AMSA Allen Award for Outstanding Student
Annual Conference Student Prizes
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2018 AMSA Awards Winners!!
AMSA Jubilee Award 2018
First awarded in AMSA's Silver Jubilee Year (1988) our professional award recognises excellence in marine research and is presented to a scientist who has made an outstanding contribution to marine research in Australia.
Professor David Bellwood
Distinguished Professor of Marine Biology
College of Science and Engineering
ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University
Distinguished Professor David Bellwood is the world’s foremost expert on the evolution and functional ecology of coral reef fishes. He received his PhD from James Cook University and is currently a Distinguished Professor of Marine Biology in the College of Science and Engineering and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University. Bellwood’s pioneering work on coral reef ecosystem function has firmly established him as the preeminent researcher in this expanding research field, not just in Australia, but globally. His findings have revolutionized our understanding of the evolution of coral reefs, the global ecology of reef systems, and their capacity to withstand human impacts. He has contributed a host of now standard methodologies to the field including fish capture and swimming performance assessment techniques and has defined novel functional groups with his work linking feeding morphology to functional roles of coral reef fishes. His work spans paleontology, molecular biology, and social-ecological systems. It would not be an understatement to suggest that Distinguished Professor Bellwood has led the charge in working out how coral reef ecosystems function and what we have to do to maintain them.
AMSA Allen Award 2018
The Allen Award is to support an outstanding postgraduate student to attend the AMSA Annual conference with the aim of providing the student with the opportunity to gain experience and contacts. By attending the conference, the student will serve an important role as an ambassador for Australian marine science.
Ms Francesca Gigi
PhD Candidate
University of Wollongong
Francesca Gissi is a PhD student in her final year at te University of Wollongong. Francesca is studing the effects of metals on scleractiniran corals, which are keystone species forming vital structural habitats that support other biota. The paper "Alterations in the coral microbiome following exposure to metals", which she will present at the AMSA 2018 Conference describes a study that investigated the effects of dissolved nickel and copper on the coral Acropora muricate.