Alumni Updates

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!

My PhD research brought together my background in engineering with my environmental studies to trial a novel device for restoring environmental flows in streams affected by farm dams. The device was designed with no moving parts and using gravity rather than requiring pumping or siphoning, to minimise maintenance requirements for landholders.

My original device was recently tested and found that it is still functioning as designed after 18 years in the field.

In 2010 my thesis was awarded the John Lewis Medal from the Royal Geographical Society of South Australia for ‘significant theoretical or empirical contribution to geography (including environmental studies)’. My research was jointly funded by the SA Government and has formed the basis of a multi-million dollar program across the Eastern Mount Lofty Ranges where 143 of these devices have since been installed.

I’m currently working with the Department for Environment and Water as a Senior Project Officer on various water infrastructure projects, having worked a few stints as a lecturer and various different project and policy roles.

 

 

 

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.

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…

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’….

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