ACGR’s Excellence in Graduate Research Leadership Award

ACGR Excellence in Graduate Research Awards logo
ACGR’s Excellence in Graduate Research Education awards

As a partner of the Australian Council of Graduate Research’s Excellence in Graduate Research Education awards, SkillsForge is delighted to announce that the winner of the ACGR Award for Excellence in Graduate Research Leadership proudly supported by SkillsForge is Associate Professor Natalie Edwards of The University of Adelaide.

Associate Professor Edwards exhibits passion and integrity in regards to their leadership of the Art Faculty’s HDR programme both at a Faculty level as well as across The University of Adelaide. The ACGR’s awards recognise individuals that bring a personalised and adaptive approach to leadership and the judges felt that the empathetic approach to Associate Professor Edwards’ leadership made them a deserving recipient of the award.

Associate Professor Natalie Edwards has served for almost five years as the Director of Graduate Studies for the Faculty of Arts at the University of Adelaide and has been instrumental in both shaping HDR initiatives at the University level and driving their implementation within her own Faculty.

As Director, she has focused on designing, implementing and evaluating measures to improve the postgraduate student experience. Bringing students together for formal and informal events, heavily investing in the recruiting, training and leading her team of Postgraduate Coordinators and specifically targeting and strengthening diversity are strategies that Natalie has used to build a strong intellectual community for students.

She is also very attuned to the need for postgraduate students in the Arts to be exceptionally well trained and prepared for careers within and beyond academia. To this end, she has implemented several initiatives to encourage her students to develop into highly skilled, independent researchers who are able to adapt their knowledge and training to a variety of professional avenues. These include promoting industry engagement in the Humanities and piloting a teaching program for her graduate researchers.

– From the Australian Council of Graduate Research

We are delighted to play a part in recognising academic excellence displayed by individuals such as Associate Professor Edwards and we would also like to congratulate Associate Professor Inner Mewburn of The Australian National University on their special commendation


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