Here we are again in a Sydney midwinter, and once more in lockdown. Like almost everyone else the UNSW Disability Innovation Institute team are all working from home again, and it does sometimes feel like Groundhog Day. What makes this very different from lockdown 2020 is that we know that we can pursue the Institute's activities online, whether that is meetings or webinars, and can continue to act as the heart of the disability research community across UNSW.
It's with great pleasure then that we are able to announce the recipients of the Institute's four top-up PhD bursaries. It is the first year that we have been able to make these $5,000 awards, and we are particularly pleased at the range of topics being addressed in research at UNSW that are using inclusive approaches. Read more about the successful awards here.
We have more mixed feelings about another piece of news. The indefatigable Kayla Lochner who has been our Program Support Officer since 2020 is leaving us to take up a very different challenge, as she begins her doctoral studies. Kayla plans to research climate injustice and how to effect a just transition in agriculture in the Pacific, based at the School of Humanities and Languages at UNSW. Although we will miss her calm and competent presence enormously, we're grateful that she will still be around at UNSW for the foreseeable future. In her place, we welcome Isabella Burton-Clark, who will be working at the Institute one day a week.
