The Robert Street Prize
The Robert Street Prize was established by the University in 1996. A capital sum of $20,000 was raised to honour
the career of Emeritus Professor Robert Street, AO, Vice-Chancellor of
The University of Western Australia (1978–86) and eminent physicist. This sum provides a prize for the most outstanding thesis for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy in each year, awarded in
accordance with the following conditions:
1. The prize consists of the annual income of the fund after capitalisation in accordance with Senate policy.
2.
The prize is awarded to the student whose PhD thesis, of all those PhD
theses passed with distinction in a designated 12-month period, has, in
the opinion of the Board of the Graduate Research School, made the most
outstanding contribution to its field.
3. The prize winner is acknowledged at a graduation ceremony at the University.
The 1996 Robert
Street Prize was awarded to Mr John T Host for his thesis
“Narratives of the Past or Histories of the Present? Myth, Meaning and the
Mid-Victorian Labour Experience”.
Since then, the winners have been as follows:
1997. Dr Peter Burton (Anatomy and Human Biology)
1998. Dr Patrick Wheatley (Clasics and Ancient History)
1999. Dr Anthony Hughes-d'Aeth (English)
2000. Dr Thomas Ridsdill-Smith (Geology & Geophysics and Mathematics)
2001. Dr Nicholas Anstey (Pharmacology)
2002. Dr John Hunt (Zoology)
2003. Dr Suhejla Hoti (Economics)
2004. Dr Eric May (Physics and Oil & Gas Engineering)
2005. Dr Simon Young (Law)
2006. Dr Amanda Hooper (Medical Genetics)
Who's next?
I started my academic life doing a BSc (Hons) in Mathematics at UWA before going to Oxford to complete an MSc and a DPhil, also in Mathematics. I then spent three years in Paris at l'Université de Paris-Sud, Orsay, continuing research in mathematical analysis and going to lots of movies before returning to UWA to work as a research mathematician.
I have lectured in Maths and Computer Science at UWA, as well as for short periods at Berkeley, The University of Canterbury in Christchurch, and Prince Songkla University in Thailand. My research has focussed on computer vision, including feature detection in images, 3D shape measurement, image understanding, and representation.