MDHS Honours Event

This year marks the first time a Faculty-wide MDHS Honours Event has been run, bringing together students from a diverse range of research areas.

The one-day virtual symposium, held on 29 October 2021, attracted over 174 academic and student registrants and was run by students to showcase Honours research projects in a conference setting.

The day comprised of interactive poster sessions, panel discussions and presentations. The event was not only focused on research presentations but was seen by the University as a key opportunity to invite sponsors, such as Illumina and CSL, to highlight the job pathways and career opportunities in Industry. Coordination of industry sponsorship was made possible with the support of the Faculty’s Business Development team.

The event was opened by our sponsors, Bronwyn Kingwell from CSL and Helen Speirs from Illumina. It was inspiring for our students to hear from Bronwyn, one of our own alumni and an Honorary Professor here at the University as she reflected on her career journey, which has recently landed her back in the Biomedical Precinct as Senior Director, Global Area Therapeutic Lead at CSL. We also heard from Dr Helen Speirs about career pathways at Illumina and Helen Tower from Seqirus, another University of Melbourne alumnus, joined the career panel providing interactive advice on career pathways.

It was wonderful to see sponsors engaging with students throughout the day and to have them involved in sponsoring and awarding the student prizes.

This student-led event demonstrated resilience on the part of our students, who adapted the conference to an online format. A big congratulations to Honours student Keely McDonald and the entire Student Committee, Dr Chris French and Pauline Li for pulling off an engaging conference.