News Release:
Governor presents medal to UNE scientist
| Date 15/3/04 No 049/04 The Royal Society of New South Wales has awarded its Clarke Medal to Lesley Rogers, Professor of Neuroscience and Animal Behaviour at the University of New England. The Clarke Medal is one of Australia's most highly-prized scientific awards. The Governor of NSW, Her Excellency Professor Marie Bashir AC, presented the medal to Professor Rogers on Friday evening [12 March] during a dinner at the University of Sydney's Darlington Centre. In a tradition that goes back to 1878, the Royal Society of New South Wales awards the Clarke Medal annually for "distinguished work in natural science" (geology, zoology or botany, on a rotating basis). It is one of several medals the Society awards for outstanding scientific work. Professor Rogers, working in Australia, has a strong international reputation in neuroscience and animal behaviour. Her ground-breaking discovery of lateralization (i.e., control of different types of behaviour by different sides of the brain) in chicks was a founding contribution to the subsequent study of lateralization in a wide range of animals. She went on to discover that the nature and extent of lateralization could be determined by environmental factors such as exposure of the chick embryo to light.
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The author, co-author or editor of more than a dozen books and about 200 scientific papers, Professor Rogers has been a world leader in the study of brain lateralization and cognition for the past 25 years. Her continuing discovery, in a variety of animals, of brain functions and behaviour patterns that had been thought to be exclusive to humans has sustained and supported her passionate concern for animal welfare. Professor Rogers was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in 2000, and becomes a member of the Academy's Council (representing biological sciences) this year. She has held many important offices, including that of President of the International Society for Comparative Psychology (1993-1996). She said she was humbled to be a recipient of the Clarke Medal, which had been awarded to so many eminent scientists over the past 125 years. "It's a great honour to be part of such a distinguished scientific tradition," she said. The Clarke Medal was founded in memory of the Reverend William Branwhite Clarke, an eminent geologist and Vice-President of The Royal Society of New South Wales from 1866 to 1878. Media contact: Jim Scanlan, Public Relations, UNE, Armidale (02)
6773 3049 or Professor Lesley Rogers, School of Biological, Biomedical
and Molecular Sciences, UNE, Armidale (02) 6773 3969 (from Wednesday
17 March). A photograph showing the Governor of NSW, Her Excellency
Professor Marie Bashir AC (right) presenting the Clarke Medal to
Professor Lesley Rogers is available for download. |
