PROFESSOR Ian Ritchie, Senior Lecturer Dr Parisa Bahri and Senior Lecturer Christopher Kendall are the inaugural winners of the Vice Chancellor’s Excellence in Research Awards, which were introduced in Murdoch’s 2001 graduation ceremonies.

The awards were created by the Research and Development Board to recognise outstanding contributions to research at Murdoch in the same way the Teaching Excellence Awards honour top-class teaching. There are two awards, one which recognises long-term, outstanding research and one which recognises outstanding performance by an early career researcher.

Professor Ritchie won the Distinguished Research Award for his long period of sustained high-quality research; his supervision of postgraduate students and nurturing them into careers; a superb publications record; and his outstanding ability to attract research funding.

Professor Ian Ritchie had a wide range of research interests but his major focus was the AJ Parker Cooperative Research Centre in Hydrometallurgy which he headed from 1992 to 2000, Vice Chancellor Steven Schwartz said.

“Under his stewardship, the Centre secured funding worth a total of $29 million and grew in size and research strength to the point where it is now the leading hydrometallurgy centre in the world. The esteem in which Professor Ritchie is held is reflected by the prestigious national and international awards he has won. These include the President’s Award from the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, the RG Becher Medal from the Royal Australian Chemical Institute and WA Citizen of the Year.”

Senior lecturers Christopher Kendall and Parisa Bahri won the Early Career Researcher award which is given for reaching a research level in terms of publications, grant funding and student supervision well ahead of what would be expected at this stage of the academic’s career.

Christopher Kendall joined the School of Law in 1995 and has consistently held one of the highest publication profiles in the School. His outstanding publication record has earned him a strong international reputation and raised the profile of the School of Law and Murdoch University considerably. His work has focused primarily on the equality-based harms of pornography, human rights-based issues and lesbian and gay law reform. His research has been used by the Canadian Attorney General as expert evidence before the Canadian Supreme Court in a case to argue that gay male pornography equals sex discrimination and inequality.

Dr Bahri joined the School of Engineering in 1997 and has achieved a level of research far above the norm, winning eight ARC and university grants totalling over $400,000. She is an expert in the application of software technology to chemical and mining plants, whose work includes contract research for Alcoa and the Kwinana Nickel refinery. She has supervised numerous undergraduates, PhD candidates and post-doctoral fellows and has undertaken collaborative research with a wide variety of academic and industry bodies, in Australia and overseas.