Honours recognise service and leadership

UTS Vice-Chancellor Professor Andrew Parfitt congratulated members of the UTS community whose dedication to the public good had received well-deserved recognition.

“The latest round of honours again shows UTS, and universities more widely, at the vanguard of positive change in Australian society across a range of fields,” Professor Parfitt said. 

The members of the UTS community named in the honours list were:

Professor Robynne Quiggin AO

UTS Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Indigenous Leadership and Engagement) Professor Robynne Quiggin has been made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for “distinguished service to the law and human rights, to tertiary education, and to the Indigenous community through leadership and governance roles.”

A member of the Wiradjuri nation of central western NSW, Professor Quiggin is a solicitor, academic and public servant with a focus on legal, compliance and policy areas affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples.

“Robynne has dedicated her life to the human rights of Indigenous Australians, in particular, working to help secure and strengthen Indigenous Australians’ access to the law for the protection of culture, knowledge, and artistic expression,” Professor Parfitt said.

“She has also worked tirelessly to ensure Indigenous Australians are confident and informed consumers who have access to financial products such as banking services, insurance, and superannuation.

“She has a deep commitment to the principle of the universality of human rights, but she believes there are specific rights that belong to First Peoples that should be protected and recognised. 

“She has incorporated these principles into her work in law, finance, business, the environment, and the arts, and has educated and influenced people in government, the corporate and not-for-profit sectors, and in international human rights forums about these principles.

“This commitment is exemplified in her previous roles that have included Deputy Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner at the Australian Human Rights Commission, Chair of the Human Rights Law Centre, Chair of the Aboriginal Housing Office and Deputy Chair of the Bangarra Dance Theatre.

“Robynne has a long association with UTS dating back to the early 2000s when she was a part-time senior researcher at the Jumbunna Institute and a lecturer for the Faculty of Law's Indigenous legal subjects.

"Now as Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Indigenous Leadership and Engagement), Robynne leads initiatives at UTS that strengthen Indigenous leadership, advance Indigenous education and research, promote diversity in staffing and foster meaningful engagement with Indigenous and broader communities."

Professor Margaret Fry AM

Professor of Emergency and Critical Care in the UTS Faculty of Health Margaret Fry has been made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for “significant service to the nursing profession, and to tertiary education.”

Dean of the Faculty of Health Professor Debra Anderson said Professor Fry was a nationally and internationally recognised researcher, clinician, supervisor and teacher.

“Margaret was appointed to a newly created professorial position in 2015 which was a joint appointment between the Northern Sydney Local Health District and UTS,” Professor Anderson said. 

“She has an extensive track record in implementing and enabling changes in policy and practice throughout New South Wales and other jurisdictions, attracting significant research grant funding, in fields including advanced nursing practice, extended nursing roles, pain management and new models of care.

“The focus of her applied research, with more than 200 peer-reviewed publications, is on improving the quality and safety of nursing care and patient outcomes.

“Margaret is an authorised Nurse Practitioner and her theoretical knowledge extends to the development and implementation of nurse practitioner models of service. 

“As such she is viewed as a clinical leader with the NSW Emergency Care Institute and the Ministry of Health Nursing and Midwifery Office and is the Senior Editor of the Australasian Emergency Care Journal.

“She has also been instrumental in the development and delivery of a researcher education program, which is highly acclaimed throughout the industry and attended by multidisciplinary teams, demonstrating the level of respect garnered by the program over the years it has been running.”

Professor Andrew Mowbray AM

Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLII) Professor Andrew Mowbray has been made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM), recognising his “significant service to the law, particularly his contribution to public access to legal information, and to tertiary education.”

Professor Mowbray co-founded AustLII with UNSW Professor Graham Greenleaf in 1995 with the goal of providing the Australian public with free online access to essential legal information necessary for the rule of law and democracy to function effectively. 

They were joined shortly after by Philip Chung who was a lecturer in the UTS Faculty of Law from 1997 to 2012. Professor Chung, now AustLII Executive Director and Professor of Law at Macquarie University, was also awarded an AM on Australia Day with the same citation as Professor Mowbray.

AustLII, which celebrates its 30^th anniversary this year, is a global leader in the provision of free access to legal information. The website, hosted by UTS, provides a comprehensive and integrated national collection of legal information, receiving more than 800,000 page accesses, or “hits” per day.

Professor Mowbray, whose background is both in law and computer science, is the author of much of the systems-level software behind AustLII. In 2014, he was awarded the NSW Law and Justice Foundation’s Justice Medal for his 25-year commitment to making legal information available online.

Also associated with the UTS Faculty of Law is the Honourable Justice Ann Ainslie-Wallace, who was made a Member of the Order of Australia on 26 January for “significant service to the judiciary and the law, to legal advocacy education, and to professional associations.”

Currently Acting Justice, Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory, and Acting Judge, District Court of New South Wales, Justice Ainslie-Wallace is an Adjunct Professor of Law (Advocacy) at UTS and has been a volunteer mentor since 2005. She was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Laws by the university in 2018.

Professor Stuart White AM 

The Director of UTS’s Institute for Sustainable Futures (ISF) Professor Stuart White has been made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for “significant service to environmental research, to corporate sustainability, and to tertiary education.”

Professor White leads a team of researchers who create change towards sustainable futures through independent, project-based research, innovation and advocacy. 

ISF projects he has led include a review of container deposit legislation in NSW (which supported its introduction in 2017) and the Sydney Metropolitan Water Plan Review during the Millennium Drought. 

He also has advanced the development of distributed energy resources as a key contributor to the energy transition through his work on the successful bid for the RACE for 2030 cooperative research centre and his personal initiative as one of Australia’s first household applications of vehicle-to-grid charging.

UTS Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor Kate McGrath said Professor White had long record of exemplary work “in areas of vital importance to the ability of our planet to sustain us.” 

“Stuart is a role model for other academics in the way he brings transdisciplinary teams together to tackle the world’s most complex problems and in working at the highest levels with government, organisations, businesses and communities,” Professor McGrath said. 

“It has been the mission of Stuart and the ISF over more than 25 years to have a positive and practical impact on our future through science-based solutions and capability building, and through his broader leadership of coalitions for change.”

Emeritus Professor Tony Moon OAM

A former dean of the UTS Faculty of Science who has continued to serve the university in a number of administrative and representative roles, Emeritus Professor Tony Moon has been awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for service to tertiary education.

“Professor Tony Moon has contributed to the development of UTS, and through it the Australian higher education sector, as a much-valued member of the academic staff and then senior leader, in a career spanning more than 45 years,” Professor Parfitt said.

“His service to UTS has gone significantly beyond that required, even into retirement. He was among those who took UTS from a technical college to a university and went on to contribute to UTS’s progress to an internationalised university. 

“In particular Tony’s nurturing of the university sector’s – and Australia’s – relationship with Thailand over many years has been outstanding. 

“This ranges from his pastoral care for Thai students who come to Australia, through to nurturing research engagements with Thai universities, contributing to the development of Thai universities, and regularly taking part in Austrade delegations. This unofficial role as an education ambassador was recognised in Thailand with a number of awards from HRH the Crown Prince.

“A physicist by training, after stepping down as Dean of the Faculty of Science Tony became Dean of UTS’s Graduate School, where, again, he was among those driving UTS’s progress as a university, now through the education of higher degree research students.

“He also has been Chair of the UTS Academic Board and, in that role, an ex-officio member of the UTS Council, the university’s governing body.”