News Archive

Promotion briefs are provided by Elizabeth Hutchinson, Executive Officer, Academic Promotions Committee, Human Resources

PROFESSOR

Nancy Longnecker, Science Communication, School of Animal Biology

Professor Longnecker joined the University in 1988 as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Soil Science and Plant Nutrition with Professor Alan Robson, former Vice-Chancellor, as her supervisor.

Under Professor Longnecker's leadership, UWA's Science Communication program has developed into an internationally recognised academic program with an undergraduate major, postgraduate coursework degrees and a strong research base.  The program has attracted postgraduate students not only from across Australia, but from Bhutan, Canada, China, Japan, Malawi, Papua New Guinea, Portugal, Singapore, Thailand and the USA.  As at March this year, there were 839 students enrolled in SCOM units and strong industry partnerships have resulted in grants and other external contributions to the teaching program.

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR

Nicola Mitchell, Environmental/Conservation Physiology, School of Animal Biology

Associate Professor Mitchell joined the University in 2005 as an ARC  Postdoctoral Research Fellow.  In 2011 she was made an Honorary Research Associate of Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand, a position she still holds currently.

She has diverse research interests having published papers on reproductive biology, temperature-dependent sex determination, thermal biology, signalling behaviour, nest-site selection, species distribution modelling, climate change adaptation, amphibian chytrid fungus and environmental policy.  Her particular expertise and research background is focussed on terrestrial breeding amphibians and endangered reptiles, and she has recently expanded her research to include marine turtles and birds.  Her objectives are to continue to work in an interdisciplinary environment and to make significant progress towards anticipating and assisting species responses to environmental change.

She has served as the Secretary/Treasurer for the Australian Society of Herpetologists and was recently elected as a member of the World Congress of Herpetology to represent Australia.

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR

Lee Partridge, Centre for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning

Associate Professor Partridge originally had  both casual and sessional appointments with the University during 2002..  In 2007 she was appointed as Lecturer within CATL. In her present role as an academic developer, she guides new academic staff through the stages of developing their teaching philosophy appropriate to their specific needs, and her workshops are targeted to participants' requirements as well to assist early career and experienced academics to discover their own means of relating to their students. Her research path covers the subthemes of motivation, community and belonging, undergraduate research, academic integrity and academic development.

In 2012 she was involved in adapting the ULTRIS programme to provide research training for the new  BPhil course at UWA.  Forty two students completed the training within their first year unit Global Challenges, Research and Leadership which resulted in ten research projects around the topic of sustainable education.  The second adaptation of ULTRIS involved a programme of undergraduate research training being delivered across three Universities concurrently, UWA, University of Otago, and Durham University in the UK.

Associate Professor Partridge's contribution to student learning has been recognised at UWA, nationally and internationally through Teaching Excellence Awards, Fellowships, commendations and nominations for national awards. Her position enables her to support teaching colleagues in maintaining academic standards at UWA.