Sir Edward 'Weary' Dunlop Fellowships: Past Winners

Rohini Kappadath

General Manager, Immigration Museum, Museums Victoria

As General Manager of the Immigration Museum, Museums Victoria, Rohini is at the forefront of cultural diaspora and people-to-people engagement. Drawing on her own personal and professional experience with India, her workplace project focused on creating a roadmap for Museums Victoria's engagement with India and its cultural institutions.

Further, Rohini aims to develop a cultural diplomacy platform through her work, with contemporary and technological relevance for the benefit of the museums sector and Australian society.

David Ryding

Director, Melbourne UNESCO City of Literature Office

As founding Director of the Melbourne UNESCO City of Literature Office, David acts as an 'ambassador' for Melbourne, the only Australian city to be part of the program, and as an enabler of opportunities between Australia's literary sector and the world.

David's workplace  project will explore how to connect Asian Literary Cities and sectors with the Australian Literary sector, to break down barriers and connect Australia and the region, through and beyond literature.

Yola Bakker

Founder, LANAH

Yola is a multidisciplinary practitioner and founder of the Australia and Indonesia-based social enterprise LANAH.

She explored establishing an Indonesian Australian Indigenous framework for shared learning to grow community capacity using culture and conservation for sustainable regional development.

Émilie MacIsaac

Projects and Events Coordinator, Regional Australia Institute (RAI)

Emilie drives and supports key initiatives at the Regional Australia Institute (RAI), sees Asia capabilities gained contributing to RAI’s vision: for regional Australia, Australia’s economic backbone, to reach its true potential.

Her project focused on boosting regional Australia’s engagement with Asia through greater inter-connectedness and advancements in regional development.

Melita Grant
Research Director, Institute for Sustainable Futures – University of Technology Sydney (UTS)

In her work as Research Director at the Institute for Sustainable Futures – UTS, Melita specialises in water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) in international development, with a focus on gender equality and inclusion.

She explored ethical research partnerships in the Asia-Pacific region, and gender equality and inclusion synergies in development programs.

Melissa Lee DeLaney
CEO, Australian Network for Art & Technology (ANAT)

Melissa is a global leader in brokering opportunities for artists to work with science and technology partners.

The focus of her project was to extend and strengthen Asia-related knowledge and networks, to connect artists, scientists, business and communities across the Indo-Pacific.

Thomas Bamforth
Consultant/Humanitarian Coordination International Federation of Red Cross/Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) 

Tom explored problems posed by the rapid urbanisation in Asian contexts, especially as they relate to disasters and humanitarian response, and what structures and approaches could — or should — exist for urban disaster preparedness and response.

Kate Usher
Festival Director – Supercell: Festival of Contemporary Dance

Kate was looking to identity and overcome barriers to success as she leads the Festival’s cultural exchange and collaboration with artists and companies from across Asia.

Claire Hicks
Director, Critical Path Incorporated 

Claire was interested in seeing how she could extend Critical Path’s program, primarily their research residency and lab activity into longer-term projects with partners in Asia.

Viv Rosman
Executive Directer and Co-CEO, Polyglot Theatre

In researching Chinese-Australian philanthropy to the arts through creative residencies in schools in Singapore and China, Viv explored whether building markets in educational contexts could be profitable in itself, as well as a gateway to more firmly establishing their credentials as a theatre company in China.

Brendan Ross
Producer – Programming, Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC)

Brendan's project successfully initiated a long term intercultural exchange as well as established the business frameworks necessary to grow the representation of Asian voices on the mainstage of QPAC and increase their engagement across the region.

Glyn Roberts
Festival Director, Castlemaine State Festival

George Meagher
Director/CEO, Next Wave 

Georgie ran the Next Wave, Asialink Arts, and Awaji Art Circus exchange project. This saw her travel to Awaji to support the artist in negotiations around his performances around the island, attend the opening ceremony events, and ensure documentation gathered was appropriate and of a high standard.

Khai Ngo
Co-Founder and Chief Operations Officer, Australia-Vietnam Leader Dialogue

Sally Hasler
Regional Partnerships Manager, Asia: The Fred Hollows Foundation 

Building social license through community investment and philanthropy

David Sweeting

Tamara Harrison
Head of Development, Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) 

Asia and Australia  – a journey from arts to commerce.

