Alumni Updates

Michael Dello-Lacovo – Space scientist

2014 AusIMM/Playford Trust Honours Scholar

I received the AusIMM/Playford Trust Scholarship for my Honours degree in geophysics in 2014 for the thesis topic ‘heat flow and geothermal energy in South Australia’.

After completing that degree, I stayed in the geophysics industry and worked for an Australian energy company for several years as a geophysicist.

In 2016, I began a PhD in space science at the University of New South Wales, where I am looking at the feasibility of using geophysical techniques to map the surface and interior of asteroids and other planetary bodies such as the Moon and Mars.

In particular, I have been testing seismic techniques using Lunar and Mars soil simulants that have been manufactured using Earth materials to make them as similar to their respective environments as possible.

I spent 2017 interning in Los Angeles at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory – a partnership between NASA and the California Institute of Technology – where I was able to use their lab equipment to further my research and perform new experiments. For example, I used a vacuum chamber to recreate the atmospheric environment on Mars and examine the effect of atmospheric pressure on seismic data collection.

I finished my PhD in 2022 and am now working as a Strategy Lead & Researcher at the Sentience Institute, a think tank working on moral circle expansion.

I briefly served as the CEO of Effective Altruism Australia, an organisation which makes grants to highly effective international development organisations. I have also run as a candidate for the Animal Justice Party in several elections since 2019.

 

More Alumni Updates

Bradley Kirk – Material scientist in sustainable energy

2018 Playford Trust Honours Scholarship / 2020 Playford Trust PhD scholarship
Bradley is a material scientist who currently specialises in the development of organic and inorganic-based semiconductors specifically geared towards energy production.

Susan Lee – Environmental pioneer

2006 Playford Trust PhD Environmental Scholarship
I was the first student to receive a Playford Trust Environment Scholarship in 2006. Studies in the environment tend to include a lot of fieldwork and trips away from civilisation, so the scholarship really helped me with these costs!

Lucas (Tuan) Tran – Energy Engineer

2021 Playford Trust/Cooper Energy Petroleum Engineering Scholarship
In 2017, I came to Australia as an international student from Vietnam to pursue a world-class education in Petroleum Engineering at the University of Adelaide. After finishing my Honours degree, I began my PhD project…

Robert Trott – Exoskeleton and physiological measurement

2017 Playford Trust PhD Scholarship
Robbie is now working as a Research Fellow at the Australian Industrial Transformation Institute (AITI) – a national leader in industry and workplace innovation research – and he’s based at Flinders University.

Bec Pedler – R&D technician, Clean Seas Seafood

2019 Playford Trust Regional Science & Engineering Scholarship
Marine mollusc extracts represent an almost entirely unexploited source of broad-spectrum antivirals against human viruses. My Honours project involved assessing the hemolymph (blood fluid) from the Greenlip abalone and Pacific oyster for antiviral activity against Human Coronavirus…

Alexander Makarowsky – Maths modelling and energy

2018 Codan/Playford Trust Engineering Scholarship
The year after winning his scholarship, Alex joined the company that sponsored him – Codan/Minelab Electronics. There he used mathematical modelling to optimise the geometry of metal detector coils.

Joe Kupke – Man of the trees

2018 Playford Trust/TAFE SA Award
At the time Joe received his Playford Trust Award, he was employing just two staff in his arborist business, Adelaide Hills Tree Services. Now there are 10 on the team…

Phiala Shanahan – Professor of Physics at MIT

2011 Scantech/Playford Trust scholarship
In 2020, respected Science News magazine named Phiala one of its Top 10 elite young scientists ‘pushing the boundaries of scientific enquiry’. All of those honoured…

Georgina Duguid – Structural design engineer

2018 Playford Trust Honours Scholarship
Having completed my Bachelor of Civil Engineering at Flinders University in 2018, I am working as a structural design engineer with Mineral Technologies/Downer EDI – the company…

SHARE YOUR STORY

We love to hear from our alumni and to share their news. To let us know where your studies have taken you, email an update and a picture to admin@playfordtrust.com.au