Academic Achievements

The Hon. T.T. NGO (15:30): Today, I would like to congratulate a few young South Australians who have been awarded with some of the most prestigious opportunities that life can offer. South Australia has a long history as a place of innovation and achievement. South Australians have always relied on our intelligence, finding clever solutions for the challenges of the day. This has shaped the culture of innovation that distinguishes our state.

Members across all sides of politics support South Australians who distinguish themselves in academia and research. I want to acknowledge and commend Ms Nozhat Hassan and Mr Tyson Klingner, who are here today, for being awarded Fulbright scholarships, and Ms Emily Ahern for securing an internship at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. These students have been awarded once-in-a-lifetime opportunities, being recognised for their achievements during their academic careers thus far and their outstanding future potential.

The Fulbright program is the flagship foreign exchange scholarship program of the United States, aimed at strengthening international collaboration, cultural understanding and the exchange of ideas amongst nations. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory leads the world in robotic space exploration and science, sending spacecraft across the solar system.

These recently awarded scholarships are life-changing career-making opportunities. When these young people return to South Australia, as I hope they will, they will bring with them new knowledge, new experiences and new connections that can benefit not only their own work but our broader academic and innovation ecosystems.

I will offer a little bit of detail about each of the recipients. Firstly, Ms Nozhat Hassan is an evolutionary biologist at the University of Adelaide, where she is currently pursuing her PhD. Ms Hassan's research focuses on the evolution and distribution of mobile genetic elements (transponsons) across avian genomes, with a particular focus on the underlying principle of adapting transponsons into new-generation gene editing tools. As a Fulbright Future Scholar, she will be spending some time at UC Berkeley, where she will be combining bioinformatics with biochemical techniques to investigate the evolutionary history and impacts of transponsons in both the genome and the cell.

Another Fulbright scholar, Mr Tyson Klingner, examines the abstract patterns that occur in the natural world. He holds a Bachelor of Mathematical Sciences (Advanced) in Pure Mathematics and a Master of Philosophy in Pure Mathematics from the University of Adelaide. He is researching Higgs bundles, which are rich geometric objects relevant to different areas of mathematics and physics. As a Fulbright Future Scholar, Mr Klingner will pursue a PhD in the US.

In regard to Ms Emily Ahern's NASA internship, Emily's PhD focuses on developing a compact optical clock for small satellites. For her internship, she will be paired with a mentor from the Jet Propulsion Lab, providing her with one-on-one access to an expert in her area of study and kickstarting her aerospace career. Emily will be working under the mentorship of experts with a wealth of experience in atomic clocks and space-qualified technology.

The research she will undertake at JPL will inform Emily's further research at the University of Adelaide. Emily is positioned to become a rising star of South Australia's space sector, which our government and previous state governments have proudly supported as a critical sector in our future economy. Once again, I convey my congratulations to these impressive young South Australians, and I wish them all the best for their bright futures.

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