Louise Partos
Executive Officer, ArtBack NT: Arts Development and Touring

Julian O'Shea
Engineers Without Borders Australia, Director 

Julian hosted an Engineers Without Borders design summit in Phnom Penh, which provided 40 design and engineering students with an opportunity to learn about Khmer culture and local community development initiatives, and become involved in international design projects.

Jennifer Croes
Director of Conservation and Partnerships, Rainforest Rescue 

Jennifer created the "Plastic Ain't Fantastic" project, an initiative designed to influence and change the use of plastic in Bali

Jennifer Jamieson
Emergency Registrar, Alfred Health

THK Rotations to Sri Lanka for ACEM advanced trainees.

Kumari Middleton
Co-Founder, Mayibuye 

Kumari co-founded "Mayibuye", an organisation that uses performing arts to facilitate educational opportunities for young people who are vulnerable to negative peer pressures and at-risk behaviour. Mayibuye runs 20 projects across South Africa, Cambodia and Australia including afterschool programs, youth camps, international volunteering tours, and conferences.

Martin Potter
Filmmaker, Cambodia

Martin worked with emerging filmmakers and artists - young people under 30 who are expanding conservative views of Cambodian culture and history and seeking to define their identities beyond the tragedies of the past 40 years.

Zena Kells
Community Theatre Advisor, Knua Buka Hatene, East Timor

Zena returned to East Timor in 2011 to develop and tour a verbatim theatre show based on interviews conducted with former East Timorese citizens  living in poverty in refugee camps in West Timor.

Benjamin Gilmour
Filmmaker and Paramedic

Australian paramedic and accomplished filmmaker, Benjamin Gilmour, navigated the often chaotic ambulance services of the cities of Pakistan to complete a study of pre-hospital care in the country. Reporting on his return in February 2010, he described how security issues forced him to shift focus from the tribal areas of Pakistan to the cities.  Benjamin assisted in training of ambulance officers, consulted on the development of services, and identified challenges in improving the quality of care provided.

Dr Sam Prince
Founder, Emagine Foundation

In June 2009 Dr Sam Prince and colleague, foundation director, Stuart Cook, completed IT centres in 10 Sri Lankan schools.

Lucinda Hartley
Landscape Architect

Lucinda completed an internship with the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights (ACHR) Secretariat in Bangkok and worked on an ACHR field project in Vietnam with the objective to establish a Future Design Leaders Studio in Melbourne, to engage young professionals in social design and climate change adaptation strategies.

Anna Helme
Multimedia Advocate

Anna partnered with Komas in Malaysia and Ruangrupa in Indonesia to build these organizations' capacities to distribute their videos on human rights, social and environmental issues utilising open source software  in maximising the new space created by the internet.

Dr Ben Saul
Lawyer and academic

Ben travelled to Cambodia to teach (pro bono) an international law course to 45 students in the Bachelor of Law Degree in English at The Royal University of Law and Economics.  Whilst in Phnom Penh he directed students on an original research project on the Constitutional Council’s jurisprudence on the 1993 Constitution.

Hugo Moline
Architect

Hugo travelled to Thailand to gain experience collaborating with local architects who are working creatively, sensitively and above all collaboratively with communities of informal settlers on the improvement of their housing and living conditions.

Jonathan Ehsani
Public Health Specialist

Jonathan also travelled to Thailand to gain familiarity with strategies and approaches in injury prevention through experiential learning at The Alliance for Safe Children (TASC) headquarters.  This included: assisting with capacity building activities, transferring knowledge, developing proficiency in the use of statistical methods relevant to country level surveys conducted by TASC and identifying gaps in knowledge to refine a PhD topic.

Ms Olivia Georgina Lavis
Teacher - Irene McCormack Catholic College

Ms Jeni Crump
Project Coordinator

Jeni's project involved working with Dr Aruna Uprety and the Rural Education Health Service Trust (RHEST), based in Kathmandu, on issues concerning the gynaecological health of Nepali women of the lowest castes. Work involved undertaking further research into the issues, needs assessments and raising the profile of the issues in Nepal.

