17- 02- 2023

In a recent interview with the National Indigenous Times, 2021 Gandel Philanthropy John Monash Scholar (Arts), Bronte Gosper, spoke about her time at Columbia University where she pursued an Oral History Master of Arts with the John Monash Scholarship. As a proud Wiradjuri woman, Bronte discussed her recent documentary project, which captures the stories of Aboriginal activism in Australia.

“I wanted to record the histories and stories of Indigenous female activists who've worked to empower their communities, particularly in the years from 1980 to 2005.” 

She went on to explain that she was motivated to make the documentary due to the lack of stories told from the perspective of Aboriginal women.

Read the interview here.

In this new episode, we speak with Lauren Bennett, 2021 Judith Neilson Foundation ‘Sustainable Futures’ John Monash Scholar about her work in neuroscience at University College London.

Lauren has a Bachelor of Biomedicine in Neuroscience and a Bachelor of Commerce in Economics at the University of Melbourne, as well as a Master of Philosophy in Economics at the University of Oxford.

Her research in the cross-disciplinary Ecological Brain PhD program at University College London combines neuroscience, statistical modelling and engineering to create machine-learning models of population dynamics within the built environment.

Listen here.

In early 2022, severe rainfall in the Northern Rivers region of NSW, led to hundreds of landslips across the Broader Lismore area.  These disasters tore through the region, carrying rocks, soil, trees, wildlife and even homes along with them, threatening the hard work many locals had done to restore the area to the rich, biodiverse state it was once in.

Over the past five months, Jessica Coldrey, 2021 Victorian Government John Monash Scholar, has worked with these communities, supporting relief work in Nimbin and Channon regions as a Project Lead for the drone tree-planting company AirSeed Technologies.

“It's been a pleasure to be welcomed into such a unique community and share what we do at AirSeed with locals while learning from the community's deep knowledge about the local ecosystem. I've been able to get out on site to see the landslips, speak with affected community members and run collaborative skills-building sessions in the townships while integrating local's perspectives into decision making.”

Creativity, AI, emerging tech and the Arts

Jessie Hughes, 2020 Lee Liberman John Monash Scholar, has been invited to speak at arts conference Electric Dreams Festival in Adelaide and the QAGOMA and Advance Queensland later this month, to discuss Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Art, explaining how AI is rewriting the creative process. Alongside a panel of industry experts, Jessie will be discussing the recent advances in AI, emerging tech like Web3, the digitisation of art and culture, and so much more.
Register here.

Dr Nikki Bart on hiking Everest and heart health

Dr Nikki Bart, 2010 John Monash Scholar, was featured on the Healthy-ish podcast where she spoke about women’s heart health, the common misconceptions and hiking the Seven Summits.
Listen here.

John Monash community gathers in Victoria

The General Sir John Monash Foundation recently held a celebratory gathering at our office in Victoria to mark the start of the new year. The event brought together our esteemed community of Scholars, Panellists, Foundation members and friends which enabled panellists to meet Scholars they had interviewed, the new 2023 Scholars to meet each other in person and connect with returned Scholars.

We were thrilled to see a large turnout of Scholars and the opportunity to hear about their latest accomplishments and specially to meet Lauren Bennett, a 2021 Scholar who was thoroughly caught up at the start of the COVID-19 travel restrictions being in the UK at the time meaning we had not met her in person before. Our gratitude goes to the Bennelong Foundation for generously offering their space to host this successful event. 

IN THE MEDIA