Green spent a decade as director of the Molonglo Telescope in NSW and eventually returned to the University of Sydney as head of the School of Physics and became the first woman to hold the post. She has been honored with a Companion to the Order of Australia, in part for her mentoring of women.
“I’m always amazed at people’s ingenuity and creativity,” he said. “I have tried to encourage young astronomers and young scientists, especially young women, when they are given the opportunity not to slow down. Accept the challenge.”
Muriel Kathleen Picton
Muriel Picton, a pioneer in women’s cricket, received it this year. Credit: Dean Sewell
Muriel Picton does not believe in receiving a member of the Order of Australia (AM). The pioneer of women’s cricket would tell you that she doesn’t deserve it even though she played in Australia between 1952 and 1970, including seven years as captain.
“It makes me a little embarrassed; I just wasn’t expecting anything like that, “Picton said.
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Picton, who also represented Australia in hockey between 1959 and 1962, is being recognized for advocating for women’s sport at a time when it was completely self-funded and considered a “hobby” rather than a career for women.
“Of course, it was all voluntary: no money was given to women’s cricket,” Picton said.
Picton is quick to praise the women who preceded her and made it possible for her to play.
“There were some in front of us that we admired, like Mollie Dive and Margaret Peden,” Picton said.
Despite her humble protest, Picton will receive her honor for an important service to cricket as a player, manager and coach.
Dr. Anita Heiss
The author, Dr. Anita Heiss, is being recognized at the Queen’s Birthday Honors Awards for her services to Indigenous Tertiary Studies and the Arts. Credit: Janie Barrett
The first of her family to go to university, Dr. Anita Heiss has become a leader in advocating for Australian Indigenous literature and literacy. When she was notified that she was receiving a member of the Order of Australia (AM), Heiss had to read the email twice and said she was shocked and humiliated.
“I jumped online to see the story and what had been awarded to other First Nations people and I thought,‘ Wow, I’m up there with all these fabulous people I know and admire, ’” he said.
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Author of 19 books, Heiss fell in love with reading only while completing his doctorate. “I started reading volumes and volumes of works by Aboriginal authors and was inspired to write in reaction to everything on the university shelves about Aboriginal people,” he said.
Being the first Aboriginal person to graduate with a PhD from the University of Western Sydney is one of Heiss’s proudest achievements. But she is also proud of her success in art and community projects.
“My proudest achievement in art is creating a space in Australian publications as a First Nations commercial fiction writer and telling our truth in the history of Australia and our excellence in the contemporary world.” , he says.
Carolyn Stedman
Carolyn Stedman, along with her husband David, have cared for 74 foster children over the age of 46. Credit: Edwina Pickles
Carolyn Stedman “falls in love” every time she and her husband David open the front door of their home in north Sydney to a new foster child.
The couple has taken in 74 children, most of them newborns, in temporary foster care for those over 46 years of age. It began in 1976, when Carolyn, then a mother of two (she would have six), heard an urgent call for caregivers on the radio. After convincing her husband, the couple embarked on a training course and have not looked back.
His work has been recognized with a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM).
The couple often picks up children in the neonatal intensive care unit because they are affected by their parents’ symptoms of ice withdrawal or heroin addiction.
“We need to love and nurture them and provide them with a safe place,” he says.
The inevitable farewell of the foster children, which occurs at any time between two weeks and two and a half years, is not easier.
“Some [departures] they’re very tough, “he says.” I’ve never really gotten over it. “
Despite being in her 70s, Carolyn will not give up any time soon.
“I believe that when you have a gift from God, God expects you to use it until you can.”
Dra. Patricia Margaret Selkirk
Dr. Patricia Margaret Selkirk, a plant biologist and ecologist, at her home in Turramurra. Credit: Dean Sewell
In a career spanning six decades and more than a dozen expeditions to Antarctica, the work of Dr. Patricia Selkirk has been instrumental in our understanding of the effects of climate change on the coldest, driest continent in the world.
