Award Winners
The Advance Award winners are global Australians and alumni of Australian universities who exhibit remarkable talent, exceptional vision and ambition, our Game Changers.

Dr Abigail Allwood
Dr Abigail Allwood is at the cutting-edge of space exploration. She is one of only seven principal investigators developing innovative instruments to accompany the Mars 2020 Rover expedition. Not only is she the first Australian, but also the first woman scientific lead on a Mars mission.

Tim Kentley Klay
Tim Kentley Klay is a creative and technical entrepreneur. He describes himself as a painter, designer, animator, film-maker, trouble-maker and thinker.
Meet the 2020 Advance Award winners

Dr Bart Kolodziejczyk
Dr Bart Kolodziejczykis a nanoscientist and inventor intent on busting his brilliance out of the lab and into the world of commercialisation. Bart is addressing health, energy and climate change issues by innovating new technologies.

Christopher Doyle
Christopher Doyle is an award-winning cinematographer. Works like Chungking Express and In the Mood for Love have been met with international critical acclaim, and have found a firm footing in Chinese cinema and international cinema in the West.

Jennifer Nason
Jennifer Nason is considered one of Australia’s most successful global business leaders and one of the most senior and influential women on Wall Street. She attributes her career trajectory to a willingness to live outside her comfort zone, a love of constant learning and calculated risk.

Professor Jill Banfield
A mineralogist-turned-microbiologist, Jillian Banfield has made outstanding contributions to our understanding of the structure, function and diversity of microbial communities in natural environments and the human body.

Dr John McHutchison AO
Professor Dr McHutchison AO has played a central and critical role in developing the curative treatments for Hepatitis C Virus (HCV). To develop this treatment is a remarkable accomplishment destined to improve the health of many millions of people.

Nicholas Wyman
For the past 25 years, Nicholas Wyman has sought novel ways to connect youth with the jobs of the future. Nicholas believes the ‘learn by doing’ approach has much to offer in a new world order straddling the faultlines of a ‘skills mismatch’.

Olivia Humphrey
A visionary who democratised access to educational content, Olivia Humphrey founded a new channel for streaming films to members of academic and public libraries, in turn forging a new model to monetise and distribute independent films.

Premesh Chandran
As an important proponent of free speech in Malaysia and a disruptor of the media landscape, Premesh Chandran creates space for voices against corruption and government abuses.

Dr Rossa Chiu
Dr Rossa Chiu is a professor in the department of chemical pathology and Associate Dean for Development at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Determined to tackle the cancer epidemic, she and her colleagues have been developing blood tests with the goal to identify cancers early, thereby reducing cancer-related deaths.

Sophie Blackall
An Australian icon in the world of Children’s Books, Sophie Blackall creates places to escape to during stormy times, and return from wiser, calmer and changed. Needless to say, her work is relevant to children and adults alike in modern times.

Dr Susan Graham
Dr Susan Graham leads a team of passionate engineers, plant scientists and drone operators to tackle global scale deforestation. As the Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Dendra Systems, Susan uses a combination of data analytics, AI and drones to restore natural ecosystems, enabling large scale management and restoration.
Previous Advance Award winners

Adam Gilmour

Adeeba Kamarulzaman

Aihua Wang

Alexandra Readhead

Alexie Seller

Dr Alison Thompson OAM

Andrew Harper

Andrew Tanner

Angelica Cheung

Angelica Mesiti

Barry Bourne

Professor Barry Marshall
In 2005 Barry J. Marshall and J. Robin Warren were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in recognition of their 1982 discovery that a bacterium, Helicobacter pylori, causes one of the most common and important diseases of mankind: peptic ulcer disease.

Baz Luhrmann

Betty Who

Brett Solomon
Brett Solomon is co-founder and Executive Director of Access, a new global movement for digital freedom with offices in New York, Brussels, Santiago and Tunis. Called ‘the most important site on the internet’ by Esquire magazine, over the last three years Access has run more than 20 international campaigns using policy campaigning and technology to protect vulnerable populations around the world.

Brook Andrew

Cameron Hepburn

Professor Carolyn McGregor AM

Chris Behrenbruch

Christopher Boshuizen

Craig Barratt
A global industry leader in wireless technology and communications, and Senior Vice President and GM at Intel, and Chair of NASDAQ-listed Intuitive Surgical

Dalene Wray

Dana Cordell

Daria Rippingale

David Droga

David Fidock

David Putrino
David is the Director Of Rehabilitation Innovation at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, a Coach at the Entrepreneurship Lab (ELabNYC) Bio & Health Techand the “Chief Mad Scientist” at Not Impossible Labs. He is a physical therapist with a PhD in Neuroscience and worked as a clinician in Australia, before moving to the United States to study computational neuroscience at Harvard Medical School, MIT and NYU.

David Sinclair
David Sinclair, Ph.D. is a Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and Founding Director of the Paul F. Glenn Center for the Biological Mechanisms of Aging at Harvard. He is also a Conjoint Professor at the University of New South Wales, Honorary Professor, University of Sydney, and Co-Chief Editor of the journal Aging.

David Thompson

Derek Buckmaster

Distinguished Professor Genevieve Bell AO FTSE

Professor Fiona Wood AM

Geoffrey Garrett

Geraldine Buckingham

Greg Norman

Hugh Evans

Hugh Whalan

Jackie Yun

James Gorman

Jane Sloane

Jason Day

Jeni Klugman

Jeremy Balkin

Jeremy Heimans

Jianhua Zhao

John Mattick AO

John Polson

Justin O'Shea

Karen Day

Karyl Nairn

Kate Glazebrook

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw

Dr Laode M Syarif

Lauren Jackson

Leanne Kemp

Lihua Tong

Lynette Wallworth

Michelle Garnaut AO

Michelle Grant

Mike Cannon-Brookes

Milton Catelin

Nasima Rahmani

Natalie Jeremijenko

Neima Candy

Pete Ceglinski

Peter Carberry

Peter Hall

Peter Le Lievre

Peter Liddicoat

Peter Rothschild

Prue Clarke

Rebecca Mann

Renae Beaumont

Richard Fuller

Richard Pestell

Rodney Brooks

Rosemary Morrow

Russell Howard

Saul Griffith

Scott Farquhar

Sekai Holland

Siobhan Reddy

Sir Jonathan Mills

Sotheary Ly

Dr Susan David

Tan Le

Thomas Oxley

Vikram Mehta
