Denis Burnham Award for Doctoral Student Career Transition

About the Award

This award is a generous gift from former MARCS Director, Emeritus Professor Denis Burnham, and named in honour of him to celebrate his passion for research excellence and indefatigable interest in student supervision and achievements, and postdoctoral career opportunities.

Professor Burnham’s distinguished research standing is reflected in winning more than $17M in research grants including 18 ARC Large/Discovery Project grants, four SPIRT/Linkage Project grants, and Node Leadership of the HEARing Co-operative Research Centre. He is the author of over 200 journal articles, book chapters and refereed conference proceedings, and has edited nine books.

The aim of the award is to inspire and support senior doctoral students in the planning and transition from PhD to local or international postdoctoral opportunities in academic, industry (including government), or community settings.

The annual award of up to $5,000 is open to PhD candidates who are in the final (third) year of their doctoral degree at MARCS Institute, expected to submit their thesis within 12 months from the time of application.

2025 Winner

Nazanin Sheykh Andalibi

Nazanin aims to expand on her current Ph.D. research, which examines the neural basis of rapid emotional responses using electroencephalography (EEG). She will be working on a project titled, ‘Investigating the Psychophysiology of Emotion and Its Role in Learning’.

Previous winners of this award

2024 – Jessica Chin