AnnRpt2000. book

 
Review of 2000
 
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cises in Hindi, Vietnamese, Arabic, Urdu, Thai, Lao,
Korean and Russian on the World Wide Web.
•
In March, ANU announced that it would name one
of its scholarships after the late CSIRO Chief Executive,
Dr Malcolm McIntosh. The most meritorious recipient
in the physical sciences of a Graduate School Scholarship
will be known as the Malcolm McIntosh Scholar. The
first will be announced in 2001. Announcing the naming
of the scholarship, the Vice Chancellor said it would mark
the contribution that Dr McIntosh had made to science
— both in Australia and internationally.
•
In October Dr Brian Schmidt, of Mount Stromlo
Observatory, was announced as the winner of the
$35,000 Malcolm McIntosh Prize for Achievement in the
Physical Sciences. The Prize was announced as part of the
inaugural Prime Minister’s Science Prize.
•
Six degree conferring ceremonies were held during
the year (in April and September), but one special cere-
mony stood out in terms of the interest it generated. At
that ceremony, in September, the University awarded an
honorary Doctor of Laws degree to former South African
President Nelson Mandela for his outstanding contribu-
tion to society. Mr Mandela was greeted by crowds of well
wishers as he arrived at the University and he received sev-
eral standing ovations during the ceremony, which was
attended by Members of Parliament, the diplomatic com-
munity, the ACT community and members of the Uni-
versity’s staff and students.
•
At the April conferring ceremonies, 1059 students
graduated. In September 796 graduated in two ceremo-
nies. The graduates included Australia’s first indigenous
epidemiologists and six female forestry students — 75 per
cent of the graduates in a traditionally male dominated
field.
•
In March, 70 students accepted ANU scholarships in
a breakfast ceremony in Canberra. A total of 27 National
Undergraduate Scholarships were awarded to high achiev-
ing school leavers from around Australia. Ten of these
scholarships went to students from schools and colleges in
the ACT. Seven Regional scholarships went to students
from area including the South Coast, Southern High-
lands, Yass/Goulburn, Wollongong, Western Slopes and
Plains, South West NSW and Victoria. Six international
scholarships were also announced
•
Mr Quang Nguyen won the $60,000 Robert Gordon
Menzies Scholarship to Harvard, that is sponsored by the
Harvard Club of Australia, the Sir Robert Menzies
Memorial Foundation and ANU.
•
Professor Allan Snyder, Director of the Centre for the
Mind (a joint venture of ANU and the University of Syd-
ney) was named as one of the 13 pre eminent Australian
scientists of the 20th Century in May. Professor Snyder
holds the Peter Karmel Chair of Science and the Mind, is
Professor of Visual Science and Optical Physics and heads
the Optical Science Centre in the Research School of
Physical Sciences and Engineering.
•
The ANU Golden Key Chapter, the smallest in the
Asia Pacific Region, became the most honoured chapter
in August when it won two more awards. In six years, the
Chapter has registered close to 1,500 members who
undertake voluntary tutoring programs and are involved
in community organisations. Golden Key is an interna-
tional honour society open to students who place in the
top 15 per cent of their course. It encourages them to do
voluntary work on campus and in the community.
•
Students from the Department of Commerce in the
Faculty of Economics and Commerce won both of the
inaugural the Dean of Students’ Awards. The two awards,
each worth $250 for an undergraduate and a postgradu-
ate student, were given for outstanding contributions to
university life, volunteer work and community service.
The Undergraduate award went to Eliza Foo Yin Ying,
while Theo Psychogios won the Postgraduate award.
•
Six ANU students won new $4,000 scholarships
sponsored by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
The winners were Lucy Rees and Gen Nowak who are
combining statistics with biology; Michael O'Neill who
was among the first intake into ANU's new combined
course of Actuarial Studies and Law; Gi-Han Kwon and
Mark Staunton, both doing Actuarial Studies; and Kath-
erine Fewell who is completing a combined course in
Economics and Science.
•
An ANU-designed Bunyip Beowolf-style supercom-
puter won the prestigious international Gordon Bell Prize
for the best price and performance measured in the dollar
cost of the computer against its processing speed. The
award was made at the Supercomputing 2000 Conference
at Dallas, Texas in November. Designed and programmed
by Department of Computer Science in the Faculty of
Engineering and Information Technology and the Com-
puter Sciences laboratory in the Research School of Infor-
mation Sciences and Engineering, Bunyip consists of a
cluster of relatively low cost computers connected to per-
form parallel tasks.
•
In August, the Governor General, Sir William Deane,
presented the ANU Library with its two-millionth book
in both print and virtual form. The two-millionth book is
regarded as a substantial milestone in the history of a Uni-
versity and the Library celebrated the occasion with a
number of events. The ANU Library is probably one of
the first libraries in the world to celebrate the two-mil-
lionth “book” with a mixture of print and virtual items.
The Library’s two-millionth acquisition is an attractive
Australian botanical book by Robert Sweet, a 19th Cen-
tury horticulturist. Entitled Flora Australasica; or a selec-
tion of handsome or curious plants, natives of New
Holland, and the South Sea Islands, the book was pub-
lished in London by James Ridgway in 1827–28.
•
Professor Alex Zelinski of the Research School of
Information Science and Engineering won the Business
Higher Education Round Table Award for leading the
Vision-based human–machine interaction project.
•
Professor Brian Anderson, Director of the Research
School of Information Sciences and Engineering was

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