Meet our 2024 Tall Poppies
Three Monash Medicine Nursing and Health Sciences researchers have been recognised as Young Tall Poppies for 2024 by the Australian Institute of Policy and Science (AIPS). Associate Professor Susan Baidawi from Monash Social Work, Associate Professor Ben Beck from the School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine and Professor Jason Ong from the School of Translational Medicine were recognised and celebrated for their intellectual and scientific excellence. The Tall Poppy Awards are widely considered to be an early indicator of Australia’s future scientific leaders, identifying excellent early career scientists, and aim to encourage younger Australians to follow in their footsteps.
Learn more about our Tall Poppies:
Associate Professor Susan Baidawi
Youth crime is a highly politicised and emotive topic that regularly captures media and public attention. However, the complex life circumstances of most young people who come to police attention are poorly communicated to the public, and government responses to youth crime are often not aligned with current research evidence. Associate Professor Baidawi’s research aims to improve the understanding of the public, as well as policymakers and others, of how unaddressed social, educational, health and welfare challenges like childhood maltreatment and disability often underpin young people’s antisocial or offending behaviour. It also aims to advocate for evidence-informed policy and practice responses that support young people to live safe and thriving lives while improving safety for the broader community.
Associate Professor Ben Beck
Associate Professor Ben Beck is at the forefront of transforming how we move through our cities, focusing on enhancing safety and promoting the uptake of active travel. As an engineer working in public health, he has pioneered interdisciplinary approaches that bring together public health, urban and transport planning, engineering, complex systems science, behaviour change and road safety. His research blends cutting-edge methods and data-driven solutions, citizen science (public participation and collaboration in research), whole-of-system approaches and co-design. His research is underpinned by partnering with government, industry, not-for-profit organisations and the community in a model that puts people at the heart of how we create safer streets that encourage healthier, more sustainable, and connected communities. By addressing key challenges in active travel and advocating for evidence-based interventions, Associate Professor Beck is leading the movement toward vibrant, active cities designed for people, not just cars.
Professor Jason Ong
Australia can be the first country in the world to eliminate HIV transmission. This is possible with pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), a tablet that prevents HIV infection. However, one major roadblock is unequal access to PrEP. Specifically, whilst new HIV infections are dropping among Australian-born men who have sex with men (MSM), there are groups left behind, such as overseas-born MSM who have poorer access to PrEP and, therefore, higher rates of HIV. Professor Ong’s research focuses on evidence-based decision-making, particularly to ensure the community voice is central to the HIV response. Since 2019, his research has found that international migrants globally have a higher HIV risk, that overseas-born MSM in Australia rank PrEP as their preferred method of HIV prevention but face additional cultural and healthcare system barriers to accessing HIV prevention services currently, there are limited interventions available that target overseas gay, bisexual and MSM, new innovative ways to co-creation of solutions for improving PrEP is possible.
Learn more about the Tall Poppy Awards
About Monash University
Monash University is Australia’s largest university with more than 80,000 students. In the 60 years since its foundation, it has developed a reputation for world-leading high-impact research, quality teaching, and inspiring innovation.
With four campuses in Australia and a presence in Malaysia, China, India, Indonesia and Italy, it is one of the most internationalised Australian universities.
As a leading international medical research university with the largest medical faculty in Australia and integration with leading Australian teaching hospitals, we consistently rank in the top 50 universities worldwide for clinical, pre-clinical and health sciences.
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