher, in which she is a powerful role model for her school students, and has expertly balanced with her professional playing career for almost eight years now.

“I have been doing relief teaching the last couple years, as it allows me that extra bit of freedom to choose to work or not,” she says.

“It’s been really good. It gives me flexibility to be able to juggle my professional athletic career, still having time to go to the gym after school, and prepare for training with the Crows.”

In addition to the personal fulfilment Rajcic’s career as a teacher has given her, she also credits her time at university for other lessons she still holds valuable in her life.

“You are constantly learning in all aspects of life. Studying education has definitely helped with many aspects of professional life too. Helpful skills like public speaking, media experience, and networking have all majorly benefitted.”

For now though, Rajcic is looking forward to heading overseas after a hard-earned successful footy season and then getting back to the AFLW Crows squad in pursuit of another premiership flag.

When asked about the highlight of being a part of the team, Rajcic is overwhelmed with praise for her fellow teammates.

“I probably can’t pick one thing, but I honestly love this team. We have something special amongst this playing group that is hard to even describe,” she explains.

“I think we just love training and spending time together, because we just have so much fun.”

“And we all just want to get better.”

Not only is Rajcic guiding her students to a promising future, but is looking forward to a bright one with the Crows, proving the talented AFLW team are athletes of their own mettle.

UniSA is a proud premier partner of the Adelaide Football Club AFL and AFLW teams. This partnership provides UniSA student placement opportunities, a platform for sport and health research collaborations and the opportunity for the University to engage with the community.

For more information about our partnership visit unisa.edu.au/crows.

The late Alice (Alitya) Rigney AO PSM DUniv was Australia's first female Aboriginal school principal and one of University of South Australia’s most distinguished graduates. She devoted her life to education, teaching more than 5000 Aboriginal students, and mentored and inspired many more.

Born at Point Pearce on the Yorke Peninsula, Rigney was an Elder and matriarch of the Kaurna and Narungga Aboriginal Nations of South Australia.

Dr Rigney was among the first cohort of Aboriginal teachers to graduate from the UniSA’s De Lissa Institute. She one of the first Aboriginal employees of the South Australian Education Department and the first female Aboriginal school principal in Australia.

She established the first urban Aboriginal school in Australia, the Kaurna Plains Primary School. Now there are 20 such schools in Australia modelled on Kaurna Plains. Before her ground breaking initiative, there were no urban Aboriginal schools in Australia that taught Aboriginal children in their own language and culture.

Her outstanding leadership and contribution to Aboriginal education has been recognised through several national awards.

The University of South Australia awarded her an Honorary Doctorate in 1998. She received a Public Service Medal in the 1991 Australia Day honours and a United Nations Association of Australia, South Australian Division award in 2013.

Post-teaching, Dr Rigney took on significant roles in the South Australia's Guardianship Board and Aboriginal Education, Training and Advisory Committee. She was Ambassador for the Commonwealth Department of Education, Science and Training's National Indigenous English Literacy and Numeracy Strategy. Throughout her life she continued her strong connection with UniSA. She was a regular visitor and an inspiring speaker and guest at the School of Education’s Reconciliation Week morning teas.

Alice Rigney passed away in May 2017. In June 2018 she was awarded an Order of Australia (Posthumous) for her outstanding contributions to education.

(Photo courtesy L Rigney 2007: Permission granted by Family to use image in public)

Genevieve and Jaime Sanchez

Genevieve Sanchez , Editorial Coordinator, LEGO (Billund, Denmark)

Graduate Diploma in Communications (Public Relations)

Jaime Sanchez , Element Designer, LEGO (Billund, Denmark)

Bachelor of Design (Product Innovation) 2013
Master of Design (Industrial Design)

June 2018

Dr Hayley Schultz

PhD Candidate, UniSA and CBNS

Bachelor of Pharmaceutical Science
Bachelor of Pharmaceutical and Medical Sciences (Honours) (First Class Honours)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Pharmaceutical Science – Oral Drug Delivery

June 2018

Sally Skewes

Co-Founder of Secure Nest
Clinical Psychologist, Private Practice

Master of Psychology (Clinical)

October 2018

Michael T. Smith

Regional CEO, Europe and USA, Mapletree Investments Pte Ltd

Bachelor of Business in Property and Real Estate

November 2018

Dr Ivana Stankov

Senior Research Scientist, Urban Health Collaborative, Drexel University

Maurice de Rohan International Scholarship recipient, 2015
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Social Epidemiology, 2016
Bachelor of Applied Science, Physiotherapy with Honours, 2009

April 2019

Howard Lawrence Sumner

Writer

Bachelor of Education (Junior Primary and Primary)

July 2018

Lisa Tomasetti

Film Stills and Fine Art Photographer

Bachelor of Visual Arts(Photography & Cinematography)
Bachelor of Communication Studies (Literary Studies, Art)

November 2018

Lizzi Wigmore

Marketing, Intrinsic
Founder, Cakelaide

Bachelor of Communications, Media and Culture

February 2018

Dalene Wray

Managing Director at OBE Organic Australia and Non-Executive Director, Council for Australian Arab Relations, at DFAT

Bachelor of Applied Science (Medical Radiations)

January 2019

Helena Wu

Team Leader New Development, Santos Ltd
At Large Director, Society of Petroleum Engineers International

WiMBA

March 2019

Dr Leo Yeung

Co-Founder, Cashmere Song Fashion Co Ltd
Founder, Maisson (Hong Kong) Commercial Property

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), International Business

May 2019

Annette Young

Journalist & Presenter, France 24 International News
Co-Founder & Host, The 51 Percent

Bachelor of Arts (Journalism)

November 2018

Egidio Zarrella

Clients and Innovation Partner and ASPAC Head of Banking and Capital Markets, KPMG

Bachelor of Accounting

July 2018