To be eligible for the Rita and John Cornforth Medal for Research Excellence in 2026 nominees must:
Don’t be afraid to choose a research problem that’s difficult, especially if solving it could have a significant impact.
Dr Daniel Balzer is a multi-award-winning researcher from the School of Chemistry. His PhD research focused on the understanding of how charge and energy move in disordered materials. His work solved a major open problem in his field that had remained unsolved for decades. He applied the innovative theoretical techniques he developed to organic semiconductors, and the insights drawn from this work will be key to the next generation of solar energy.
During his time as an undergraduate at the University of Sydney, he was awarded the University Medal. His PhD research earned him a series of awards including the Postgraduate Research Prize for Outstanding Academic Achievement, the Prize for Outstanding PhD Thesis, the Paulette Isabel Jones Career Award, the Le Fèvre Lectureship, the Westpac Future Leaders Scholarship, and the Science Centenary Fund Scholarship.
Daniel’s work has been published in six Nature-Index journals and praised by Professor Jenny Nelson of Imperial College London as being “of considerable value to the wider research community."
Daniel pioneers creative solutions to tackle the world’s energy crisis. He is passionate about STEM education and communication, and helping students find joy in problem solving.
I'm currently working as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Sydney with Ivan Kassal, where I’m developing my PhD research into open-source software to make advanced modelling tools accessible to the wider scientific community. I’m also working with international collaborators to apply this work to the current state of the art organic solar cell to better understand why it performs so well, and how we could design even better ones. Looking ahead, I’m excited by opportunities that will allow me to continue contributing to research, STEM education, and the global transition to clean and renewable energy.
Juan Pablo Molina Ortiz is a research scientist at the CSIRO. He undertook the majority of his PhD research in computational biology at the Charles Perkins Centre, using metabolic modelling to study complex biological systems.
His PhD relied on advanced models of the metabolic networks to study the nutritional interactions that arise between gut microbes. From there, he created a platform that samples the metabolic profile of hundreds of microbial strains under various nutritional environments computationally.
His work is considered to be truly interdisciplinary, combining medicine, biology and computational modelling, and will have lasting impacts on personalised medicine into the future.
José-Miguel Bello y Villarino’s career was already well established when he decided to undertake a PhD in Law. He served as a member of the Diplomatic Corps of Spain and served in diplomatic postings in Eastern Europe, West Africa, South-East Asia and Central America. His last position before moving to Sydney was Deputy Head of Mission in Islamabad.
His PhD research on corruption and international law is highly regarded by his peers and mentors. During his studies he was awarded a University Postgraduate Award (cat. 5), the Walter Reid scholarship and a Fulbright-Schuman scholarship for the exchange programme at Harvard Law School. His dissertation was praised as “a masterful combination of trenchant normative argument and level-headed practical recommendation”. Since graduating, he has taken up a contract at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision Making and Society, based at the Law School, conducting research on the governance of artificial intelligence.
Dr Nikki-Anne Wilson’s contribution to the field of dementia research has been recognised by multiple first-author papers in high-impact journals, a co-authored publication and 15 international and local presentations at conferences and symposia. Nikki-Anne’s contribution to the academic community is equalled by her extensive science outreach as an in-demand speaker and mentor.
Dr Marilena DeMayo’s research focuses on improving understanding of autism and interventions. She developed a model to facilitate a greater understanding of the divergent processes in autism, review autism treatments, investigate brain differences in children with autism and designed a world-first clinical trial investigating oxytocin for children with autism. She is an active contributor to the Brain and Mind Centre, chairing the Higher Degree by Research group and being a member of the organising committee of the first Brain and Mind Centre symposium.
Dr Michelle Barakat-Johnson is a leading senior health professional in nursing practice, a lecturer and a recognised national leader. Her doctoral research on hospital-acquired pressure injury (HAPI) used implementation science to guide a new approach and inform practice change. This resulted in a 51.4% decrease in HAPI incidence and substantial organisational cost savings as well as the formation of a NSW pressure injury collaborative. She was awarded the prestigious Excellence in Innovation in Research award from the NSW Health Nursing and Midwifery sector in 2019.
Sir John Warcup ‘Kappa’ Cornforth AC CBE FRS (BSc ’38, MSc ’39, DSc ’77) and Lady Rita Cornforth (BSc ’37, MSc ’38) met while studying at the University of Sydney and were among the most outstanding students of their respective years. They were consistent scientific collaborators and had a profound influence on the study of penicillin during the Second World Warar.
John was completely deaf by age 20, and selected chemistry as a field of study where “the loss of hearing would not be too severe a handicap”. Rita assisted John through lipreading. They published 41 papers together.
John won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (with Vladimir Prelog) in 1975 for his work on the stereochemistry of enzyme-catalysed reactions – he is the only Nobel Laureate born in New South Wales.
Sir John Warcup Cornforth (BSc ’38, MSc ’39, DSc ’77) and Lady Rita Cornforth (BSc ’37, MSc ’38)
50
manual
LinkExplore the annual Alumni Awards, featuring six Graduate Medals and six Alumni Awards.