The University of New South Wales academic Dr Ross Odell has this week been named UniJobs Lecturer of the Year for 2009 at a ceremony at the university’s Randwick campus.

Dr Ross Odell lecturers in Engineering and Biological Signal Analysis at the university’s School of Biomedical Engineering.

UniJobs Director Jarrod Kanizay presented Dr Odell with his award, and his grand prize of a 5 night holiday to Fiji.

Speaking on the awards afterwards, Mr Kanizay believes that the results are testament to the efforts of the top four nominees.

“It gives me great pride to be involved in initiatives such as this, because it means that not only are worthy people being rewarded and acknowledged for their efforts, but we get to strengthen the sense of accomplishment that helps bind each university together” he said.

“Everyone is now more aware of each other’s efforts, and we’ve had a great deal of interest from academics that are keen to know more about others that are nominated”.

Nominations for the awards closed on November 30 with a record number of votes cast.
“This just proves that not only are staff and students are behind the awards, but university management too” Mr Kanizay said.

Dr Odell came out ahead of three other academics who were nominated as runners up for the award; Dr Lorraine Hammond, Senior Lecturer at ECU’s Faculty of Education and Arts, Professor Michael Gillings, Senior Lecturer in Macquarie University’s Faculty of Science (Department of Biological Sciences), and Mr James Laurenceson, , Lecturer in Economics at The University of Queensland.

The full list of nominees will be published on www.CampusDaily.com.au, Australia’s University News Website, www.lectureroftheyear.com.au and www.UniJobs.com.au, Australia’s University Job Website.