The pioneer plant biologist and ecologist was the first woman to spend a summer at Casey Station in 1982/83 and also spent significant time researching the rare subantarctic ecologies of Macquarie Island.
She says the field has changed for the better as she was one of the few women working in Antarctica.
“People are selected to participate in expeditions based on their experience, rather than whether they are men or women.”
The winner of the Order of Australia (AC) Company says she never set out to be a pioneer, and it was a curiosity about biology, encouraged by her scientific family, that attracted her to the Antarctica, a place that “can tell us a lot about what’s happening in this changing world.”
An expert on mosses and liverworts that have benefited from the rapid removal of ice from the Antarctic continent, Dr. Selkirk hopes her AC will draw attention to the effects of climate change on a still relatively unknown continent.
Phyllis Murphy
Phyllis Murphy receives an honor from the Queen’s birthday for her heritage work in Melbourne. Credit: Joe Armao
Phyllis Murphy said being “very tall” meant that she was not easily intimidated by men when she was one of only two women in her architecture class in 1949.
Perhaps it is the same resilience that drove her to become an important figure in the world of Australian architecture, for which she is honored for her important service and heritage conservation in becoming a member of the Order of Australia (AM).
“I appreciate it a lot and I was amazed,” the 98-year-old said of her honor. “I think that’s something to be very grateful for.”
Murphy, along with her husband and two other architects, was in charge of the 1956 Melbourne Olympic swimming pool, which at the time was a “new idea in construction”. He continued to work for the National Trust, restoring many of Melbourne’s heritage buildings, including Collingwood Town Hall and La Trobe’s Cottage.
Murphy’s imprint on the architectural world of Australia can be seen in many of the buildings around Melbourne, and yet he argues that he really has no legacy.
“As time goes on, only the most remarkable people are remembered,” Murphy said.
Murphy’s impact on architecture in Australia, especially in Melbourne, will not be forgotten.
Gina Fairfax
Gina Fairfax, photographed with her husband Tim, is recognized in this year’s Queen’s Birthday Honors. Credit: Tammy Law
Gina Fairfax suspects people will be surprised that she has been recognized for her service to philanthropy, rural Australia and the arts. But no one is more surprised than she is.
He is awarded the highest honor, a Companion (AC) to the General Division of the Order of Australia, for his service to the community in leadership and charitable functions “as an advocate of philanthropy, the administration of arts and regional development “.
Speaking from Brisbane, Fairfax says the guiding principle of his work has been to make sure rural areas are not lost and “do not have what the people of the city have,” especially access to community arts. regionals.
“Everyone is coming out [art organisations]and it is wonderful to know how grateful you are [regional populations] they are all. ”
A philanthropist through her family’s organization, the Tim Fairfax Family Foundation, Fairfax is known for her “quiet and smart advocacy” for regional issues, especially for supporting remote indigenous communities.
“It is a great honor to receive the award,” he said, “especially on this year of the Queen’s Jubilee. It is an honor I am delighted to receive and I am very grateful for the award.”
Professor Cheryl Dissanayake
Professor Cheryl Dissanayake, founding director and inaugural president of the Olga Tennison Autism Research Center at Latrobe University. Credit: Jason South
Cheryl Dissanayake’s first encounter with autism was in the 1979 film Son-Rise, about a child recovering “completely” from severe autism.
Since then, she has become a world-class subject matter expert and mentor to a new generation of researchers with lived experience of developmental condition also known as Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). His work has been recognized with a member of the Order of Australia (AM).
When Dissanayake began his doctorate in 1984, autism was believed to be just an acute condition, and research focused primarily on child intervention. Now, he says, ASD is understood as a series of conditions that are different in each person.
Focusing only on acute cases meant that many people, especially women, missed a diagnosis. Although fewer women with ASD are diagnosed than men, women with autism experience are reporting the next generation of research in this field.
As founding director of the Olga Tennison Autism Research Center, Dissanayake says it is a privilege to monitor and learn from current PhD candidates with autism. They are all women.
“They’re the experts, aren’t they? They live in their own bodies,” he says. “Learning from them to be autistic is …