Two Charles Sturt University (CSU) researchers have been named ARC Future Fellows by the Federal Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, Senator Kim Carr.

 

The two researchers are Associate Professor Gary Luck, an ecologist at CSU at Albury-Wodonga and Professor Sharynne McLeod from the School of Teacher Education at CSU at Bathurst.  They each lead projects over five years worth $686,400 and were among 200 outstanding national and international mid-career researchers named in the first group of prestigious Future Fellows.

 

Associate Professor Luck’s Fellowship will facilitate his work on Integrating the conservation and ecosystem-service value of Australia’s Catchments. He is an ecologist with an interest in a broad range of topics including developing conservation strategies for native fauna in agricultural landscapes, examining the role of vertebrates in providing ecosystem services and understanding the importance of changes in population diversity to service provision.  He is also interested in biogeographic patterns in species assemblages and their relationships to human settlement patterns, and human impacts on biodiversity. He has studied or worked at five universities including a two–year postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University in California.

Professor McLeod was awarded the Fellowship to work on Speaking my language: International speech acquisition in Australia.  She has been named an American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) Diversity Champion for her work and contributions to people from culturally and linguistically diverse populations in speech-language acquisition. She will receive her ‘champion’ award at the 40^th Anniversary celebration of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Convention in the USA on 19 November. Professor McLeod will be also featured on a Wall of Fame display in the Ernest N Memorial Convention Center throughout the ASHA convention on its website.

 

CSU Vice-Chancellor Professor Ian Goulter congratulated Professor McLeod and Associate Professor Luck on their success.

 

“Associate Professor Luck and Professor McLeod have had distinguished research careers. The Future Fellowship awards add further recognition for their work,” said Professor Goulter.