Ms Lia Kent
Researcher - University of Melbourne, Asia Pacific Centre for Military Law

Lia’s project was concerned with East Timor’s Commission for Truth Reception and Reconciliation (Commission), an independent statutory body in East Timor. Her project focused on documenting the experience and views of those who have testified before the Commission and interviewed the reconciliation panel members, Commission staff and government representatives at district and national level.

Mr Brendan Boucher
Coordinator & Manager - Cambodian Rural Development Team

Brendan’s project implemented an environmentally sustainable rural development package that sought to dramatically improve the living standards of the most impoverished and remote subsistence farmers.

Mr Brendan Ross
Mining Advocacy Research Assistant for Oxfam Community Aid Abroad

Brendan's project focused on "Indigenous Communities and Mine closure: A case study of the Kelian Gold Mine".

Ms Sangeetha Chandra Shekeren
Research and Policy Officer (Sexual Offences Reference) for the Victorian Law Reform Commission

Sangeetha's project involved working with two organizations based in Jakarta: the National Commission on Violence Against Women and the Women's Justice Section of the Legal Aid Institute. She shared some of her experiences of the benefits of working with police to protect women from violence and also learned about the unique problems facing women reporting sexual assault in Indonesia.

Mr Michael Crestani
PhD researcher at the University of Melbourne

Michael’s project was an ethnography of a community of agricultural scientists in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam. It was about many things: how researchers understand what they do as opposed to how it may be represented; how the Institute sees itself in relation to modernity and change; and the different sciences - academic, State and commercial - each with their peculiar rewards, traditions and rituals.

Ms Lauren Bain
PhD researcher at the University of Tasmania and a tutor in the Politics Department at the University of Melbourne

Lauren undertook her Fellowship project in partnership with the Kelola Foundation in Solo, Central Java, Indonesia, researching and developing initiatives in the area of cultural policy. This built on work which Lauren had done with the Kelola Foundation over a prior eighteen month period.

William Young
PhD researcher at The University of Melbourne, consulting engineer, and Director of Project Management Services Pty Ltd

William's fellowship was carried out over a nine-month period in Indonesia and Vietnam, where he identified strategic ways to improve the management of engineering projects in these countries. William was a strong advocate of the huge benefits of effective management and how it can help governments, communities, corporations and individuals transform ideas into fruitful outcomes.

John Dore
Phd candidate, The Australian National University

John's fellowship addressed resolving one of the most critical issues facing Southeast Asia into the future - the management of water resources.

Ms Hazel Lang
Phd candidate, Department of International Relations at The Australian National University

"The Future of the Burmese Refugees in Thailand". Hazel's project was an extension of her doctoral work, and looked at prospects for the Burmese refugees along the Thai-Burma border.

Mr David O'Brien
Lecturer in the Faculty of Architecture, Building & Planning, The University of Melbourne

David aimed to develop housing prototypes for low-income families in Buri Ram Province, Southeastern Thailand.

Ms Robyn Slarke
Paralegal trainer

Robyn drew on her experience of several years in running paralegal training for village women in Papua New Guinea. Her project aimed to give women the ability to understand and utilise, where necessary, legal avenues for protection against domestic violence in PNG.

Ms Sue Downie
Journalist and author

Sue conducted training for journalists in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. She focused on the reporting of environmental, health and gender issues and also encompassed human rights and journalism ethics.

Ms Kate McGregor
Doctoral candidate, The University of Melbourne

Researched the representation of the Indonesian military and its heroes found in museums, films, monuments, oral history, and military historical works. Also interviewed military figures and examined how the military view themselves and how they wish the public to see them.

Mr Dave Burrows
Deputy Director for Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations

Worked with a number of projects in India assisting in the planning and providing of educational initiatives for AIDS and HIV prevention. This is based on work done in Australia and Manila with injecting drug users. Attending the 4th International Conference on AIDS in Manila.

Mr Peter Bartu
Doctoral candidate

Researched the campaign history of the United Nations Peacekeeping Operations in Cambodia between 1991 and 1993.

Ms Sophie McIntyre
Masters candidate, Dept. of Fine Arts , The University of Sydney

Language study and research into contemporary Taiwanese art post-1980 in Taipei, Taiwan.

Ms Jenny Ann Lee
Doctoral candidate, Dept of Farm Animal Medicine & Production, The University of Queensland

Epidemiological study of smallholder pig production in the Philippines.