Call for 2019 Collin Medal nominations

By Helen Carter
Journalist

Optometry Australia is calling for nominations for the 2019 H Barry Collin Research Medal.

The prestigious medal recognises outstanding contributions to the advancement of knowledge in optics, vision science or clinical optometry by a person who is an Australian citizen or a graduate of an Australian optometry school, or who has done a significant part of his or her research in an Australian institution.

The medal is accompanied by a monetary prize of $5,000 and the recipient is required to submit a paper for publication in Optometry Australia’s journal, Clinical and Experimental Optometry.

The award is named after distinguished optometrist, academic and researcher, Emeritus Professor H Barry Collin, who this year hung up his pen as Editor-in-Chief of Clinical and Experimental Optometry after nearly a quarter of a century in eye care publishing. Professor Collin received the Order of Australia for services to optometric education in the South Pacific.

Recipient of the 2018 medal, Head of Optometry and Vision Science at UNSW Sydney, Professor Fiona Stapleton, will receive her medal at Super Sunday on 10 March, 2019. She is the first female recipient of the award in its 41-year history.

Nominations can be made by a single person or group and must include details of the name, position, qualifications and contact details of both the nominators and nominee. A curriculum vitae and overview statement of no more than 1,500 words on the nature, scope and importance of the research by the nominee is also required. Additional information about the nomination process is available here.

The recipient of the 13^th award will be announced in August 2019.

Nominations must be received by 28 February 2019 to Optometry Australia Publications Manager Jess Donald via email, j.donald@optometry.org.au or mail to Jess Donald, Optometry Australia, P.O Box 1037, South Melbourne, Vic, 3205.

Read papers from past winners in our virtual issue, and see some previous winners and hear about the nomination process in this video.

Medal recipients:

H Barry Collin AM, 1977

Brien A Holden OAM, 1988

Gerald Westheimer AM, 2009

John D Pettigrew, 2010

Anthony J Adams, 2011

Donald E Mitchell, 2012

Robert Hess, 2013

David Atchison, 2014

Nathan Efron AC, 2015

Shaun Collin, 2016

Mark Willcox, 2017

Fiona Stapleton, 2018

Barry Collin

Professor H Barry Collin, AM BSc MAppSc PhD (Melb) DSc (NSW) DUniv (QUT) LOSc FRCPath (Lond) FNZCO FAAO FVCO, held the position of editor of Clinical and Experimental Optometry from 1993 to February 2018.

He was an academic teacher and researcher at the University of Melbourne for 20 years from 1962, and was Head of the School of Optometry at the University of New South Wales from 1982 to 1994. He is currently Professor Emeritus at the University of New South Wales and a Professorial Fellow at the University of Melbourne.

During his distinguished career he has published more than 130 papers in peer-reviewed journals world-wide, held appointments at the University of Oxford, Harvard Medical School, the University of California at San Diego and Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

He received the Order of Australia for services to optometric education in the South Pacific and was awarded the Shorney Prize for research in ophthalmology from the University of Adelaide, the International Optometric and Optical League Medal for research and contributions to optometry, the first H Barry Collin Research Medal, named in his honour and the Vice-Chancellor’s Medal for Teaching Excellence at UNSW.

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