Meet the 2021 Awardees

Almost $2.5 million will be invested in Ear, Nose, Throat (ENT) projects across Australia and New Zealand, through the Garnett Passe and Rodney Williams Memorial Foundation’s 2021 Awards to leading scientists and clinicians.

The 2021 Award Round ran during a challenging year for medical research, yet applications proved competitive. We are particularly proud to award our prestigious Senior Fellowship to Andrew Wise (Bionics Institute), for his nanotechnology project aimed at treating hearing loss.

A variety of ground-breaking and innovative research across the ENT sub-specialties will also be funded, including non-invasive technology to diagnose infant hearing ability, mobile apps for Indigenous ear health, and using Artificial Intelligence for improved assessment of vertigo symptoms in patients.

Find out more about each project via the links shown, or visit our Awardees and Projects pages. Be sure to check our News Room page for updates on Foundation activities and ENT news, or follow the Foundation on LinkedIn.

Thank you to all those who applied, and congratulations to the following:

Clinical Research Grant

• Dr Theodore Athanasiadis
  Laryngology Outcomes – Evaluating the benefits of injection laryngoplasty on swallowing

Academic Surgeon-Scientist Research Scholarship

• Dr Sam Hale
  The efficacy of topical therapy following surgery for patients with chronic rhinosinusitis

Research Scholarships

• Dr Al-Rahim Habib
  DrumBeat.ai: Artificial Intelligence to Triage Rural and Remote Paediatric Indigenous Ear Disease
  
• Dr Chao Wang
  Differentiating vestibular neuritis from stroke in the emergency department

Junior Fellowships

• Dr Darren Mao
  Objective assessment of hearing ability in hearing impaired infants
• Dr Allison Young
  Using Artificial Intelligence to Diagnose Vestibular Disease

Senior Fellowship

• A/Prof Andrew Wise
  Delivering hearing therapeutics to the clinic